Comings and Goings: Liberty 2016-17

We're back with another installment of Comings and Goings looking at Liberty. Tech on deck (hey, that rhymes!). We promise we'll get to your school if we haven't!

The series so far:

Richmond: Comings and Goings
Virginia: Comings and Goings
George Mason: Comings and Goings
William and Mary: Comings and Goings
James Madison: Comings and Goings

Goings:

Katelyn Adams: The 6-5 post has graduated. She averaged 7.2 points and a team-high 8.7 boards as a senior.
Sadalia Ellis: The 5-6 guard graduated. She averaged 9.1 points per game and hit double-digits a team-high 16 times. Also led the team in assists with 92.
Catharine Kearney: The 6-6 center has graduated. Put up 9.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game last year, both second on the team. Finished strong, landing on the Big South All-Tournament team.
Candice Leatherwood: The 5-6 guard started a dozen games as a sophomore and averaged 4.7 points. She has transferred to Sacred Heart in Connecticut.
Ashley Rininger: The 6-4 forward has graduated (and then some). She averaged a team-high 11.2 points last year despite a knee injury that cost her nine games and her starting job. She earned her bachelor's degree (in criminal justice) in just three years, so she leaves the program with a master's in human services counseling. She is currently pursuing a second master's. All with a 4.0 GPA. You hate to see someone like this go.
Jayme Fisher-Davis: The 5-7 guard graduated. She played in every game last year, starting 11, and averaged 5.7 points. She's a 3-point specialist who hits 84 percent of her free throws (and holds the school record for consecutive free throws made with 26).
Brooke Alexander: The 6-foot guard-forward transferred to UT-Arlington. She's a Texas girl, headed homeward. She started 16 games last year but averaged just 3.3 points.
Mikal Johnson: A 5-8 guard, she started a dozen games as a redshirt junior last year and averaged 2.0 points. She has transferred to Mount Saint Mary.
Mickayla Sanders: The 6-foot forward is no longer listed on the Liberty roster. She averaged 7.8 points last year as a junior.


Comings:

Nene Johnson: A 5-8 junior guard and juco transfer from Eastern Florida State College, where last year she averaged a team-high 14.3 points and 6 assists per game.
Keyen Green: A 6-1 freshman forward from Philadelphia, where she was the first player in Phil-Mont Christian Academy history to compile 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.
Iva Ilic: A 5-7 freshman guard from Croatia. Played on the U-18 Croatian national team. Career goal is to be a diplomat.

Lela Sellers on signing day

Kaila Ballard: A 5-11 guard-forward from Gatesville, N.C., she  has been practicing with the Flames since January, after completing her high school graduation requirements early. Averaged a double-double for three years in high school.
Kierra Johnson-Graham: A 5-11 freshman guard-forward from Atlanta. Starred on a Tucker High School team that went undefeated her junior year and was state runner-up last year.
Ola Makurat: A 6-1 freshman guard-forward from Poland. Played with the U-18 and U-20 Polish national teams, and her mother had played on the Polish national team. Ola graduated from someplace called Sports Championship School in Warsaw, which certainly sounds impressive.
Lela Sellers: A 6-foot guard-forward from Cedar Rapids, Iowa (where she played her last two years of high school ball, though she still lists Lakeville, Minnesota as her hometown).
Kaitlyn Stovall: A 6-3 post, she sat out last season as a redshirt and will be a freshman this year. Home-schooler from Hopewell who won an AAU national championship with her Boo Williams Summer League team as a high school freshman. Majoring in American Sign Language and Interpreting, which is pretty cool.

Yes, coaches love to chatter about being young no matter who's on the roster, but Carey Green isn't even bending the truth a little when he talks about the youth of this Liberty team, which has a roster of players who have made a total of five career starts.

To be precise, that's two players, Audrey Rettstatt (three starts) and Sheana Vega (two starts). The Lady Flames lost 90.6 percent of their scoring from last season with KK Barbour returning as the leader scorer and rebounder -- that's 65 points and 61 rebounds -- total.

Green's ability to sub big after big into the rotation has been a luxury for years and will be one missing this season.

