Huskers Open Exhibition Play Against UNO

Lincoln -- The Nebraska women’s basketball team opens the 2003-04 exhibition season by playing host to the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks at the Bob Devaney Sports Center on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 2:05 p.m.

Nebraska's game with UNO can be heard live on the Pinnacle Sports Network on 1400 KLIN in Lincoln with Matt Coatney handling the play-by-play duties and Jeff Griesch adding color commentary.

The Huskers enter Sunday’s game eager to play some new competition after facing each other every day since starting practice on Oct. 18. Second-year NU head coach Connie Yori is hoping to see some major improvements since last season.

The Huskers have plenty of reasons for optimism with five starters returning to the court this season. Alexa Johnson returns for her senior season after averaging 14.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game on her way to honorable-mention All-Big 12 honors last season. Senior guard Margaret Richards, who produced 11.4 points and 6.0 boards per game, is also back, along with junior point guard Jina Johansen, who tied for second in the Big 12 with 5.5 assists per game last season.

Sunday’s game will mark the return to action of a pair of Huskers who missed most or all of last season. Senior center Katie Morse missed NU’s final 21 games in 2002-03 after suffering a knee injury in the second half of the Huskers’ 65-55 win over No. 25 Cincinnati at the Devaney Center on Dec. 15, 2002. Morse averaged 12.0 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game through Nebraska’s first seven contests last season, helping the Huskers to a 5-2 record.

Another NU senior, Keasha Cannon-Johnson, sat out the entire 2002-03 season as a redshirt. Cannon-Johnson was the 2002 Big 12 Conference Newcomer of the Year after leading the Huskers in every statistical category with 12.9 points, 8.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.1 steals per game.

Nebraska will also be able to enjoy some flexibility with the depth provided by scholarship freshmen Chelsea Aubry, Heather Kephart, Jessica Gerhart, Kiera Hardy, Andrea Lightfoot and Cortney Matthewis.

Last season, the Huskers played the entire season with only five or six available scholarship players. Although the Huskers are still well under the NCAA maximum limit of 15 scholarships, the Huskers' prospects for the future are certainly looking brighter.

Mavericks Get Exhibition Game Under Belts at Bradley
While the Huskers are just opening exhibition play, the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks already have one game of exhibition experience this season after battling Bradley on Saturday, Nov. 1

UNO suffered a 75-67 setback at Bradley, but outscored the Division I Braves 40-37 in the second half after falling behind 38-27 at intermission. Junior guard Chelsie Groslie led the Mavs with 13 points , while JJ Smith added 11 points and five rebounds and Lindsey Petersen pitched in 10 points and three boards to give UNO three players in double figures.

Nebraska-Omaha returns a pair of starters and eight letterwinners from a 2002-03 club that finished with a 12-16 overall record, including a 5-11 mark and a fifth-place finish in the North Central Conference.

Coach Lisa Carlsen is in her fourth season at the helm of the Mavs, and owns a 31-52 overall record at the school.

Petersen is UNO's top returning player after averaging 8.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game a year ago. Junior forward Raina Tasa also returns, after missing UNO’s final 15 games last season with a knee injury. Tasa averaged 8.0 points and 4.3 rebounds per game before the injury but did not play in the exhibition opener against Bradley.

Nebraska's game with UNO will be the first matchup between the two schools since a regular-season game on Dec. 20, 1986, when the Mavericks knocked off the Huskers, 76-74. The Huskers own a 14-9 edge in the all-time series with the Mavs that dates back to the second varsity game in school history on Dec. 4, 1974. The Huskers also lost that contest with UNO, 47-41, in Lincoln.

Nebraska’s Returning Starters at a Glance
Alexa Johnson, 6-1, Sr., F, Hacienda Heights, Calif. ? Alexa Johnson returns for her senior season after earning honorable-mention All-Big 12 honors a year ago. Johnson ranked among the top players in the league in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 14.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. She scored 415 points and grabbed 189 rebounds in 2002-03, more than doubling her 204 points and 92 rebounds as a sophomore, when she started seven games and averaged 6.8 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.

