Women’s basketball to feature only 3 seniors
Lisa Carlsen ‘excited’ about young basketball team
Lisa Carlsen, women’s basketball Head Coach, speaks about the team at Media Day Nov. 2, 2017.
November 13, 2020
DeKALB — Non-conference play will start the season for the women’s basketball team, as it prepares to host the Illinois State University Redbirds on 1 p.m. Nov. 25, at the NIU Convocation Center.
There will be five total regular season non-conference games and 20 Mid-American Conference games. The rest of the schedule can be found online at the NIU Athletics website.
The roster this season is a young one, but six-year Head Coach Lisa Carlsen said that she continues to see phenomenal growth, almost daily.
“This team will be exciting to watch,” Carlsen said in a Nov. 10 Zoom meeting.
The Huskies only have three seniors on the roster this season with forward Riley Blackwell, redshirt guard Paulina Castro, and guard Rachel Dumoulin.
Recruiting the rest of the roster for this season has been different this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the staff continues everyday to make the team be the best team possible, according to Adam Tandez.
“Everyday we are recruiting our current roster,” Associative Head Coach Adam Tandez said in the Zoom meeting. “They have to understand that they are appreciated.”
Training for the upcoming season and connecting as a team has looked different for the Huskies as they were not able to be in the stadium this summer for practice.
“Our coaches sent us basketball and training workouts to do from home,” senior Riley Blackwell said in the Zoom meeting. “We also found some creative ways to stay connected. We did several Zoom meetings as a team and we also read a couple books including “Energy Bus” and “Training Camp,” which were fun and unique ways to get to know each other.”
The team has to take many precautions as they get regular COVID-19 testing, social distance and wear masks, Castro said in the Zoom meeting. However, they are grateful to be able to play and get this chance, Dumoulin said in the Zoom meeting.
Even though fans can not be in the stadium to watch the games this year, the team and staff still want as much support as possible. Fans are able to purchase a cutout of themselves for $60 that will remain in the NIU Convocation Center for the entirety of the 2020-21 season. Cutouts must be turned in by Monday if fans want to be in the stadium by the first game, but cutouts can continue to be purchased after this date.
They are relaunching Huskie Bingo for fans to play, which will be a lot simpler than it was in the past because it used to be very complex and hard to track when in the Convocation Center. There is also a newly released mobile app for fans to download on iPhone and Android for during the games. This app allows fans to engage during the game with live stats, trivia and a lot more.
For more updates on Huskie Basketball, you can follow the team on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and the NIU Athletics website.
