Nebraska women’s basketball (1-0) hosts defending Ohio Valley Conference champion Western Illinois (1-0) Saturday at 2 p.m. CT at Pinnacle Bank Arena on B1G+, with Matt Coatney and Jeff Griesch on the Huskers Radio Network.
Who is coming in
Mia Nicastro, the reigning OVC Player of the Year, leads Western Illinois into Lincoln for the first time since 2004. The 6-foot-2 senior averaged 24.1 points and 9.8 rebounds last season for a 26-6 Leathernecks team that won the OVC Tournament and played North Carolina in the NCAA first round. She had 10 points and nine rebounds in Tuesday’s 85-55 win over Clarke.
Junior Kaylen Reed nearly notched a triple-double in that opener with 16 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. Shelby Bowman added 14 points and three threes. Coach JD Gravina is in his 16th season at Western Illinois. Nebraska’s Amy Williams is 8-1 head-to-head against him dating to her South Dakota days, with five of those wins decided by four points or fewer, per Nebraska’s notes. Current Husker assistant Jessica Keller played and served as a graduate assistant under Gravina at Quincy.
Where Nebraska stands
The Huskers opened with an 81-54 win over San Jose State. Britt Prince had 23 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals and enters Saturday with 998 career points, two away from becoming Nebraska’s 39th 1,000-point scorer. Amiah Hargrove added 15 points and nine rebounds. Natalie Potts, on the Cheryl Miller Award preseason watch list after missing nearly two full seasons with leg injuries, scored 14 with six rebounds and three steals in her return.
All 10 available Huskers scored in the opener, including McDonald’s All-American freshman Ashlyn Koupal with seven points in her regular-season debut. The only previous meeting was a 74-71 Nebraska win at the Devaney Center on Nov. 12, 2004.
Featured image: Photo: John Mac. CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:240114_Gophers_Nebraska_JohnMc016_(53469178191).jpg.