Johnson produced 24 double-figure scoring efforts as a junior, including 18 games with 15 or more points and six games with 20 or more points. She added a team-high four double-doubles.

In NU’s win over then-No. 25 Cincinnati on Dec. 15, she scored a career-high 27 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Johnson was named the Big 12 Player of the Week on Dec. 16. She also earned second-team academic All-Big 12 accolades in 2003, after claiming first-team honors in 2002. She represented Nebraska on the Big 12 All-Star Team that played at the 2003 World University Games in Korea in August.

Margaret Richards, 5-9, Sr., G, Louisville, Ky. ? Margaret Richards ranked among the top 20 players in the league in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 11.4 points and 6.0 rebounds in 2002-03. Richards’ rebounding average was the second-highest average by a Big 12 guard last season.

The Louisville, Ky., native produced a career-high 25 points in a win at Oklahoma State on Feb. 1, which marked one of 19 double-figure efforts last season. She added 20 points and a career-high tying 11 rebounds in NU's win at San Diego on Dec. 28. She also hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer to earn a spot on the Surf & Slam Hoop Classic All-Tournament team. She led NU with 38 steals (1.4 spg), while ranking second on the team with 11.4 points and 2.7 assists per game. Richards produced three double-doubles and led NU with 32 three-pointers. She is tied for eighth on the NU charts with 67 career three-pointers.

Richards will play her senior season with her degree in hand after earning a bachelor's degree in communication studies in August of 2003.

Keasha Cannon-Johnson, 5-10, Sr., G, Kansas City, Kan. ? The 2002 Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, Keasha Cannon-Johnson redshirted during the 2002-03 season. An honorable-mention All-Big 12 pick as a junior in 2001-02, Cannon-Johnson led the Huskers in scoring (12.9 ppg), rebounding (8.4 ppg), assists (4.0 apg) and steals (2.1 spg) in her first season after transferring from Penn Valley Community College. A two-time NJCAA Division II All-American, Cannon-Johnson was a three-time Big 12 Rookie of the Week and earned a spot on the Kansas City Star Big 12 All-Defense Team in 2002.

Cannon-Johnson ranked 17th in the Big 12 in scoring, fourth in rebounding, 11th in assists and eighth in steals. She scored a career-high 27 points in NU’s win over No. 11 Kansas State on Feb. 10, 2002, while pulling down a career-best 16 boards against the Wildcats. It was one of six double-doubles for Cannon-Johnson in 2001-02.

Katie Morse, 6-4, Sr., C, Minden, Iowa ? Katie Morse had a promising junior season come to an end with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her knee suffered in the second half of Nebraska’s 65-55 win over No. 25 Cincinnati on Dec. 15. Morse, who started NU’s first seven games, was averaging 12.0 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots per game before the injury. She was also coming off the two best games of her career with back-to-back double-doubles in wins over Texas Southern and Cal State Fullerton.

Against Texas Southern on Dec. 9, Morse erupted for a career-high 25 points to go along with 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. She followed that performance with 18 points, 10 boards and a career-best five blocks against Cal State Fullerton on Dec. 11. She added her first double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds in NU’s season-opening win over Grambling State on Nov. 22.

Despite playing just 25 percent of Nebraska’s scheduled games, Morse still finished the season ranked third on the team with 15 blocked shots.

Jina Johansen, 5-7, Jr., G, Dannebrog, Neb. ? Jina Johansen tied for second in the Big 12 with 5.5 assists per game, while averaging 5.7 points and 3.1 rebounds per contest as Nebraska's point guard in 2002-03. She also ranked third on the team with 1.2 steals per contest.

