After experiencing its most successful season in program history, the Ball State University women's basketball team enters this season with a rougher road to travel in the 2007-08 campaign.
Last season, Ball State played one non-conference opponent that participated in the NCAA Tournament. This year, the program will play two, starting with the University of Louisville, a challenge more daunting than any Ball State faced last year.
Fresh off a program-best No. 6 seed in last year's NCAA Tournament, Louisville is ranked No. 21 in the preseason Associated Press poll. The Big East affiliate is led by junior Angel McCoughtry, who was one of 30 chosen candidates for the preseason Wooden Award after being named the Big East Player of the Year last year.
"You want to go out with a bang," senior forward Lisa Rusche said of her final year with Ball State. "Kicking the season off with Louisville is the perfect way to do it. It's going to be a good game between two teams that had fairly decent seasons last year."
Louisville was originally slated to be a part of Ball State's annual Thanksgiving Tournament.
However, when the tournament didn't have enough teams and fell through, coach Tracy Roller said, one of her primary concerns was keeping Louisville on her team's schedule. Roller was able to negotiate a two-year deal with Louisville in which the two teams will split home games.
Roller said one of the reasons the Cardinals' 24-7 record last year wasn't good enough for an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament was because of the lack of quality opponents on her team's schedule.
"You want to schedule tough competition, but you also want to make sure you have enough home games," Roller said. "You try to find that happy medium in between, but every year we struggle with that because nobody wants to play us at home. Playing a team like Louisville at home is a really good opportunity for our program."
Though Louisville will improve Ball State's strength of schedule, senior captain Julie DeMuth said Ball State is solely focused on beginning the season with a victory.
"I think we're definitely going to see this game benefit us during the postseason, but right now we're not focused on how good Louisville is," DeMuth said. "We're focused on ourselves and how important it is to begin this season 1-0."
The last meaningful game Ball State played in Worthen Arena was the first round of last year's women's NIT, which ended in an 85-82 loss to the University of Kentucky. Ball State had more than 3,500 fans in attendance for that game.
Roller said it would be important for a large fan turnout Saturday against a quality opponent like Louisville.
"You would like to take full advantage of playing on your home court," Roller said. "It is nice to play in front of a home crowd that is pretty intimidating. We really get energized as a team when we see the fans standing on their feet and cheering for us."
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