Personnel changes will mean a smaller, quicker guard-oriented lineup that will seek to keep Liberty at its usual place, atop the Big South. Green foresees a better shooting team than in the past, but doesn't have a good assessment of who will come up big in terms of stat lines for the Lady Flames.

"Success will come by committee," he said, noting transfer Nene Johnson brings much needed experience at the point.

Injuries cloud the picture. Rettstatt is coming off ACL surgery and along with Barbour and Ballard have not been released. All are expected to play a role, but will have to play catchup to get up to speed.

Among the newbies, Sellers comes is as a touted recruit who developed a mid-range game in high school, where she was also a track star.  (We like her because she likes pugs and so do we.) She compared her signing at Liberty with the feeling of opening a pile of presents on Christmas or your birthday, and we look forward to what she will give to the Lady Flames. She turned down offers from Arkansas and Indiana.

If you think Green is worried about his inexperienced roster, banish the thought. He likes the energy and work ethic he's seen thus far and stresses "faith over fear," noting, "I've already fallen in love with this team."

Season opener: Duke, Nov. 11 at the Vines Center

Comings and goings IX: Liberty

Brooke Alexander

We move along with Part IX of Comings and goings with Liberty.

The rest of the series:

Comings and Goings: Old Dominion
Comings and Goings: Richmond
Comings and Goings: George Mason
Comings and Goings: Virginia
Comings and Goings: Virginia Tech
Comings and Goings: William and Mary
Comings and Goings: VCU


Who's going

Karly Buer: 5-7 G, 11.6 ppg, second leading scorer on the team last year;
Jasmine Gardner: 6-2 F/C, started 2 games, averaged 4.4 ppg
Ellee Rollins: 5-7 G, played 97 minutes last year, averaging 0.7 ppg
Emily Frazier: 5-7 G, started 16 games, averaging 4.9 ppg
Simone Brown: 5-11 F, started 26 games last year as a sophomore, averaging 7.5 ppg, transferring to University of North Florida near her home in Land O' Lakes, Fla.

Buer played just one year at Liberty after graduating from Missouri State, but sparked the Lady Flames from the 3-point line and was a key cog in the team's Big South championship and near upset of North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Brown will sit out next season for the Ospreys per NCAA transfer rules and have two years of eligibility remaining.

Who's coming

Brooke Alexander: 6-0 F Frisco, Texas (Prestonwood Christian Academy), averaged 13.5 ppg for first-ever state champion Prestonwood Christian in 2014 and also led team in assists, steals and 3-pointers made; team reached state final in 2015; TAPPS 5A all-state as a junior and senior; finalist for her school's Athlete of the Year award, generated interest from Texas A&M and Arizona among others
Keturah "KK" Barbour: 6-1 F, Charlottesville, Va. (Albemarle High); All-time leading scorer at Albemarle, amassing more than 1,200 points; averaged 23.8 ppg and 10.2 rpg as a senior; cousin to former VCU player Andrea Barbour
Stephanie Patton: 5-9 G, Hiawassee Ga.. (Hayesville High); amassed nearly 1,400 career points and 193 treys; transferred from Towns County High in Georgia to Hayesville midway through her junior season; at Towns County, set freshman class scoring record (326 points) and was the Georgia Class A state golf runner-up
Molly Reagan: 6-2 F/C, Braintree, Mass. (Braintree High); led Braintree to a 24-1 record and Massachusetts Division 1 state championship as a junior; selected Liberty over Yale, Dartmouth and Princeton; one of three Division I players at Braintree (Ashley Russell (Penn) and Bridget Herlihy (Villanova)); the three were 95-7 at their high school with two state titles
Kaitlyn Stovall: 6-3 F/G, Hopewell, Va. (Home-schooled), played high school ball at TPLS Christian Academy in Midlothian; part of BWSL AAU team that won a national title her freshman year and was national runner-up her sophomore year

Kudos to Carey Green and staff for what looks to be a recruiting class full of bigs that will leave an impact at Liberty. Reagan's basketball IQ looks to match her academic smarts, and we're excited to see Liberty get a near-local in Barbour. With the return of Ashley Rininger (12.8 ppg, .518 FG percentage) and a cast that includes Sadalia Ellis, Emily Frazier and Katelyn Adams, we expect the Lady Flames to make their usual run to a Big South championship and earn a 17th trip to the national tournament.