Johansen set a school record by playing 36.7 minutes per game, surpassing the previous school mark of 35.6 minutes per contest established by Amy Stephens in 1988-89. Johansen’s 1,028 minutes played ranked as the fifth-highest total in school history and one of just seven 1,000-minute seasons in school history. Johansen played the full 40 minutes on 10 occasions as a sophomore, while playing nearly 92 percent of NU’s possible minutes.

Johansen’s 153 assists also ranked as the second-best single-season total by a sophomore in school history, while ranking eighth overall on NU’s season assist chart. She scored a career-high 15 points and tied a career best with nine assists in the win over Rice. She set another career high with seven steals against Grambling State. She grabbed a career-high eight rebounds at Iowa State on March 1.

A standout in the classroom, Johansen was a first-team academic All-Big 12 selection in 2003.

Aubry Shines for Canada at World University Games
Chelsea Aubry may only be a freshman, but the 6-2 forward from Kitchener, Ontario, has already gained worldly experience on the basketball court. Aubry, who is the first Canadian in Nebraska women's basketball history, earned a spot on the Canadian Under-20 National Team and represented her home country at the 2003 World University Games in Korea in August.

Aubry was one of Canada's top players at the tournament, averaging 11.4 points and 9.4 rebounds in nearly 28 minutes per game. Her tournament performance was highlighted by a 16-point, 16-rebound effort against Korea and a 14-point, 17-board outburst against Thailand.

Aubry also played for Canada at the World Under-20 Women's Qualifying Tournament in Brazil in July of 2002. She started Canada's opening game in the tournament and helped Canada to a 2-2 record.

Nebraska senior forward Alexa Johnson also represented the United States at the 2003 World University games as part of the Big 12 All-Star team that played as Team USA in the tournament.

Husker Newcomers Expect to Make Instant Impact
Although Nebraska returns five seasoned veterans to its starting lineup for 2003-04, the Huskers will have a distinctly new look this season. Other than the five returning starters, no other active Husker has ever played a second of collegiate basketball.

Seniors Keasha Cannon-Johnson, Alexa Johnson, Katie Morse and Margaret Richards and junior Jina Johansen are joined on Nebraska's active roster by six freshmen, including Chelsea Aubry, Jessica Gerhart, Kiera Hardy, Heather Kephart, Andrea Lightfoot and Cortney Matthewis.

Aubry, a 6-2 forward from Kitchener, Ontario, and Kephart, a 5-8 guard from Canute, Okla., are the most highly touted of the six newcomers. Aubry is a member of the Canadian National Team program, and Kephart is the all-time leading scorer in Oklahoma high school basketball with 2,747 points as a prepster.

Hardy, a 5-6 freshman guard from Kansas City, Mo., has impressed coaches with her dramatic improvement during the fall, while Gerhart, a 6-2 forward from Fenton, Iowa, has good size and an excellent shooting touch that could give the Huskers added options inside. Lightfoot, a 5-8 guard from Omaha, Neb., and Matthewis, a 5-10 guard from Missouri City, Texas, have also shown solid improvement during practice and are expected to help the Huskers at both ends of the court.

Huskers Face Solid Regular-Season Schedule
The Huskers will face a challenging 2003-04 schedule that features 12 games against nine teams that qualified for postseason play in 2003. Nebraska will play eight games against six teams that advanced to the 2003 NCAA Tournament, and will add four games against three squads that made it to the final eight in the Women's National Invitation Tournament last season.

Nebraska's home schedule at the Bob Devaney Sports Center will feature four NCAA Tournament teams, including Ohio State (Dec. 12), Kansas State (Jan. 24), Texas (Jan. 28) and Colorado (March 3), while adding a pair of WNIT qualifiers in Creighton (Dec. 21) and Missouri (Feb. 25).

The Buckeyes, who advanced to the second round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament after advancing to the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament, highlight the Huskers' non-conference schedule. Ohio State finished with a 22-10 overall record and 10-6 mark for a fourth-place finish in Coach Jim Foster's first season at the school.

