WB2K23: Opening Night 4

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Tonight is the opening night of the season for NCAA women's basketball. Enjoy a peak of some of the games and players to watch as we await the tip-off the 2022-23 season.

Delaware at Longwood

Delaware has lost a lot of its top talent from the previous season where it finished 24-8 with an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Forward Makayla Pippin returns for the Blue Hens after a sophomore season that saw her grab 4.5 rebounds in 14.3 minutes per game. Pippin had three games with 10 or more boards. She yanked away 16 rebounds in an early season win over Charlotte. Her lone double-double of the season came in a win over Elon where she had 14 boards and 11 points. The 5-11 native of Indianapolis, Indiana also had a 10-rebound, nine-point outing against Hofstra. Last season was her first at Delaware after competing at Kansas State as a freshman.

Longwood will host Delaware where Janay Turner will make her debut for the Lancers. Turner had a slow start last season at Norfolk State scoring 12 points in her first five games. One of those games was an 11-point effort against No. 17 Ohio State. Later in the season Turner got hot draining four threes in four of six games from Jan. 29 - Feb. 14. Her team went 5-1 during that stretch. In a late season win over Delaware State, Turner scored 20 points on 8-13 overall shooting. She also scored 17 points while shooting 4-6 from three against Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Stony Brook at Syracuse

Dyaisha Fair may be 5-5, but her scoring numbers are gigantic. Prior to attending Syracuse, she has scored 2,035 points in just three seasons and 88 games at Buffalo. Fair averaged a career best 24.1 points during her sophomore season in 2020-21. Last year she scored an average of 23.4 points per game while connecting on a career best 36.8 percent of her shots from three. Fair had at least 30 points in seven contests last season. She posted 40 points in 40 minutes in a road win against Bowling Green. Earlier in the season she actually faced Syracuse and posted 34 points in an 88-79 win. Fair ended her career at Buffalo in prime fashion, leading the Bulls to a Mid-American Conference Tournament win where she posted 30 points and six assists. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament she scored 25 points with seven assists against Tennessee.

On the other side of the court, 5-8 guard Anastasia Warren will be waiting to show out for the Stony Brook Seawolves. Warren averaged a career best 12.1 points per game in her fourth season last year. The Atlanta, Georgia native scored her season high of 29 points in the second game of the season, a road win over Longwood. She made five of her eight three-point shots and was a perfect 8-8 from the free-throw line. She had six games where she made at least three shots from beyond the arc.

Coastal Carolina at Georgia

After an impressive career at UCF, Diamond Battles now heads to Georgia where she will make her debut as a Bulldog against Coastal Carolina. Battles was the American Athletic Conference Player of the Year, the American Conference Defensive Player of the Year and the American Athletic Conference Tournament's Most Outstanding Player. She averaged a career best 13.9 points and shot a career high 36 percent from three-point land. She led UCF to a first-round NCAA Tournament win over Florida as she recorded 18 points, seven assists and four rebounds.

Arin Freeman is a sophomore point guard who returns to run the floor for Coastal Carolina. As a freshman she started 25 of her 26 appearances and averaged nine points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game. A product of Little Rock, Arkansas, Freeman scored a season high of 29 points on 10-16 shooting in a win against Radford. She posted her lone double-double of the season when she scored 16 points with 11 rebounds in a victory over South Alabama.