Bobcats young core look to have bounce back season

TXST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Texas State and Head Coach Zenarae Antoine look for a bounce back year in their final season in the Sun Belt after finishing last year with a 13-17 overall record and 7-11 record in conference play. Going into this season, Antoine is excited about her team, particularly with the players coming into the program from the transfer portal.

“What makes this season special is I feel we have a strong transfer portal under our belt,” Antoine said. “I’m excited to see what that looks like for our squad as well as the competition out there. I feel rejuvenated coaching as the very first time I did in the early 2000s coaching women’s basketball.”

Four players return from last year’s team in addition to seven transfers and two freshman recruits. With a mix of both underclassmen and upperclassmen, Antoine is ready to see how the group meshes together.

“Each one of them is really unique to be honest with you,” Antoine said. “We have transfers coming in from fouryear schools as well as two-year institutions. Some of those junior college student athletes have only had one year of JuCo under their belt and some of our fouryear student athletes have had one year [and vice versa].

“I’m excited about being able to find a way if that makes sense, I’ve always loved the game but with the changes, the transfer portal, the way athletics is changing in college, I have embraced it. With this particular group of young women, adversity is something that they can take on and I’m here to be able to work through whatever that adversity looks like.”

One of the returners for Texas State is sophomore Saniya Burks. Burks returns as the Bobcats leading returning scorer, averaging 6.3 points per game last season.

Now with a full year of off-season training, Antoine is excited about what Burks can do in her second season.

“Saniya did not have a true summer because she was a freshman,” Antoine said. “We really looked for her to develop the strength that she needs. She got thrown around quite a bit in the Sun Belt. That really worked against her confidence being a natural scorer. Now that she’s had time to train, we’ve definitely some of the benefits of that as her strength.

In addition to improving in offseason workouts, Burks has also emerged as one of the leaders in the locker room despite being a true sophomore.

“She is one of the best voices in the room,” Antoine said. “If you ask the team, she’s one of the two players they say that’s who they look to.

Being a sophomore, somebody who’s had a lot of minutes and also a coach’s kid, it’s what we would expect from her. She’s done everything we asked for her to do.”

For Antoine, Burks is expected to take on a bigger role for the team going into the season.

“The expectation for her is to finish,” Antoine said. “She has to knock down these shots now. She’s stronger and she has to be able to knock down her scores. She was able to do that last year but we need her to score for us as well as increase her ability to defend.”

With having a young team and many new players to the roster, Antoine has set the expectations for the Bobcats in pushing them to their limit.

“My expectation is that they came to Texas State knowing that we’re going to push them really hard,” Antoine said. “They are going to have times where we are going to turn the ball over. That’s what happens with young teams. But the best part about having young players is they don’t know what they don’t know. When they go into a game, there is a fearlessness [within them].”

Despite Antoine being focused on the season, much of the off-season talk has been focused on Texas State leaving the conference for the Pac-12.

With so much outside noise surrounding the program, Antoine still remains focused on bringing the title back to San Marcos.

“Long term there is excitement,” Antoine said. “It allows me to be in a conference with my alma mater. But short term, this season is all I think about. I’m going day-today with practice and how can we compete for that title in the Sun Belt? I don’t think about it unless someone brings it up.”

Texas State opens the season at home Monday, Nov. 3 against the Ohio Bobcats. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.