Texas Lutheran picked seventh in SCAC Preseason Coaches' Poll

SEGUIN, Texas -- The Texas Lutheran Bulldogs, two-time winners of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship and winners of three SCAC regular-season titles, are the seventh pick in the 2021 SCAC Women's Basketball Preseason Coaches' Poll.

Austin College, the 2020 SCAC champion, edged Trinity to claim the top position in the preseason poll. The Kangaroos, coming off their third-straight 20-win season and their first-ever SCAC Tournament Title, collected five first-place votes to top the poll with 61 total points.

 

TLU, with SCAC Tournament titles in 2014 and 2019, advanced to the SCAC Tournament semifinal round a year ago. The Bulldogs were sixth in the SCAC regular-season standings with a 9-9 league record and a 12-15 overall mark.

 

The Bulldogs were the No. 5 seed for the conference tournament last year. The Bulldogs defeated tournament host Schreiner, the No. 4 seed, by a score of 73-61 to advance to the tournament semifinal.

 

The Bulldogs return three starters - fifth-year senior point guard Tara Molina, junior forward Morgan Rodriguez, and senior post Abby Hroch - and 11 total letter-winners from last season's squad.

 

Molina, the 2019 SCAC Tournament Most Valuable Player, averaged 6.2 points, 5.6 assists, 3.7 rebounds, and 2.2 steals per game last season. She started all 25 games in which she played.

 

Rodriguez led the team in scoring, at 10.6 points per contest. As a sophomore, she shot 47.9 percent from the floor and pulled down 5.9 rebounds per game, second best on the team.

 

Hroch led the team in rebounding, at 6.1 boards per game, and she paced the team in field goal percentage, at 50.5. She made 94 of her 186 field goal attempts last year. Hroch collected 65 of her 165 total rebounds on the offensive glass. She added 22 blocks.

 

TLU again will be led by Head Coach Mel Dixon, who enters his ninth season as head coach with the Bulldogs. Dixon, who has twice led TLU to the NCAA Division III Tournament, is the Bulldogs' all-time wins leader for women's basketball. He holds a TLU overall record of 122-92 (.570) and a conference mark of 76-47 (.618), with seven years in the SCAC and one year in the American Southwest Conference.

 

Counting his won-loss record as a long-time Texas high school girls basketball coach, Dixon holds an all-time coaching mark of 731-420 (.635).

 

TLU opens its 2020-21 season on Friday and Saturday with games at Centenary College (La.). At the Gold Dome in Shreveport, La., the Bulldogs will face the Centenary Ladies at 5 p.m. on Friday and at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Both games are conference contests.

SCAC teams are scheduled to play a 12-game, conference-only schedule. The top eight teams, based on regular-season results, will qualify for the 2021 SCAC Tournament. This year's event is scheduled for March 4-6. It will be hosted by Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

2021 SCAC Women's Basketball Preseason Coaches' Poll
(first-place votes in parentheses, followed by total points)

1.Austin College - (5) 61
2.Trinity University - (4) 60
3.Colorado College - 46
4.Schreiner University - 39
5.University of St. Thomas - 37
6.Southwestern University - 32
7.Texas Lutheran University - 25
8.Centenary College - 15
9.University of Dallas - 9