Thanksgiving blessings from Liberty

Thanksgiving blessings from Liberty and coach Carey Green. Wishing the Lady Flames everything good for today's 2 p.m. game against Penn State in the Georgia State Thanksgiving Tournament.

Liberty's Warley excited about her new job: center for the Phoenix Mercury

Her mother was speechless. And two days after making the roster of the Phoenix Mercury, Liberty graduate Avery Warley still found it hard to put together a sentence about what it all means.

"I think the most, the best word is, I'm just excited," a giddy Warley said. "I'm anxious. I'm just so, I'm speechless. The way it happened..."

Yep, that was pretty special. Warley is one of three free agents who survived final roster cuts last week. She will wear No. 23 for the Mercury, who open the season on Sunday at Minnesota at 12:30 p.m. The game will be televised by ABC.

This is a league where jobs are scarce, where first-round draft picks find themselves unemployed. Warley is grateful her agent found the opportunity in Phoenix and soon afterward, she was on a plane to training camp.

"My main goal was to show them everything that I had so I had no regrets," Warley said. "I had to show them everything my game had, so if I was to get cut, there was never, 'I should have done this. I could have done that.' I had to focus on what I could control. I couldn't control the decision. It turned out pretty good for me."

Agreed. In addition to the 6-3 center, only Aneika Henry (Atlanta) and Ziomara Morrison (San Antonio) made rosters as free agents. Warley felt good from the start, showing off the kind of rebounding prowess that distinguished her at Liberty, where her 1,282 career boards ranks first all time. In an exhibition against the Japanese national team on May 8, Warley scored eight with 13 boards.

"I definitely saw I could fit in with this team. I saw the chemistry I had with them," Warley said. "They play my type of basketball. Mostly I saw a lot of me in this team, and that gave me a lot of confidence."

Still, nothing was a given until Warley got the good word from team president and COO Amber Cox. That happened on Wednesday, one day before Warley turned 25.

As the team was preparing for media day, Cox welcomed her to the fold.

"I knew it was coming down to clutch," Warley said. "I just waited and was very patient, and when I came down for media day, she said congratulations to me."

Warley's first call was to her mother in Washington, D.C.

"She was so speechless," Warley said.  "I think she started crying. She had to sit down and process it. It was a good feeling all the way from Washington, D.C. to Arizona."

One of her new teammates is perhaps the most talented basketball player in the world: Diana Taurasi.

"She is an awesome person," Warley said. "I just talked to her and she was giving me words of wisdom, so I'm definitely in soaking in everything she tells me."

Mom has already circled July 1, when the Washington Mystics host the Mercury. Warley says everything that happened has been a highlight. She's learning to live the life of a professional basketball player, which is devoid of the distractions and responsibilities that come with being a collegiate athlete.

"It's nothing like being in college," said Warley, who is three classes shy of completing her master's in psychology. "It's not so structured. All you focus on is basketball, not homework or going to study hall. Now I can focus on basketball. This is what I do. It's my job."

No surprise, Warley remains humble about all of it.

"It is all God. I have no parts in it at all," she said. "I definitely worked really really hard when I got here. God always rewards hard work

Liberty bows out to Notre Dame in NCAA Tournament

You wonder what would have happened if Liberty had faced the Irish on St. Patrick's Day.....

But luck had nothing to do with this one, which was more about No. 16 seed Liberty pitted against the NCAA runner-up in its own building with a team that has all the talent to be a national champion. We'll spare you the detail other than the Irish scored the first 11 and outscored the Lady Flames 44-19 in the first for an end result of  74-43.

We take this chance to salute the marvelous collegiate career of Avery Warley, who leaves Liberty as the Big South Conference's all-time leading rebounder with 1,282 boards. Warley also tied the Big South career record with her 132nd game played.

As for the Lady Flames (24-9), all they did was win their 14th Big South title in the last 16 years. The first goal of every team is to rule their own conference, and no Division I team does this with as much regularity as Liberty.

The trick now is to do a bit more in the non-conference schedule to avoid the type of NCAA Tournament seeding that makes it difficult to advance. This year, for example, since Notre Dame was the only No. 1 seed that hosted the first two rounds, a case can be made that the Lady Flames drew the toughest opening-game assignment in the entire tournament.

