Game Notes | Game Coverage | Series History

PREVIEW

• At long last, the 2020-21 SWOSU Women’s Basketball season gets underway this weekend with the Lady Bulldogs set to play three games over the first five days of the regular season

• SWOSU will open the season in Ada, Okla., on Thursday night with a matchup at East Central before returning home to the Pioneer Cellular Event Center to host Southeastern on Saturday and Northwestern on Monday night

• These are the first games for any SWOSU Athletic programs since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, which ended all spring competition and forced the suspension of play during the fall semester

• By order of the Great American Conference Council of Presidents, there will be no fans allowed in attendance for the first two weeks of games, which include contests from January 7-16

• The 2020-21 schedule will feature the Lady Bulldogs playing a divisional schedule for the first time in the GAC, with four games apiece scheduled against each of the other GAC Western Division opponents

SWOSU NOTES

• SWOSU is the co-favorite in the GAC’s Western Division in 2020-21, sharing the top spot in the conference’s preseason poll with Southeastern Oklahoma State, the team that won the 2020 GAC Tournament Championship and shared the regular season crown with SWOSU and Harding

• The Lady Bulldogs return three players who earned All-GAC recognition last season in sophomore Makyra Tramble and seniors Taber Beer & Bethany Franks

• Tramble was named the GAC’s Freshman of the Year and a Second Team All-GAC selection in 2019-20 after averaging leading the team with 15.8 points and 7.9 rebounds per game

• SWOSU returns five of their top six scorers from last season, which also includes double-digit scorers Maddie Sperle (11.1 ppg) and Franks (10.1 ppg)

• Franks is a two-time All-GAC selection and she enters her senior season as the school-record holder with 257 steals and she’s less than 50 points shy of 1,000 for her career while ranking third in school history with 830 rebounds

• Sperle started 17 games as a junior and ranked third on the team in scoring while shooting 38.8% (40-103) from three-point range

• Beer started all 29 games at point guard last season and ranked fifth on the team with 9.9 points per game and led the Lady Bulldogs with 120 assists

• SWOSU has three newcomers on the 2020-21 roster, including NCAA Division I transfers Karly Gore and Macy Gore, twin sisters from Taloga, Okla., who joined the program last January after starting their careers at Oral Roberts

• The lone freshman for the Lady Bulldogs is Avery Walker-Henry, a guard from Frenship High School in Lubbock, Texas