Along with Ohio State, the Huskers also feature their traditional in-state showdown with Creighton at the Devaney Center. The Bluejays finished with a 24-9 overall record and advanced to the WNIT semifinals in 2003. The Huskers open regular-season play by taking on Wofford on Nov. 21, before closing their opening weekend against Princeton on Sunday, Nov. 23. Nebraska's other non-conference home games will come against Texas-Arlington (Dec. 6), Louisiana-Lafayette (Dec. 14) and St. Bonaventure (Jan. 3).

Nebraska will face tough road tests in non-league play at the Memphis Lady Tiger Thanksgiving Classic (Nov. 28-29), where the Huskers will face Mississippi and either Memphis or Eastern Kentucky. NU also travels to Washington State (Dec. 4) and Rice (Dec. 30).

The Big 12 Conference could feature the toughest field from top to bottom in the eight-year history of the league. NU opens league play at Oklahoma on Jan. 7. The Sooners, who qualified for the 2003 NCAA Tournament after advancing to the NCAA title game in 2002, will be the Huskers' first of seven conference games against 2003 NCAA qualifiers.

The Huskers open home conference competition against Iowa State on Jan. 10, before traveling to 2003 WNIT quarterfinalist Missouri (Jan. 14). NU returns home to tangle with Texas A&M (Jan. 17), before heading to 2003 NCAA Elite Eight participant Texas Tech to begin a treacherous five-game stretch. The Huskers return to the Devaney Center for back-to-back games against 2003 NCAA second-round participant Kansas State (Jan. 24) and NCAA Final Four participant Texas (Jan. 28). NU then travels to WNIT runner-up Baylor (Jan. 31) and NCAA Sweet 16 qualifier Colorado (Feb. 4).

Nebraska returns to the Devaney Center to take on Kansas (Feb. 7) and Oklahoma State (Feb. 11), before taking the road again for a pair of tests at Kansas State (Feb. 14) and Iowa State (Feb. 21). After playing host to Missouri (Feb. 25) and traveling to Kansas (Feb. 28), the Huskers conclude the regular season at home with Senior Night against Colorado (March 3).

The Huskers travel to the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Tournament at Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas, March 9-13, and the NCAA Tournament begins March 20, concluding with the NCAA Women's Final Four at New Orleans Arena, April 4-6.

Huskers Leading Life Skills Team Competition
Along with showing gains on the court during the 2003-04 season, members of the Nebraska women's basketball team are also focused on improving themselves in the classroom and in the community.

During the 2003-04 academic year, the Nebraska Athletic Department has initiated a new Life Skills Award of Excellence Team Competition, which is designed to promote student-athlete involvement in campus-wide programming, community service and leadership opportunities, while enhancing student-athletes' preparation for life after sports.

The Husker women's basketball team has embraced the new program and made winning the inaugural title one of its goals. As of Oct. 31, the women's basketball team was solidly in first place with 1,266 points and held a 208-point lead over the second-place Nebraska football team (1,058). The volleyball team was in third with 987 points, while the women's track and field team was in fourth with 956 points. The women's gymnastics program rounded out the top five with 869 points.

All 21 of Nebraska's teams are participating in the program, which assigns points to individual and team efforts in a variety of Life Skills categories, including team enhancement, outreach, athletes supporting athletes, personal enhancement, leadership and team GPA. Other points can be earned by going above and beyond the traditional categories and communicating with the Student-Athlete Advisory Board and Husker Outreach Council.

Texas Earns Preseason Picks from Coaches, Media
Texas is the favorite to repeat as Big 12 regular-season champion in 2003-04 in votes by both league coaches and the media during preseason balloting. The Longhorns were nearly a unanimous choice to win the league, earning 10 of 11 first-place votes from the league coaches and 17 of the 18 votes cast by media members from around the Big 12.