While it will be impossible to replace Warley, there are plenty of reasons why Liberty could make some early season noise. For the first time in three years, the Lady Flames should start the season with an experienced point guard. And they still have Devon Brown, who overcame personal tragedy to put together another first-team All-Big South campaign and often played her best in Liberty's biggest games. Brown had 24 points and a career-high 14 rebounds in the Lady Flames' come-from-behind 81-73 victory over High Point in the Big South title game. She even distinguished herself in Sunday's NCAA Tournament loss to Notre Dame, finishing with a game-high 16 points.

Liberty takes Big South title

They split during the regular season, but the one that counts belongs to Liberty. The Lady Flames (24-8) won their 14th Big South Tournament, defeating High Point 81-73. With that, they receive the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Devon Brown led the top seed with 24 points and 14 rebounds, followed by Averly Warley with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Reagan Miller added 15 points and eight assists, and gave Liberty the lead for good at 57-56 with 8 1/2 minutes left.

"We have been through some diversities behind the scenes, but we're not here to talk about that," said Liberty coach Carey Green. "They stayed focused and concentrated.  This game was a typical game of what we've had to do all year.  We have some great players and some great contributions coming off the bench.  The efforts they gave and experience they have in the past gave us the opportunity to open the door for this win."

Cheyenne Parker, who led High Point in scoring and rebounding this season, fouled out, her fifth being a technical, with 4:39 left.

Liberty is the first No. 1 seed to win the championship since 2009. And we hope to see the Flames in nearby Norfolk for first and second rounds!

Postcard from Liberty's Megan Frazee

Today's postcard is from former Liberty player Megan Frazee, who has spent the last 13 weeks playing for CCC Polkowice in Poland. Frazee is averaging 11.2 ppg, shooting 51 percent, and 3.9 rpg; CCC Polkowice is 15-7. Megan is one of two Americans on the team along with former Virginia sharpshooter Sharnee Zoll. We checked out the blog she references below, and it is awesome.

And we're especially excited as today Megan is flying home for Christmas!!


 My experience in Poland has been great so far :). I am in Polkowice, Poland which is a very small town. It has been great though, because my previous two years overseas I was playing in big cities, so it is nice to have peace and quiet.

The team I am playing for this year is CCC Polkowice. We also play in Euroleague, so it is keep us busy. Our typical schedule is a game on Wednesday and a game on Saturday. It has been a lot of FUN traveling to see different countries. We have gone to Russia, Hungary, Spain, and Turkey so far this season.

It is different being in a new culture with a different language, but I have had a blast. I would love to learn a new language sometime, but I am not sure if it will be Polish.

Sometimes it can be hard being away from family and friends, but what a unique opportunity I have been given to play a sport that I love :)

I keep a blog while I am over here:
http://meganfrazee.weebly.com/blog.html


I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Megan

Summitt in Norfolk? Hampton vs. Stanford? Don't rule it out



Coming to town?



With the season turning a whole week old on Friday, ESPN Charlie Creme has unveiled his inaugural Bracketology.

*The lowdown: No. 1s go to Baylor, Stanford, Tennessee and Notre Dame. For what it's worth UConn is a 2 in Bridgeport. What, can't they play every game in Storrs or Hartford?

*Creme gives Hampton a 16, sending the Pirates to Ames to slay Stanford. We'd like to think the Pirates can do better than a 16.

*Creme gives Liberty a 14; we can't argue with that at this point.

*His nod goes to Delaware as CAA champion, which he prognosticates would make the Blue Hens an 11. Delaware's nonconference slate doesn't overwhelm us, but they could do a lot by knocking off Penn State tonight. The marquee opponent on the sked is Maryland in the Terrapin Classic after the holidays (yes, we're assuming the Terps beat Lafayette first).

*Pat Summitt in Norfolk? Remember the Constant Center is hosting NCAA Tournament first and second rounds. If Creme is right on, Pat Summitt will bring her Lady Vols here. Given what this season represents for Summitt and her program, we'd be giddy to see that happen.

Liberty, Warley top Big South preseason rankings

Death, taxes, Liberty being picked to win the Big South...some things just seem inevitable.

