Women's Basketball Release
11/10 - WBCA POLL: Bruins Catch Coaches' Eyes with Pre-Season No. 8 National Ranking
USA Today/ESPN/WBCA Women's Basketball Pre-Season Poll
NEWBERG, Ore. - Most coaches know a good thing when they see it, and the George Fox University Bruins have caught enough eyes to be awarded a ranking of 8th in the nation in the 2005-06 USA Today/ESPN NCAA Division III pre-season women's basketball poll announced recently.
The Bruins received 129 points in the poll, which is voted on by a nine-member panel of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association. The week before, the Bruins were tabbed as the No. 10 team nationally in the D3hoops.com pre-season women's cage poll. George Fox was the only Northwest Conference team in the top 25, although Whitworth College picked up six votes and Pacific Lutheran University garnered one. Defending national champion Millikin University received eight of the nine first-place votes and was chosen as the No. 1 team with 222 points.
George Fox went 22-6 last year and finished with a No. 10 ranking in the WBCA poll and No. 12 in the D3hoops.com poll. A 14-2 record in conference play gave the Bruins the NWC title and earned them a third post-season appearance in the last six years. After receiving a first-round bye, the Bruins defeated Chapman University and the College of St. Benedict before losing to eventual national runner-up Randolph-Macon College in the West/South sub-regional finals. The George Fox team had 10 freshmen among its 15 players, and with a year's experience under their belts, the Bruins appear poised for another fine year in 2005-06.
Shooting guard Kim Leith (Sr., Sherwood, Ore.), the Northwest Conference Player of the Year, returns to lead the Bruins in her senior season. Last year, she was 4th in the conference and 35th nationally in scoring with an average of 18.0 points a game, and led the league while ranking 8th in the nation in three-point field goals per game (2.89). Also returning to the starting lineup for the Bruins are point guard Tiffany Behary (So., Lake Oswego, Ore.), who averaged 6.4 points and 2.4 assists a game, and post Erin Powers (Jr., Salem, Ore.), who had numbers of 3.3 points and 3.8 rebounds per outing.
George Fox head coach Scott Rueck enters his 10th season with the Bruins with nine winning seasons in a row and a record of 165-67 (.711). He was the 2005-06 NWC Coach of the Year for leading the Bruins to the conference crown and the "Elite 8" in the NCAA Tournament.