CONWAY — The road back to the NCAA Tournament begins tonight as the Sugar Bears tip off the 2016-17 season in the Farris Center against crosstown foe Hendrix College at 6:00pm.
It is the first of five games the Sugar Bears will host in the Farris Center over the next month as part of a non-conference slate that will see them travel to Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Alcorn State, and face Houston and Liberty in neutral-site games at UTSA.
The Sugar Bears enter the season with four starters back from last season's record-breaking squad with seniors
Raquel Logan,
Brianna Mullins and
Maggie Proffitt along with junior
Taylor Baudoin. That group combined for 38.8 points and 19.6 rebounds per game – 60 and 50 percent of the team's total – and 69 of the team's 107 blocks a season ago.
In all, the Sugar Bears will have seven players who saw action a year ago, with senior forward
Taylor Strickland, junior guard
Angel Williams and sophomore guard
Olivia McWilliams having combined to log more than 600 minutes last season while contributing a combined 8.2 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.
Coming off the second straight season in which they both earned All-Southland Conference honors, Mullins and Proffitt will again be looked upon to handle much of the load for the Sugar Bears. Proffitt, a first-team All-Southland performer last season after leading the team with 14.2 points per game, 68 3-pointers and a program record 89.4 free throw percentage, comes into her final campaign 76 3-pointers shy of the Sugar Bear program record, set by Carone Harris from 2001-05 during the program's Division II era. She is 339 points away from becoming just the 9th Sugar Bear ever – and only 3rd in the program's time in Division I – to eclipse the 1,500 point mark.
Mullins, who was a third-team All-Southland selection a year ago after being one of only two players in the league to average at least 10 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists during conference play, comes into the season needing just 22 points to become the 26th player in Central Arkansas history – and 7th in the D-I – to reach the 1,000-point milestone. With 277 career assists, Mullins is only eight away from cracking the program's career top 10 and needs just 35 to pass Micah Rice for the most in the program's D-I era.
Baudoin is likely to see an expanded role after starting 18 games a season ago and averaging 9.3 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds in 22.9 minutes per game. She led the team with five double-doubles, including two against Top 10 teams with 13 points and 10 rebounds against both No. 4 Tennessee and No. 8 Louisville.
The Sugar Bears will feature five newcomers this season with freshman guards Maddie Goodner and Taylor Sells, junior guard Bhrea Griffin, and junior centers Kierra Jordan and Cera Ledbetter – though will be without Jordan until after the fall semester due to her mid-term transfer last season from Southern Miss. Sophomore forward Tieraney Paylor is out for the season after suffering a torn achilles during the preseason.
Tonight's game marks the second straight season the Sugar Bears have opened with Hendrix, beating the Division III Warriors 72-43 a year ago. Proffitt had 20 points; Mullins 10 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds and 3 steals; Baudoin 10 points and 6 rebounds; and Logan 6 points, a team-high 9 rebounds and 3 blocks in that win. The Sugar Bears also won 93-66 over Hendrix in 2010 and 79-57 in 1995.
Following tonight's game, the Sugar Bears will round out the opening weekend of the season with a trip to College Station to take on Texas A&M, ranked No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches Preseason Poll. After a trip to Alcorn State next Thursday, the Sugar Bears will be back in the Farris Center for their next four, beginning with Williams Baptist on Nov. 22.
