Georgia Women’s Basketball Schedule A Challenge In Coach Crenshaw’s First Season
New Lady Bulldogs Basketball Head Coach Joni Crenshaw faces a challenging schedule in year one.
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In her first season as Georgia women’s basketball Head Coach, Joni Crenshaw will lead the Lady Bulldogs against five 20-win teams and seven schools that advanced to post-season play in 2014-15.
“We are excited to play a strong and competitive non-conference schedule that includes terrific matchups featuring great teams,” Crenshaw told Georgiadogs.com. “Our non-conference schedule will provide great challenges and opportunities for our team prior to the start of conference play. ”
Five teams that played in the post-season a year ago will visit the Stegeman Coliseum to face the Bulldogs– Stetson (23 wins, NIT) on November 15, Georgia Tech (19 wins, NIT) on November 22, Mercer (20 wins, WBI) on December 2, Seton Hall (28 wins, NCAA) on December 6 and Furman (19 wins, WBI) on December 8.
“Our philosophy is to give our women the opportunity to be challenged,” Crenshaw said. “We want to provide great home games for our fans and also allow our young ladies to travel and play in tough environments on the road and I believe we have done that with this schedule.”
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The Lady Bulldogs also play BYU (23 wins, NCAA) in the opening round of the Radisson Chatsworth Thanksgiving Classic in Northridge, CA on November 27 and will face either Cal State Northridge (23 wins, NCAA) or the Big Ten’s Penn State in the second game.
Georgia also travels to Michigan State for an SEC-Big Ten matchup on November 18 and Wright State (25 wins, NIT) on December 20.
In December, Georgia has home games against Mercer, Kennesaw State, Seton Hall and Furman. The pre-SEC schedule concludes with home dates against Cincinnati and Tennessee Tech.
Georgia returns 10 letter winners including eight with starting experience from last year’s team. Injuries devastated a 17-3 Lady Bulldogs ranked as high as No. 16 in the nation by a series of injuries and illnesses. The Dawgs ended the season 2-9 and finished 19-12. Shacobia Barbee led the team leading in scoring with 11.6 points per game before suffering a season ending injury in January. Krista Donald and Merritt Hempe also missed significant action during the final month of the season.
Crenshaw succeeds Andy Landers, who coached the Lady Bulldogs from 1979-2015 as the school’s first full-time women’s basketball coach and led Georgia to national prominence.
Crenshaw was named the Lady Bulldogs’ head coach on April 12 this season after four seasons on the Georgia staff, the last three as associate head coach. The native of Meridian, MS was that state’s 1997 Gatorade Player of the Year and a four-year letter winner at Alabama. Crenshaw played on four teams that reached post-season play, including a trip to the “Sweet 16” in 1998. Crenshaw coached 13 seasons in Division I level, the last seven in the SEC. Prior to joining the Georgia staff in 2011, she coached at LSU from 2010-11, at Alabama from 2008-10, at Louisiana Tech from 2005-08 and at Troy from 2002-05.