USF Women's Basketball Pre-Season Report 2023-2024, Part 2

The American Athletic Conference announced their preseason coaches poll and honorees leading into the 2023-2024 collegiate basketball season. For USF men’s and women’s basketball, the addition of six new teams in UAB, FAU, North Texas, UTSA, Charlotte, and Rice coming into the fold replacing the departing UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati means there’s plenty of room for parity within the AAC.

In part one for women’s basketball, we peered around at the current staff for USF women’s basketball that included a brand new position that should benefit USF recruiting going forward. Now, we’ll take address the roster that had to replace two back-to-back WNBA draft picks:

With the departure of two corner stone pieces from last year’s NCAA Tournament team, Jose Fernandez will look to replace the elite perimeter scoring capabilities of Elena Tsineke, who was drafted 20th overall, and the rebounding post play of Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu, who was drafted 21st overall. Additionally, the Bulls also lost Bella Weary and Priscilla Williams, both didn’t play much and added wiggle room for Jose to play with as the scholarship count is a bit loosened due to COVID-19 Scholarship Counts.

With four departures, Jose added six players to his 2023-2024 roster, two transfers, one JUCO, three ‘high school’ players, and all with a bit of international flavor. Firstly, the two transfers are Romi Levy (from Auburn by way of Israel) and Evelien Lutje Schipholt (from Cal-Berkley by way of the Netherlands). Levy is a redshirt junior forward who averaged 6.7 points per game and 4.2 rebounds per game for the Tigers before undergoing her second knee surgery (previously tore her ACL during the 2021-22 season). Schipholt is a senior forward and finished her career at Cal with 109 blocks, and averaged 9.2 points per game and 4.8 rebounds per game last season. Tangentially from the JUCO route, the Bulls also picked up L’Or Mputu from Eastern Florida State College by way of Democratic Republic of Congo. The junior forward was NJCAA Division I All-America second team last year with the Titans and averaged 12.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.

From the ‘High School’ realm, Jose continued his international tour by picking up two Spanish teammates and one Italian guard. From Spain, the Bulls have Judit Valero Rodriguez who played guard for Barca and represented the Spanish U18 WBB team where she averaged 8.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. Her teammate, Judit Oliva Fernandez, played forward for Barca and most recently competed at the 2022 FIBA U17 3X3 European Cup where she averaged 17.2 points per game. The overseas player is Vittoria Blasigh, who played guard with SPAR Gran Canaria averaging 5.2 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. She also represented Italy at the 2023 U19 FIBA Women’s World Cup where she averaged 16.9 points across 7 games.

Finally, the Bulls round out their roster with some returning and rising stars, namely Sammie Puisis, the senior guard who was the AAC newcomer of the year last year while posting 15.5 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. She was named to AAC Preseason All-Conference First Team for the upcoming season, the Ann Meyers-Drysdale Watch List, and the Becky Hammon Watch List. Alongside Sammie will be fellow starters from last season Aerial Wilson and Carla Brito. Wilson, a redshirt senior guard, was an assist machine last season, dishing out 4.4 per game while also locking down on defense with 25 steals. Brito, now a sophomore, will have an elevated presence in the wing after being named AAC All-Freshman last season, averaging 8.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.

From the bench last season, USF was able to get production out of Daniela Gonzalez, who appeared in all 34 games last season while pushing for 4.1 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. Additionally, Emma Johannson and Marina Asensio both saw productive freshmen campaigns in the green and gold with 31 games played. Johannson averaged 1.7 points and 1.8 rebounds per game, but more productively blocked 16 shots, good for second on the team. Asensio proved to be lethal beyond the arc late in her freshmen season, averaged 3 points per game in the final 16 games. Her best outing game against SMU where she went 4/5 beyond the arc and added two FTs to get 14 points on the day. Janette Aarnio saw action in 25 games as a freshmen, collecting 1.4 points and 0.6 rebounds but found her groove dishing out assists with 16 on the year.

Finally, the Bulls will look to get two fully healthy teammates back with Maria Alvarez and Caitlin McGee. Alvarez, entering her senior year, saw playing time in 19 games after coming off severe knee injuries in her freshmen, sophomore, and junior seasons. Last year saw a relatively healthy Alvarez go for 2.5 points per game, including a productive couple of nine-point-outings as she worked her way back onto the floor. McGee was a transfer from Ole Miss who missed almost the entire season last year, her two appearances against Ohio State and Arkansas gave us minimal looks aside from pulling down a rebound and producing a blocked shot.

Steeg’s Certified and Best Guess™️ at the starting lineup this year when the Bulls tip off in a few days will be:

• G - Aerial Wilson
• PG- Marina Asensio
• G - Sammie Puisis
• W - Carla Brito
• F - Evelien Lutje Schipholt

In the final part of this preview, we will look at where the fellow AAC coaches placed USF for the upcoming season, as well as the schedule at a glance.