PRE-SEASON RANKINGS: D3hoops.com Picks Bruins 10th in Nation in Pre-Season

2010-11 D3hoops.com Pre-Season Polls

NEWBERG, Ore. – One of the foremost authorities on NCAA Division III women’s basketball, the internet website D3hoops.com, has picked George Fox University as the No. 10 team in the nation for the upcoming 2010-11 season, the same spot the Bruins were chosen last week by the DIII News newsletter.

George Fox received 333 points in the D3hoops balloting by a panel of 25 coaches, sports information directors, and media members from around the country.   Amherst College, which went 32-1 last year and returns its entire roster, is the top pick, garnering 21 first-place votes and 621 total points.  Hope College received three firsts and is second with 576 points.  Washington University-St. Louis, the defending national champion which eliminated George Fox in the ‘Elite 8’ of the NCAA National Tournament last year on its home floor, got one first, but is only ranked seventh with 454 points.

The Bruins finished with a No. 4 final ranking in 2009-10 by D3hoops after going 28-3.  They were also ranked No. 8 in the final Women’s Basketball Coaches Association poll.

The Bruins were also named the favorite to win this year’s Northwest Conference championship in a recent pre-season poll of the conference’s nine coaches.  George Fox has won or shared the last four NWC titles, going undefeated with a 16-0 record in conference play in each of the last two seasons.  The Bruins made NCAA Tournament appearances in each of those years, winning the national title in 2008-09 with a perfect 32-0 record.  In 11 years as members of the NCAA, the Bruins have made seven tournament appearances and gone 15-6, making five ‘Sweet 16’s, three ‘Elite 8’s, and one ‘Final Four’. 

Three starters are gone from last year’s team: point guard B.B. Gardner, now a Bruins’ assistant coach, forward Elise Kuenzi, and guard Lindsay Keener.  Gardner and Kuenzi were honorable mention All-NWC selections.  Also gone is 14-year head coach Scott Rueck, who took the women’s basketball head coaching position at his alma mater, Oregon State University.

New George Fox coach Michael Meek, who won five large-school state championships in the last six year at Southridge High School in Beaverton, Ore., inherits seven returnees, two of them starters, and eight newcomers who include two high school all-state performers and four all-conference selections.

Returning starters Keisha Gordon and Hannah Munger were both First Team All-Conference and Second Team All-West Region picks last year.  Gordon, a 5-10 junior wing, led the team in scoring (13.9 ppg), steals (2.45 spg), and three-pointers (61).  Munger, a 6-5 sophomore center who was the West Region Rookie of the Year as chosen by D3hoops, paced the conference in field goal percentage (.553) and blocked shots (3.45 bspg) while averaging 12.3 points and 8.2 rebounds a game.

George Fox is the only Northwest Conference team ranked in the D3hoops pre-season top 25.  Three other NWC teams were listed among “others receiving votes”: the University of Puget Sound with 29 points, Lewis & Clark College with 15, and Whitman College with 9.