Aggie women looking to improve on first season

Going into its second season, the Utah State women’s basketball team knows that experience will be the key difference for this season.

“We don’t have the deer-in-headlights look in our eyes anymore,” head coach Raegan Pebley said.

Pebley said last year the biggest problem for the Aggies was inexperience.

None of the players had played Division I basketball before. It literally was a whole new ball game for the first-year team.

This season, the Ags are returning four starters.

Center Ali Aird and guard Christina Zdenek earned honorable mention all-Big West Honors last season playing for USU.

Two other starters, Brittany Tressler and Jessica Freeman, are also returning. The Ags also have Brittany Hagen, third-leading scorer last season coming off the bench, returning.

Overall, 10 players are returning.

This season, Pebley expects the Ags to perform a lot better as a team this season. She said that the girls aren’t going off in 10 different directions.

“We’ve had some pretty productive practices so far this season,” Pebley said. “We expect a lot out of our kids.”

Utah State also added three new players to its ranks for the season.

Junior Kalhie Quinones, a junior college transfer from Colorado, is new, along with freshmen Jenny Gross, out of Idaho, and Taylor Richards out of West Valley.

Pebley said she is hoping that Quinones and Richards are going to add some more athleticism to the team at the guard position along with returning sophomore Camille Brox.

Pebely is also looking to Gross to add some depth to the forward position and to add some versitility to that aspect of the game.

However, Pebley is looking for every player to step up and take on part of the responsibility.

“They all have to respond,” Pebley said of her new players and returning members on the team. “Everyone will have a chance to step up and help the team.”

She said that the team’s goals for this season are to win at least nine of the 12 home games, be top three in defense in the conference and to keep their turnovers to just 15.

The Aggies start their season with an exhibition game Friday night against Metro State in the Spectrum.

Pebley said these first few exhibition games aren’t as important as far as winning goes for the Aggies.

It would be nice to get the wins, she said, but the team is using its first two exhibition games to focus on what it needs to work on its side.

“Our goal [right now] is to be ready for Weber on the 17th,” Pebley said.

Last season, the Ags finished eigth in the Big West conference with a 5-22 overall record and a 5-13 record in the Big West.

The pre-season coaches poll picked the Aggies to finish seventh overall in the Big West.

-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu