Key players to watch in women’s basketball

By Riley Vance–

As the women’s basketball team prepares for the 2019-20 season, there are players fans can expect to see putting numbers up on the board.

Sophomore guard Elizabeth Balogun and junior guard Dana Evans are on the 2019-20 Preseason All-ACC Team, and freshman guard Nyah Green is on the Newcomer Watch List.

Transfer Balogun is the ACC Freshman of the Year, in addition to ACC Freshman of the Week four times while at Georgia Tech. She started all 30 games for the Yellow Jackets and averaged 14.6 points per game. As a freshman, Balogun scored 437 points last season, the seventh most points in Georgia Tech history.

Named ACC Sixth Player of the Year and to the ACC All-Academic team, Evans ranked third with an average 10.4 points in the 16 ACC games she played last season and held a team-best 4.0 assists per game.

Green comes to Louisville as a five-star prospect. She is the No. 12 player and seventh-best guard from the class of 2019. Green led her high school team, Bishop Lynch, to a TAPPS 6A state runner-up as a junior, averaging 18.7 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 37 games.

Seniors Jazmine Jones and Kylee Shook also show great promise. Jones started in 36 games last season, averaging 7.6 points. She posted a season-high 10 rebounds at Duke.

Shook started in three games last season but played in a total of 35. She averaged 7.1 points per game and ranked seventh in ACC in blocks with 1.5 per game. She tallied career-highs with 15 rebounds and three assists.

In ACC play, Shook came in fifth in blocks with 1.7 per game, ninth in field goal percentage (.519), 14th in defensive rebounds with 4.9 per game, and 15th in rebounding with 7.0 per game.

Senior Yacine Diop is coming back from a season-ending knee injury last season, and senior Bionca Dunham will be completing her fourth season as a Cardinal.

Louisville has a talented group this year, but these are just a few standouts.

They breezed through their first game of the season on Nov. 5 against WKU with a 75-56 win.

Photo by Anna Disselkamp // The Louisville Cardinal