Kansas State was the only other school to claim any first-place votes to finish second in the preseason balloting. Texas Tech captured the No. 3 spot, while Oklahoma enters the season picked to finish fourth. Colorado, Baylor, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas and Oklahoma State were picked in descending order to finish in the No. 5 to No. 10 spots, while Nebraska was predicted to finish 11th by the coaches and 12th by the media, while Texas A&M took the No. 11 spot in the media poll and the 12th position in the coaches poll.

Kansas State's Nicole Ohlde (Player of the Year), Oklahoma State's Elizangela Gomes (Newcomer of the Year) and Texas' Tiffany Jackson (Freshman of the Year) were the preseason picks for the league's top three individual honors. Ohlde was joined on the preseason All-Big 12 team by teammate Kendra Wecker, UT's Heather Schreiber and Stacy Stephens and Texas Tech's Jia Perkins.

Yori Working to Establish Foundation at Nebraska
Second-year Nebraska coach Connie Yori spent her first season at Nebraska trying to lay the cornerstones of a successful basketball program.

Although the Huskers struggled to an 8-20 overall record and a 1-15 Big 12 mark last season, the Huskers accepted the principles of hard work and conditioning and showed major strides throughout the season. Despite carrying a roster of just five or six scholarship players throughout last season, Nebraska returns five experienced starters for 2003-04.

The Huskers will also feature some depth this season, a luxury they lacked a year ago. Nebraska has added six freshmen to its roster this season, and all six are expected to see playing time.

Nebraska is also making strides in the classroom and the community. Along with Jina Johansen, Laura Pilakowski, Greichaly Cepero and Alexa Johnson earning academic All-Big 12 honors last season, Margaret Richards earned her degree in August of 2003. The Huskers' cumulative team GPA is also on the rise.

Off the court, the women's basketball team is leading the Athletic Department's Life Skills Award of Excellence Team Competition, which is designed to promote athletic excellence, academic support, personal development, career development and community service. Through Oct. 31, the women's basketball team had earned 1,266 points to lead the football team by 208 points. The Husker volleyball program was in third with 987 points, while the women's track and field team (956) and women's gymnastics teams (869) rounded out the top five in the competition.

The 2002 Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year, Yori led the Bluejays to a 24-7 overall mark and a 16-2 MVC record last season to capture the league’s regular-season and tournament titles. Yori’s success last season capped a 170-115 career mark at Creighton. Her teams made two trips to the NCAA Tournament in 1994 and 2002. Before taking over the top job with the Bluejays, Yori led NCAA Division III Loras College to a 25-25 record in two seasons from 1990 to 1992. She also served as an assistant coach at Creighton from 1986 to 1989.

Yori was one of the top players in Creighton history, and she still owns the school record for career scoring average at 20.3 points per game. She ranks as CU’s No. 3 all-time leading scorer with 2,010 points, and she had her No. 25 jersey retired. She was inducted into the Creighton Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992.

A native of Ankeny, Iowa, the 40-year-old Yori is married to Kirk Helms.

Nebraska’s History of Success at Home
Since the Bob Devaney Sports Center opened in 1976-77, the Huskers are 264-96 (.733) in games played in the arena, including 94-60 (.610) in conference games.

Attendance is a big part of the Huskers’ success. Over the past five seasons, Nebraska has averaged more than 4,200 fans per game and ranked among the top 25 teams nationally in average home attendance each season. The Huskers were 6-10 at home in 2002-03 and averaged 2,625 fans per game in 16 contests. NU drew a season-high 6,077 fans in the loss to No. 4 Kansas State on Jan. 19.

In 2001-02, Nebraska averaged 3,473 fans per game over 14 home contests, including a season-high 6,066 fans at the Devaney Center for the Kansas State game on Feb. 10. The Huskers attracted an average of 4,204 fans per game in 2000-01. NU averaged 4,772 fans per game in 1999-2000 to rank 14th nationally, trailing only the 5,000 fans per game (15th nationally) in 1998-99 for the best average attendance in school history. In 1999-2000, Nebraska set a school record with a crowd of 13,226 in the final home game against Kansas State on Feb. 26.