December 4, 2023
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Who can conquer The Valley in 2023-24?
By The Next
Missy and Brad Wells recap the Paradise Jam and discuss the top teams in the MVC
Missy Heidrick is back with another episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball. Her guest is Missouri Valley Conference play-by-play announcer Brad Wells who helped to recap the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands, where he called the men’s and women’s tournaments. They also discussed the teams to watch in the MVC.
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Starting with the Paradise Jam, Brad saw three teams ranked in the Top 10 on this week’s Associated Press poll in NC State, Texas and Colorado.
“Aaronette Vonleh really stood out to me, just a dominant player down in the post,” Brad said. “The speed of Colorado’s guards also was something that that I was really impressed with from start to finish. The depth of that speed too that they brought off the bench. Just really quality guard play from Colorado that tells me they’re going to be in so many basketball games this year just because of their ability to control the basketball, not turn it over based on pressure and attack when they need to.
“With NC State, Saniya Rivers is just a difference maker to me like she was to me the player that I wanted to watch every single game. And we had Texas down there right like Rory Harmon, Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year was there, but Saniya Rivers it just seems like she brings some different intangibles.”
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In the second segment, Missy and Brad turned their attention to the MVC where Northern Iowa was selected as the preseason favorite. Junior forward Grace Boffeli earned a Preseason Player of the Year nod to lead the Panthers.
“She’s the real deal averaging nearly a double-double this past season,” Brad said. “Certainly a force to be reckoned with isn’t maybe that high score that’s going to go get 30 points a game for you, but you kind of figure she’s going to be pretty steady by the end of the season probably going to be a 15 and eight to 10 rebound type of a kid. So a kid like that really does a lot of damage in the Missouri Valley Conference.”
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