NEW ORLEANS – Arkansas State was tabbed as the favorite in the 2015-16 Sun Belt Women’s Basketball Preseason Coaches’ Poll announced by the conference Wednesday. Red Wolves senior guard Aundrea Gamble was chosen as the Sun Belt Preseason Student-Athlete of the Year.
Voting for the Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference Team and Poll was conducted by the league’s 11 head coaches.
Gamble, a redshirt senior, became just the sixth women's basketball student-athlete to win back-to-back Student-Athlete of the Year awards. Should she earn that title again in 2015-16 she would become the only Sun Belt women's basketball student-athlete to accomplish the feat.
Gamble led the Sun Belt Conference with a 19.2 points per game average, which also ranked 38th nationally. She broke the A-State record for most assists in a season with 171, the second highest total in league last season.
She was the first A-State student-athlete since 1993 to earn All-America status when the WBCA named her as an Honorable Mention All-American in 2014-15. She enters her senior season ranked 11th among active student-athlete in the NCAA with a career 19.0 points per game average and is 11th on the all-time A-State scoring list with 1,312 points in just two seasons.
Gamble was joined on the Preseason All-SBC First Team by Little Rock's Alexius Dawn, UL Lafayette's Keke Veal, UT Arlington's Rebekah VanDijk and Troy's Ashley Beverly-Kelley.
Dawn, a second-team All-SBC selection in 2014-15, returns to the reigning Sun Belt champion Trojans for her senior season. She set a new Sun Belt tournament record with 15 three-pointers made in three games and led the league with 76 on the season, a new Little Rock single-season record. She was the only Trojan to start every game last season.
Veal, also a senior, helped lead the Ragin' Cajuns to one of their best seasons in recent history as the Cajuns claimed the WBI Championship. She led the Cajuns in assists with 131 and led the team in scoring with a 14.9 average.
VanDijk earned the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year award after being just one of two players in the conference to average a double-double. VanDijk scored 13.0 points per game to go with 10.3 rebounds a game (23rd in NCAA Division I) in her freshman campaign. She was named a FullCourt.com mid-major freshman All-American and led all national freshmen with 15 double-doubles.
Beverly-Kelley was a first-team All-SBC selection in 2014-15 and a second-team selection in 2013-14. She ranked second in the Sun Belt in scoring with a 17.6 average; however, in Sun Belt games she averaged 19.8 points to lead the league. She scored in double figures in 27 of 31 games, including the final 14 games of the season and tied for the most points scored in the NCAA last year with 46 points against Georgia Southern.
Brian Boyer's Red Wolves, tabbed as the favorite to win the league title in 2015-16, look to improve upon last year's record setting 24-11 campaign as they return three starters from that squad. The Red Wolves made it to the championship game of the Sun Belt tournament for the second consecutive season but were turned away by Little Rock.
The Red Wolves earned six of the 11 first-place votes as they garnered 113 points. UT Arlington, which finished tied for fourth overall in 2014-15, was picked to finish second this season as the Mavericks tallied 97 total points and one first-place vote.
Little Rock earned 96 points and two first-place votes as the Trojans were picked to finish third while UL Lafayette tallied 95 points and one first-place vote as the Cajuns are forecasted to finish fourth.
Troy earned the final first-place vote as the Trojans were picked to finish fifth in the league. The Trojans totaled 86 points.
Texas State was picked sixth followed by Georgia State at No. 7 and Appalachian State at No. 8. UL Monroe, South Alabama and Georgia Southern rounded out the final three spots in the preseason coaches’ poll.
The 2015-16 season gets underway on November 13th. This season the conference schedule will feature a 20-game, double round-robin slate culminating with the conference championship set for March 9-12, 2016 at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, La. Eight of the 11 league teams will qualify for the tournament with the tournament champion advancing to the NCAA tournament.
All-SBC Preseason First Team
Aundrea Gamble (Arkansas State, Senior, G)
Alexius Dawn (Little Rock, Senior, G)
Keke Veal (UL Lafayette, Senior, G)
Rebekah VanDijk (UT Arlington, Sophomore, C)
Ashley Beverly-Kelley (Troy, Senior, G)
All-SBC Preseason Second Team
Khadija Brown-Haywood (Arkansas State, Senior, F)
Makeba Ponder (Georgia State, Soph., G)
Shanity James (Little Rock, Senior, F)
Kia Wilridge (UL Lafayette, Senior, G)
Ayriel Anderson (Texas State, Senior, G)
All-SBC Preseason Third Team
Joi Jones (Appalachian State, Junior, G)
Chyna Ellis (South Alabama, Sophomore, C)
LaShanda Green (UT Arlington, Senior, G)
Cierra Johnson (UT Arlington, Sophomore, G)
Caitlyn Ramirez (Troy, Junior, F)
Preseason Student-Athlete of the Year
Aundrea Gamble (Arkansas State, RS-Senior, Guard)
2015-16 Sun Belt Conference Women's Basketball Coaches’ Preseason Poll
first-place votes in parentheses
1. Arkansas State (6) - 113 pts
2. UT Arlington (1) - 97 pts
3. Little Rock (2) - 96 pts
4. UL Lafayette (1) - 95 pts
5. Troy (1) - 86 pts
6. Texas State - 66 pts
7. Georgia State - 57 pts
8. Appalachian State - 40 pts
9. UL Monroe - 38 pts
10. South Alabama - 26 pts
11. Georgia Southern - 12 pts