Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 2 | October 2019

inside.hokiesports.com 23 Top Storylines 5 by Jimmy Robertson F or the third consecutive season under head coach Kenny Brooks, the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team won at least 20 games, continuing Brooks’ trend of winning 20 games a year for each of the past 14 seasons. Tech’s players and staff wanted to receive an NCAA Tournament bid, but injuries and a subsequent lack of depth led to too many conference losses and a WNIT bid for a fourth consecutive season. Looking to the 2019-20 season, Tech will be in transition, as two of the greatest players in program history departed—Regan Magarity and Taylor Emery—along with three other seniors. Also, Tech’s current roster features four true freshmen, two graduate transfers, a redshirt freshman, a transfer, and a junior college transfer —none of whom played for the Hokies in 2018-19. So, what can fans expect this season? Here are the top five storylines for the 2019-20 campaign: Who picks up the scoring production? 1 Taylor and Magarity combined to score 1,126 of the Hokies’ 2,462 points in 2018-19, or approximately 46 percent of the Hokies’ production. In fact, they combined to score nearly 3,000 points in their careers. So Tech needs for several players to produce to reach that level, and doing so probably starts with Dara Mabrey and Trinity Baptiste. Both averaged in double figures last season, with Mabrey scoring 11.2 per game and Baptiste adding 10.4. But even a scoring increase of 15 percent from those two leaves the Hokies well short of replacing Taylor and Magarity. Graduate transfers such as Taja Cole and Lydia Rivers and the newcomers will have to produce. 2 Who picks up the rebounding production? Magarity simply was the best rebounder in program history. She finished with 1,299 career rebounds—the most in school and ACC history. Behind her, Tech finished fifth in the ACC in rebounding margin at plus-5.1, so Brooks and his assistants know that they need to replace that. Fortunately, there are some candidates. Baptiste averaged 7.6 rebounds per game last season, and Rivers, who graduated and transferred from nearby Radford, averaged 12.2 per game. Elizabeth Kitley andAlexObouh Fegue bring size at 6-foot-5 and 6-4, respectively. Tech’s roster features seven players taller than 6-foot, giving Brooks one of the biggest teams of his coaching career. season preview WOmen’s basketball trinity baptiste Continued on page 24