Olive earns start in season opener for women's basketball
Jalisa Olive could not ask for a better homecoming.
The freshman guard was named the starting point guard for the CMU women’s basketball team as it starts the regular season at 9 p.m. today at DePaul. DePaul, a member of the Big East Conference, is in Chicago, Olive’s hometown.
“I’m excited,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun to play in front of family and friends.”
The loss of Angel Chan to graduation and sophomore Brandie Baker to a season-ending injury left an opening in the point guard position heading into the season. When asked to name a frontrunner in the guard battle Oct. 27 at media day, coach Sue Guevara mentioned senior Kendra Holman as the early favorite.
Things changed since then.
“Right now, we’re faster, and I think our offense and defense is more efficient right from the start,” Guevara said. “They like to run and we want to push tempo.”
Olive scored a game-high 25 points and had six steals coming off the bench in CMU’s exhibition win Nov. 1 against Saginaw Valley State.
The Chippewas round out their starting lineup with junior Shonda Long at shooting guard, senior forward Britni Houghton, sophomore Skylar Miller and senior Kaihla Szunko.
While CMU was fourth in the nation in points last season, averaging 78.3 per game, DePaul put up 71.3 points per game.
The Blue Demons are ranked No. 17 in The Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll and 25th in the ESPN/USA Today Poll after finishing last season with a 23-9 overall record, going 10-6 in the Big East Conference.
DePaul returns four of its five top scorers from last season, including senior guard Deirdre Naughton (15.5 points, 4.4 assists per game) and sophomore Keisha Hampton, who scored 10.4 points and had 4.6 rebounds per game as a freshman.
“DePaul has very good guard play,” Guevara said. “They have some kids that are very experienced.”