For the 14th time in 15 years, the Lady Flames are the preseason No. 1 in the conference's poll of coaches and selected media. Liberty got 19 of 20 first-place votes; we'd love to know the identity of the one voter who tabbed High Point first. Not that that's a crazy pick. We'd just like to know who it is.

Radford, the No. 2 seed in last year's Big South Tournament, was picked third, followed by 2011 conference tournament champion Gardner-Webb. Big South newcomer Campbell came in sixth.

The poll results

1. Liberty
2. High Point
3. Radford
4. Gardner-Webb
5. Winthrop
6. Campbell
7. Charleston Southern
8. Coastal Carolina
9. Presbyterian
10. UNC Asheville

Meanwhile, Lady Flames star and soon-to-be U.S. Pan Am Games team member Avery Warley was voted Big South Preseason Player of the Year. Warley is joined on the first team by teammate Devon Brown, Radford's Da'Naria Erwin Spencer, High Point's Shamia Brown and Winthrop's Dequesha McClanahan. Warley, Brown and Erwin Spencer were first-team all-league picks last season; McClanahan was the 2011 conference freshman of the year.

Liberty tabs Boruta to round out coaching staff

Liberty's new director of operations sounds like she'll be good for the Lady Flames, and good for folks like us, too.

The Lady Flames are excited about Sarah Boruta because, after spending the past three years at mighty Stanford, it's clear she knows a thing or two about successful programs. We're excited because it sounds like Boruta is a social media whiz. Her credentials along these lines are impeccable - Boruta owns associate degrees in web media and visual design and a bachelor's in graphic design in addition to a master's in sports management. With her spearheading Stanford's promotional agenda, the Cardinal saw an 18 percent spike in attendance and a 340-percent rise in student attendance during her time on the Farm.

Now, it's one thing to generate interest in a glamour program like Stanford, quite another to boost the profile of a mid-major like Liberty.  I mean, Candice Wiggins and Jayne Appel aren't walking through that door. Then again, Liberty is kind of the Stanford of the Big South (13 titles in 15 years), so who knows?

Anyway, we figure someone with Boruta's skills will definitely make it easier to know what's up with the Lady Flames this season and beyond. We've never met the woman. But Coach Carey Green, we approve of this hire (Bet you'll sleep much better tonight knowing we have your back).

Boruta replaces Adam Deyo, who accepted an assistant coaching position at Tennessee Tech after eight years at Liberty, the last six as director of ops. It's the latest in a series of coaching shuffles during a turbulent offseason for the brains behind several of the state's Division I programs. Following is a list of the 2010/11 coaches that have moved on and landed other gigs:

VIRGINIA

Angel Elderkin – director of video operations, LSU

Wendy Palmer – head coach, UNC Greensboro

Bethany Dannelly (assistant director of operations) - assistant coach, Colby College

VIRGINIA TECH

Beth Dunkenberger - director of operations, Tulane

Shellie Greenman – assistant coach, Tennessee Tech

Stacy Cantley - assistant coach, Wisconsin

Angela Crosby - assistant coach, Charlotte

Jill Jameson (director of operations) - director of operations, Wisconsin

OLD DOMINION

Belle Koclanes - assistant coach, American

Celeste Hill-Brockett - working in Covington, (Kent.) school district

LIBERTY

Adam Deyo (director of operations) - assistant coach, Tennessee Tech

LONGWOOD

Gayle Coats - assistant coach, UNC Greensboro

RADFORD

Keith McCray - assistant coach, UNC Greensboro

Reflection: Liberty

Avery Warley

2010-11 season: 22-11. Lost in the Big South Tournament championship to Gardner-Webb 67-66; Lost in the first round of the WNIT to Charlotte, 62-56

Who's leaving: Dymond Morgan 4.3 ppg, 1.9 rpg; Rachel McLeod 2.5 ppg, 1.1 rpg; Kittery Maine 1.5 ppg, 1.4 rpg

