Between November and March, the Lady Bucs have some exciting games to play. The Lady Bucs will be led by returning senior Tiffani Mayes, sophomore Brooke Wilhoit and junior BJ Banjo.
Mayes was voted on to the 2004 All- Southern Conference First Team. Wilhoit was voted on to the 2004 All-Freshman Selection Team.
The Lady Bucs will be starting off with Temple at home.
Temple comes in as the defending Atlantic 10 Champions and has again been voted the preseason favorite to win the conference.
Candice Dupree, who leads Temple, was picked to both the Atlantic 10 Conference first team and defensive team after last year’s performance including averaging 13.9 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.
The ladies will then be at Old Dominion, who has received a 38th AP preseason ranking. Old Dominion faces the fourth toughest non-conference schedule in the nation including games against Purdue, Penn State and No. 1 ranked Tennessee.
The Lady Bucs then will travel to Elon for their first conference game of the year and hopefully revenge after Elon eliminated the Lady Bucs from the conference tournament in the quarterfinals last year.
Wilhoit the returning point guard returns amdist high expectations from Kemp and team.
During winter break, the Lady Bucs will have several more crucial games.
On Dec. 20, the Lady Bucs will face Furman. Furman came in second in conference voting.
Senior Jen Nadalin and junior Tommi Paris led the Lady Paladins last season at Furman to a second place conference finish.
2004 Freshman of the Year Katie Hamilton and her Georgia Southern girls will then come to the dome.
Georgia Southern was able to pull out a fourth place finish in preseason voting after beating Davidson by three votes.
Then between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 the Lady Bucs will play host to both Mississippi State and UT Chattanooga.
Seniors Lawrence Roberts and Tan White will lead the Lady Bulldogs this season after being chosen as preseason candidates for the Naismith Trophy.
Next the Lady Bucs will play cross-state rival UT Chattanooga.
UTC has once again been named the preseason Conference Champions for a fifth consecutive time thanks to Katasha Brown, who was named the 2003 Player of the Year and Tournament Most Outstanding Player last year.
The match, an annual rivalry, will be played for the last time this year because of ETSU’s moving out of the SoCon. The game will be on the mind of every player all season.
“Chattanooga is who is everybody wants to beat,” said ETSU coach Karen Kemp, while Mayes said, “I’ve been thinking about them a lot, they’re our target.”
Chattanooga won both games last year, 72-54 in early January, and then 95-62 at the end of January.
Next the Lady Bucs will face the rest of the SoCon including tough games at Furman in late January and at Appalachian State while trying for the best record in the Southern Conference.
The Lady Bucs will host Elon on the Feb. 21 for Senior Night followed by a game at Georgia Southern to close out the regular season.
The SoConTournament will be hosted by the College of Charleston in early March 2005.

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