Oct. 14, 2008
LAS VEGAS -
Complete Release in PDF Format
The San Diego State women's basketball team, which advanced to last season's league championship game, has been picked to finish second in the Mountain West Conference in 2009 in a vote by the MWC's nine head coaches and select media members released Tuesday at the conference's annual media day in Las Vegas, Nev.
"Because of who we are and from whence we came, it's an honor," Burns told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "It's a great pat on the back for the staff and players who have worked and fought our way back into being considered a contender."
The Aztecs earned six of the 26 first-place votes and garnered 184 points overall, trailing first place Utah, who had 16 first-place votes, by 22 points. The second-place projection is four spots higher than SDSU's previous best placing in the preseason poll when the team was selected sixth in both 1999-2000 and 2003-04.
Behind SDSU in the preseason poll is TCU (161 pts.) and New Mexico (148 pts.), who each garnered a pair of first-place votes. BYU, Wyoming, UNLV, Colorado State and Air Force rounded out the nine-team poll.
In addition, two Aztecs, Jené Morris (San Francisco, Calif.) and Paris Johnson (San Diego, Calif.), were selected to the five-player preseason all-Mountain West Conference team. Last season, Morris was a second-team all-league pick when she led the league in steals (2.97/g) and ranked first on the squad in points per outing with a 14.1 average. Morris also earned a spot on the MWC all-tournament squad when she averaged over 18 points in leading the Aztecs to their first-ever MWC championship game appearance.
Johnson was voted the league's top freshman heading into last season, and didn't disappoint, leading all MWC freshmen in both scoring (12.0 ppg.) and rebounding (6.4/g). Johnson was a conference honorable mention pick and led the league in blocks per game, including a MWC tournament record six in SDSU's semifinal upset of TCU.
San Diego State, which returns its entire starting lineup from last season's MWC championship run, opens practice for the 2008-09 campaign this Friday. The Aztecs lone exhibition game is Nov. 10, against Showtime Basketball Australia at 7 p.m. at Cox Arena. The season opener is also in San Diego, against Northwestern State on Nov. 14.