Conference and National Respect

The 2011-12 BGSU Women's Basketball Team opens their season this Friday, November 11th, at Dayton

We never have, nor ever will, put much stock into pre-season polls. It’s difficult for us to figure out what our young team will be like tomorrow,  let alone how they’ll do for an entire season! But though pre-season polls mean nothing in regards to how a team will perform in the long season ahead, it sometimes carries a message as to how others perceive your program. That’s why, though we graduated six seniors, four of whom were starters, who combined for over 6,000 points and 2,500 rebounds, we were shocked as two pre-season polls – the MAC Pre-Season Poll and the National Mid-Major Top 25 Poll had us so highly ranked!

In the MAC poll, conducted by the coaches and media representatives of all twelve MAC schools, we were picked to win the East Division. Only going to reinforce further the idea that we have a bulls-eye on our back, it is also a great sign of respect from the rest of the coaches and personnel around the conference.  For your peers to vote your program to the top when it returns just 30% of our scoring and 40% of our rebounding, it says a lot about how much they respect not so much our team but our entire program, and though we will be young, our expectations will not change.

Even more surprising was the recent National Mid-Major Top 25 Pre-Season Poll that was recently released, and had us ranked at #6 in the nation! The panel, made up of 30 coaches from 23 Mid-Major Conferences across the nation, truly honored us with such a great sign of respect, ranking us so highly despite the fact that we are basically an entire new team this year.

For us to be ranked so highly after graduating those six seniors (and all their points and rebounds!) does give us a touch of pride. It is an honor knowing our program is so well-respected by our coaching peers not only in our conference but nationally as well. The only expectations higher than those of the voters is our own! It will take a lot of patience and growing pains to meet the expectations we have for ourselves, but we wouldn’t want it any other way!