Who's coming: Katelyn Adams, 6-5 forward/center, Minnehaha Academy (Minn.): Defending state champion Minnehaha was state runner-up in Class AA; Adams played in the MCBCA All-Star game; Catherine Kearney, 6-5 center, Gloucester County Christian (N.J.): Averaged 27.1 ppg, amassing 569 points her senior year;Off an assist by sister Sarah, Catherine scored her 2,000th point, the only player in Tri-State Christian Athletic Conference with that distinction; Reagan Miller, 5-7 guard, Sanger (Texas): Led Sanger to a District 9-3A title; Competed   in the Class 3A-under game and in the Texas Girls Coaches Association All-Star Game; MVP 9-3A District; Ashley Rininger, 6-4 center, Glenoak (Ohio): Honorable mention AP Divison I All-Ohio, Averaged 14.6 ppg and 9.9 rpg her senior year; Carries a 4.14 GPA

High point: A 59-57 win at VCU, the regular-season sweep of Gardner-Webb and a top seed-clinching 72-58 decision over UNC Asheville were all highlights. But our favorite result was a 75-71 win over Longwood in which Devon Brown scored 21of her 27 points in the second half to rally the Flames from a 10-point deficit.

Low point: A 50-48 loss at North Carolina Central (RPI 325), a defeat that has to rank among the worst in the program's Division I history.

Stock: Holding steady.

Given that virtually everyone was returning from a 27-win, NCAA Tournament team, a Big South tournament runner-up that loses in the first round of the WNIT wasn't exactly what Liberty coach Carey Green - or anyone else for that matter - had in mind. He elevated the schedule, but do you think he even would have guessed that Liberty would square off against eventual national champ Texas A&M and Final Four participant Baylor?

Losses to that caliber of team don't hurt you. Unfortunately for the Lady Flames, those other losses got in the way of the type of marquee season Liberty seemed destined for. The first hurdle wasn't an opponent, it was Devon Brown. A first-team All-Big South performer as a freshman in 2009-10, Brown missed the first seven games with a knee injury and a nagging dancer's toe injury. Liberty's offense suffered; the sophomore guard wasn't in the lineup for either Texas A&M or Baylor, games when they managed 49 and 42 points of offense, respectively.

Even with Brown back, Liberty didn't dominate the Big South in typical fashion. Radford stunned Liberty, which committed 21-second half turnovers that led to the first Highlanders victory at the Vines Center since 1996. The string of 28 consecutive victories over Charleston-Southern came to an end with a 54-51 Lady Buccaneers win in February. And then the biggest disappointment of them all, a one-point loss by the top seeds to Gardner-Webb in the Big South title game -- Liberty's first-ever loss in 14 trips to the tournament final.

Turnovers are the telling stat for Liberty. The Lady Flames ranked 299th in Division I in this category (20.5 per game). That's a ton of empty possessions and more than anything else defined why the Flames ended their season wondering "what if?" In his fine season-ending recap of the Liberty season, the News and Advance's Chris Lang pointed out that Liberty was 16-0 when it committed fewer than 20 turnovers in a game; 6-11 with 20 or more.

The natural tendency when seeing turnover numbers like Liberty's is to wonder what's up with the point guard. And granted, Liberty did heap a lot of responsibility on freshman Emily Frazier. But coughing the ball up as much as Liberty did can't be the work of just one player. Turnovers were a team-wide deficiency at Liberty, and everyone needs to apply the attention to detail to curb the problem.

Assuming they can, we're bullish on Liberty's chances of returning to their accustomed spot atop the conference. Avery Warley enjoyed a breakout season, just like Brown did in 2009-10. If Brown can get a clean bill of health and return to that form, Liberty could boast the two best players in the league.

In addition, even in a relative down year Liberty maintained its reputation as beasts of the backboards (No. 2 in Division I in rebounding margin). With 6-4, 6-5 and 6-5 recruits coming in, it's as though Green has taken out another four-year lease on rebounding dominance.

Despite a negative assist-turnover ratio, Frazier showed plenty of promise in her trial-by-fire debut season. With a full campaign under her belt, she figures to play more confidently at the point. And while the loss of Maine, McLeod and Morgan - seniors who were part of a program-record 101 victories - definitely creates a leadership void, Liberty shouldn't have much trouble replacing their on-court production.

In other words, Liberty appears to have everything in place to beat everyone in the Big South and just about anyone on their schedule (assuming they're not headed back to Waco and College Station). That is, if they can learn to stop beating themselves.