Women picked second, Bailey and Eaton named to WCC preseason team

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — BYU women’s basketball has been selected to finish second in a preseason poll of the West Coast Conference’s 10 head coaches. The poll and the preseason all-conference team were announced Monday at Time Warner Cable Sports studios as part of the Fourth Annual West Coast Conference Basketball Tip-Off event, streamed live on TheW.tv. 

Gonzaga was selected as the favorite to clinch the WCC regular season title. The Bulldogs received seven first place votes and a total of 78 points. The Cougars garnered two first place votes and 71 points.  BYU advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in last year’s NCAA tournament. San Diego finished third in the preseason poll receiving one first place vote and a total of 65 points.

Senior forward Morgan Bailey and junior guard Lexi Eaton, two returning starters for BYU, were among the 10 players named to the All-WCC Preseason Women’s Basketball Team. The Cougars and the Dons of San Francisco were the only schools with two players on the team.

In its second season in the WCC, Pacific garnered 60 points for a fourth place spot in the poll. Saint Mary’s picked up 48 total points and finds itself in fifth place. In this year’s poll San Francisco finds itself in sixth place with 37 points followed by Portland who picked up 32 points and the seventh place spot. With 27 points, Loyola Marymount is predicted to finish in eighth place in the WCC race. Rounding out the final two spots is Pepperdine with 17 points and Santa Clara with 15 for a ninth and 10^th place finish, respectively.

The remaining eight players on the Preseason Women’s Basketball Team are Zhane Dikes (San Francisco), Nici Gilday (Santa Clara), Sunny Greinacher (Gonzaga), Malina Hood (San Diego), Deanna Johnson (Loyola Marymount), Kendall Kenyon (Pacific), Taylor Proctor (San Francisco) and Jasmine Wooton (Portland).

BYU returns three starters from last year’s team that had the program’s most successful season recording 28 wins, a second-place finish in the WCC, advancing to the championship game vs. Gonzaga. The Cougars received an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament, making an impressive run into the Sweet Sixteen before losing to eventual champion, Connecticut.

The 2014-15 campaign kicks off this weekend for the Cougar women. They host in-state foe Westminster College in an exhibition game on Sat. Nov. 1 at 3 p.m. 

2014-15 PRESEASON ALL-WEST COAST CONFERENCE TEAM