KINGSVILLE, Texas – After months of practice and preparation, the Texas A&M-Kingsville women's basketball team will take on the first two opponents on their 2017-18 schedule when they hit the road for a conference crossover, first traveling to Spearfish, S.D. to take on Black Hills State on Friday at 7 p.m. and then moving on to Chadron, Neb. for a matchup with Chadron State on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

Coach Wade Scott and his team will be attempting to continue the progress they made a season ago, when they posted an eight-win improvement in conference play and picked up a victory in the Lone Star Conference tournament for the first time since 2001. The Javelinas ended the regular season with a road triumph over a ranked Eastern New Mexico squad and then proceeded to knock off the Greyhounds again just five days in later in the first round of the conference tournament. That triumph represented the first time in LSC history an eight seed had defeated a one seed in the tourney.

The biggest strength for TAMUK in 2016-17 was a stout defense that allowed the second-fewest points-per-game in the league, with a mark of 62.7. The Javs also held opponents to the LSC's second-lowest field goal percentage, both overall and from three-point range and kept 10 teams under 60 points. The team's top returners are junior point guard Shaq Debose and senior forward Angelica Wilson. Debose's signature performance came in a February win over Texas A&M-Commerce, when she put up a season-high 28 points. Wilson was one of the best players in the LSC over the final month of the season. In her team's final 10 games, she averaged 9.3 points and 7.1 rebounds and collected a double-double against UT Permian Basin. In the Javelinas upset of Eastern New Mexico in the LSC Tournament, she totaled 15 points and nine boards.

The first opponent TAMUK will face as part of the conference crossover is Black Hills State. The Yellow Jackets ended the 2016-17 campaign with a record of 9-17 and they went 9-13 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. This came just one season after they went 21-8 and earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament, where they advanced to the round of 32 by knocking off Colorado St.-Pueblo before falling to West Texas A&M. The Yellow Jackets benefitted from a sharp-shooting offense that was in the top five in the RMAC in shooting percentage, both overall and from beyond the arc. Their biggest issue was turnovers, as demonstrated by a turnover margin of that was the conference's second-worst.

Coach Mark Nore, who's entering his 17^th season guiding the program, gets back his leading scorer, Rachel Erickson, who is entering her final season in Spearfish. A native of Cheyenne, Wyo., Erickson averaged 10.2 ppg, hitting double digits 12 times, including in seven of BSU's last nine games. She set a season-high on Feb. 3^rd, scoring 25 against Metropolitan State University of Denver. Erickson also ended her junior year tied for fifth in the RMAC with an average of 1.6 steals per game.

Chadron State is also attempting to rebound from a difficult '16-17 season in which they compiled a record of 7-18 and 7-15 in the RMAC. They started and ended the year with stretches of six losses in seven games. The Eagles will be attempting to put together a winning campaign for the first time since 2000-01, when they went 19-9. The biggest issue for CSC a year ago was their defense, as they allowed 74.4 ppg and a shooting percentage of 36.5% from three, both the worst in the RMAC.

Senior guard Kalli Fedderson is coming off a season that saw her earn All-RMAC second-team recognition. She picked up five double-doubles as a junior, including a 15-point, 13-rebound performance against New Mexico Highlands. She also poured in a season-high 27 points against Fort Lewis on Jan. 21^st. Her average of 14.5 ppg placed her in the conference's top 10.

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