'Melting pot': UTEP women's basketball roster set for interesting season

‘Melting pot’: UTEP women’s basketball roster set for interesting season

Posted by Admin November 2, 2024 Basketball

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Keitha Adams’ second year with the UTEP women’s basketball team, which begins against Tarleton State in the Don Haskins Center, feels more like a first season.

Even in this transfer portal era, where rosters flip yearly, this Miners team is a most interesting mix.

The team returns four lettermen and one other player while mixing eight newcomers. Of those eight new faces, one is a Division I transfer who sat out last year, three are junior college transfers and four are first-year students.

The roster has three Americans and 10 internationals from eight countries and natively speak eight languages.

“It’s a unique roster,” Adams said. “It’s a roster that’s a good foundation for the future of our program. We’ve got a lot of developing to do, a lot of growth we need to make.

“We’re truly a melting pot, and we have a lot to learn about each other. It’s a team for the future.”

As for what UTEP puts on the court Monday, Nov. 4, it will be a bit of a mystery.

“Right now, there are more questions I have about our team than answers, but in the next few months, that’s where we’ll learn a lot about our team and players,” Adams said.

The four returners who played last year are an excellent place to start. Delma Zita and Ivane Tensaie, the only seniors on the roster, shared the point guard position, while forward Luisa Vydrova emerged late as a starter during her true freshman season. She averaged 15 points in UTEP’s two Conference USA tournament games.

Forward Dunja Zecevic also showed flashes in her freshman season; those four are expected to be team leaders.

The biggest addition by resume is guard Portia Adams, who sat out last season after taking a star turn at Lamar University. She averaged 13.4 points as a sophomore in 2022-23 and will shoulder a big load in her first season at UTEP.

“I told her, ‘We’re going to go as you go,'” Keitha Adams said of Portia Adams. “Sometimes there are one or two players, how they are affects how the team rolls.

“Portia is a big part of that. When she’s had a bad practice, we’ve had a bad practice. When she’s had a good practice, guess what, we’ve had a good practice. The good thing is, Portia wants to be a leader, she likes that. It’s a natural thing for her. …

“We’ll go as Portia goes.”

Portia Adams said she’s never been on a team quite like this and she likes it.

“It’s a challenge sometimes because we all speak different languages,” she said. “But that’s fun; it’s fun to get to know different cultures and different languages. It’s fun to play with each other. We’ve bonded and we’re ready to play.”

Vydrova built off that.

“We have a lot of international players so everyone has a different culture, we all behave a little differently,” she said. “That’s something interesting about our team and brings us together.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Keitha Adams stressed communication as the team’s biggest area of growth.

“We’ve got to learn our basketball vocabulary,” she said. “It’s like I need to make a list, ‘These are the things we need to be saying down there.’ I need to get them talking more. The thing I haven’t been happy with is our communication, but we’ll get better at that.”

Of the other newcomers, the ones to make the quickest impact could be Ndack Mbengue, a transfer from Cowley College (Kansas) who averaged 12.5 points and 10.4 rebounds last year, and true freshmen Mary Moses Amaniyo from Uganda and Irene Asensio from Spain.

Keitha Adams said a reasonable goal for this team is a top-four finish in the 10-team CUSA, three spots higher than they were picked in the preseason poll.

“In a lot of ways, it feels like we’re starting over because we have so many new players,” Adams said. “But we have a core that played and a lot of new players we’re blending in. It feels like a whole new team.

“That’s exciting and exciting for the future, but at the same time, it’s stressful because there’s a lot to get done.”

That journey starts Monday morning at the Don Haskins Center against Tarleton State.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

UTEP women’s basketball 2024-25 schedule

Home games in bold

Date	Day	Opponent	Location
Nov. 4	Monday	Tarleton State &	Don Haskins Center
Nov. 10	Sunday	Morehead State	Don Haskins Center
Nov. 16	Saturday	UTSA	Don Haskins Center
Nov. 23	Saturday	New Mexico Highlands	Don Haskins Center
Nov. 26	Tuesday	at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi	Corpus Christi, TX
Dec. 5	Thursday	Brigham Young	Don Haskins Center
Dec. 8	Sunday	at Portland	Portland
Dec. 14	Saturday	at Utah Tech &	St. George, UT
Dec. 16	Monday	at Colorado State	Fort Collins, CO
Dec. 19	Thursday	Arkansas Pine Bluff	Don Haskins Center
Dec. 30	Monday	Eastern New Mexico	Don Haskins Center
Jan. 2	Thursday	at Louisiana Tech *	Ruston, LA
Jan. 4	Saturday	at Sam Houston *	Huntsville, TX
Jan. 11	Saturday	at New Mexico State *	Las Cruces, NM
Jan. 16	Thursday	Liberty *	Don Haskins Center
Jan. 18	Saturday	Florida International *	Don Haskins Center
Jan. 23	Thursday	at Jacksonville State *	Jacksonville, Ala
Jan. 25	Saturday	at Kennesaw State *	Kennesaw, GA
Jan. 30	Thursday	Western Kentucky *	Don Haskins Center
Feb. 1	Saturday	Middle Tennessee *	Don Haskins Center
Feb. 8	Saturday	New Mexico State *	Don Haskins Center
Feb. 13	Thursday	at Florida International *	Miami, FL
Feb. 15	Saturday	at Liberty *	Lynchburg, VA
Feb. 20	Thursday	Kennesaw State *	Don Haskins Center
Feb. 22	Saturday	Jacksonville State *	Don Haskins Center
Feb. 27	Thursday	at Western Kentucky *	Bowling Green, KY
March 1	Saturday	at Middle Tennessee *	Murfreesboro, TN
March 6	Thursday	Sam Houston *	Don Haskins Center
March 8	Saturday	Louisiana Tech *	Don Haskins Center