All-American Ay You Dias leads top pick EOU
Eastern Oregon University Picked to Win Women’s Basketball Title
LA GRANDE, Ore. – With a share of the regular season title and a tournament championship to defend, the Eastern Oregon University women’s basketball program has earned the top spot in the 2017-18 Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) preseason coaches’ poll.
The Mountaineers received nine first place votes and a total of 118 points. Eastern finished last year 30-5 overall, 18-2 in conference play, sharing the regular season title with Southern Oregon University and went on to the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Tournament before being eliminated. It was the third time EOU, under veteran coach Anji Weissenfluh, made a run to the quarterfinals at the NAIA tourney. Weissenfluh enters her 18
th season and is the winningest coach in Mountaineer hoops history. Junior All-American Maya Ah You Dias returns to lead the team.
Southern Oregon University landed in second place on the poll with 105 points and two first place votes. The Raiders finished 27-5 overall and 18-2 in conference. Last year the tiebreakers came down to a coin flip for seeding with SOU receiving the No. 1 slot in the tournament. A solid SOU squad, led by 2015-16 CCC Defensive Player of the Year Toria Bradford, should compete for the top spot despite needing to replace 2016-17 Player of the year Autumn Durand.
Northwest Christian University is picked third with 94 points followed by Oregon Tech (90) in fourth, Northwest University (78) in fifth and Corban University (71) in sixth.
The College of Idaho landed at number seven with 54 points in the preseason poll. Rounding out the remaining teams are The Evergreen State College (38), Multnomah University (34), Warner Pacific College (32) and Walla Walla University (12).
Full Conference play is set to begin December 1-2.
2017-18 CCC Women's Basketball Coaches' Preseason Poll
|
Team |
Points |
16-17 CCC |
16-17 Overall |
| 1. |
Eastern Oregon (9) |
118 |
18-2 |
30-5 |
| 2. |
Southern Oregon (2) |
105 |
18-2 |
27-5 |
| 3. |
Northwest Christian |
94 |
14-6 |
17-11 |
| 4. |
Oregon Tech |
90 |
16-4 |
24-9 |
| 5. |
Northwest |
78 |
10-10 |
15-16 |
| 6. |
Corban |
71 |
8-12 |
14-15 |
| 7. |
College of Idaho |
54 |
12-8 |
13-15 |
| 8. |
Evergreen |
38 |
6-14 |
7-20 |
| 9. |
Multnomah |
34 |
6-14 |
8-21 |
| 10. |
Warner Pacific |
32 |
2-18 |
4-26 |
| 11. |
Walla Walla |
12 |
0-20 |
2-24 |
The NAIA women’s basketball preseason poll will be released October 24th.