Utah State Women’s Basketball Signs Three
Utah State’s women’s basketball head coach Raegan Pebley announced today that three players have signed with the Aggies for the 2007-08 season. Guard Alice Coddington of Canberra, Australia, center Mame’ Diop (pronounced Ma-may Jop) of Dakar, Senegal, and power forward Shawnta Pope (pronounced Shawn-tay) of Cairo, Ga., have all signed as part of the signing class for next year.
The trio join Jade Hatchett, and Amber White who signed with the Aggies in November. Coddington will have freshman eligibility while Mame’ Diop and Pope will be juniors, as the duo were teammates at Chipola College in Marina, Fla.
“With continuing to adjust to our move to the WAC, we feel that we are getting closer and closer to being as athletic at each position as the rest of the teams in our conference,” Pebley said. “Going into the recruiting process, we felt that rebounding had to be a major emphasis. Every single player we signed had to be a skilled rebounder. Last season we got outrebounding by about five and a half rebounds a game. If we are going to get ourselves to the top tier of this conference, we’ve got to start outrebounding our opponents regularly.”
Coddington, a native of Canberra, Australia (Radford College HS), averaged 17 points per game for the Australian National U-20 team, leading the team in scoring during the U-20 championships. She was the 2006 Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Junior Female Basketball Player of the Year, and the MVP of the Australian Schoolgirls Basketball Championships, and is a seven-year ACT representative on the Australian Junior National Championship squad. Coddington
“We’re really excited about Alice,” Pebley said. “She had a lot of different options early in the process with Penn State and Michigan State among possibilities for her. She will add a lot of depth to our guard position. She is very skilled as well as athletic. She’ll go through an adjustment period getting used to the U.S. style of basketball, but Australia is known for having as good of basketball talent at each level as the United States, so that adjustment period won’t be that long. Kristy played a huge influence on her decision with being an Australian and we wouldn’t have had a shot at her if it had not been for Kristy, ” Pebley said in reference to USU assistant coach Kristy Flores, who is Australian and came to college in the U.S., after playing high school in Australia.
Mame’ Diop and Pope were teammates at Chipola College, where they helped the Lady Indians to a No. 5 national ranking this season after winning the Region XIII Championship and advancing to the NJCAA National Tournament, ending the season with a 29-7 record. Chipola, which was ranked fourth in the country last season, won the region crown during all three years that Pope was in the program as she redshirted her first year, and both of Diop’s years. Diop and Pope will be joined in the Western Athletic Conference by teammates Ra’Shawna Sippio who signed with Louisiana Tech and Latoya Brown who inked with Fresno State.
“Mame’ and Shawnta will help us with our rebounding quite a bit. Additionally, they come from a great junior college program with incredible coaching,” Pebley said.
Dakar, Senegal native Diop attended Oak Hill Academy in Virginia prior to attending Chipola. Diop averaged four points, four rebounds and two blocks per game while shooting 60 percent from the field this past season. Diop’s older brother is DeSagana Diop, a center for the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA.
“We’ll ask Mame’ to play a similar role for us that her brother plays for the Mavericks, and that is to rebound, be a defensive presence in the paint. Those are things that you can’t win games without somebody doing those things well,” Pebley said.
Pope, a native of Cairo, Ga., (Cairo HS), averaged eight points and seven rebounds per game last year, as well as shooting 60 percent field goal shooting.
“Shawnta uses her physical strengths to score and be a rebounding presence,” Pebley said.
Utah State finished its fourth season since reinstatement and its second season in the Western Athletic Conference with an 11-18 overall record and a 7-9 ledger in WAC play. The Aggies, who were picked ninth in the preseason poll, finished sixth in the standings. USU was the No. 6 seed for the WAC Tournament, falling to third-seeded Nevada, 61-60, in the quarterfinals.
The sixth-seed matches USU’s highest seeding for a conference tournament under head coach Raegan Pebley. Utah State was a sixth-seed for the Big West Tournament in 2005, after being an eight-seed for the Big West Tourney in 2004. Last season in the WAC Tournament, the Aggies were the ninth-seed, losing to eighth-seeded Idaho, 70-59, in the play-in game. Nonetheless, the Aggies surpassed last season’s overall win total (3-24) and last year’s WAC victory total (2-14), as well as exceeding preseason expectations as USU was picked ninth in both WAC preseason coaches and media
polls. USU loses three seniors, guard Camille Brox, and forwards Brittany Hagen and Brittany Phillips. The trio were the first senior class to be at Utah State all four years, as they were part of Pebley’s original recruiting class as USU reinstated women’s basketball for the 2003-04 season after discontinuing the program after the 1987 season. All three leave their mark in the USU record book and a lasting foot print on the program.
The Aggies return three starters: junior guard Taylor Richards, junior forward Jenny Gross and sophomore guard Danyelle Snelgro, as part of nine returning letterwinners.
Utah State Women’s Basketball Signees
NAME POS HT YR HOMETOWN (HIGH SCHOOL/LAST SCHOOL)
Alice Coddington G 5-10 FR Canberra, Australia (Radford College
HS)
Mame’ Diop C 6-4 JR Dakar, Senegal (Oak Hill Academy/Chipola
College)
Jade Hatchett G 5-9 FR Milwaukee, Wis. (Milwaukee Vincent HS)
Shawnta Pope F 6-2 JR Cairo, Ga. (Cairo HS/Chipola College)
Amber White F 5-10 FR San Leandro, Calif. (San Leandro HS)