New Mexico State (0-0) at
UC Irvine (0-0)
Date: Monday, Nov. 4
Time: 5:30 p.m. (PST)
Location: Bren Events Center (5,000) - Irvine, Calif.

IRVINE, Calif. - The defending Big West champion UC Irvine women's basketball team will open the 2024-25 campaign against New Mexico State on Monday, Nov. 4. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. as the first game of a doubleheader with the Anteater men's basketball team at the Bren Events Center.
 
STARTING FIVE: STORYLINES
• UC Irvine has claimed back-to-back Big West championships, winning the tournament in 2023-24 and the first regular-season title in program history in 2022-23. Last year, the Anteaters earned a No. 13 seed in their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1995. They closed out the campaign with a 23-9 overall record, marking their third consecutive 20-win season. UCI was ranked 23rd in the final College Insider Women's Mid-Major Poll. Statistically, the 'Eaters were 14th in the nation in scoring defense (55.7 ppg), 28th in turnover margin (4.2), 33rd in steals (10.3 spg) and 42nd in turnovers forced (18.9/gm).

• UC Irvine returns seven letterwinners including four starters from last year's squad. Leading the way are seniors Déja Lee, Nikki Tom, Nevaeh Dean and Amelia Scharpf. Lee made history as the program's first Big West Player of the Year while also earning first-team all-conference honors. She averaged 13.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.6 steals and 2.1 assists per game. Tom has played in all 97 games of her career with 74 starts, while Dean has started 63 of 64 outings in her two years as an Anteater. Scharpf has also logged 1,466 minutes in 87 career games.

• UCI welcomes back juniors Hunter Hernandez and Olivia Williams, who sat out last season while recovering from their respective knee injuries. Hernandez was a first-team All-Big West selection as a sophomore in 2022-23, while she and Williams were also named to the Big West All-Freshman Team in 2021-22.

• The 'Eaters have seven newcomers with four transfers and three incoming freshmen. Sophomore Summah Hanson comes to UCI from Sacramento State where she was the 2023-24 Big Sky Freshman of the Year. Sophomore Jaida Brooks was also an NJCAA first-team All-American at Mesa Community College (AZ) last year. Freshman Lauryn Madsen graduated as Warden High School's all-time leading scorer and was a two-time Eastern Washington Athletic Conference East 2B Player of the Year. 

• The Anteaters will kick off the campaign at home for the ninth time in the last 10 years. Since head coach Tamara Inoue took over the program in 2016-17, UC Irvine is 5-3 in season openers.

SCOUTING THE AGGIES
New Mexico State welcomes back nine letterwinners from its 2023-24 squad that went 13-18 overall and 6-10 in Conference USA games. The Aggies return their leading scorer in Molly Kaiser (14.9 ppg) and leading rebounder in Fanta Gassama (7.9 rpg). Kaiser was a first-team All-CUSA selection last year and was named to the 2024-25 preseason all-conference team. NM State brings in six newcomers with four transfers and two freshmen.

SERIES RECORD
UC Irvine trails in its all-time series with New Mexico State, 17-12, but has won the last two. UCI and NM State met last year with the Anteaters earning a 61-55 win in Las Cruces on Dec. 5, 2023. Shirel Nahum had a game and season-high 16 points.

COACHING CONNECTIONS
UC Irvine head coach Tamara Inoue was a member of the New Mexico State staff (2011-16) for five seasons prior to her arrival in Irvine. Associate head coach Cecilia Russell-Nava and assistant coach Tyler Ellis are also NM State alums. In addition, Russell-Nava had two stints as an assistant with her alma mater. Inoue and Russell-Nava were both on the coaching staff, while Ellis was a player on the New Mexico State teams that won back-to-back WAC regular season and tournament championships (2014-16).

MID-MAJOR POLL
For the second-straight year, UC Irvine was ranked in the final College Insider Women's Mid-Major Poll, coming in at No. 23. It was the first time the Anteaters cracked the top-25 in 2023-24, but they had been receiving votes 14 times. They start the 2024-25 season back in the RV section.

PRESEASON PREDICTIONS
UCI was picked second in The Big West Preseason Coaches Poll. The defending Big West Champion Anteaters earned five of the 11 first-place votes and 95 total points in a narrow race with Hawai'i, which won the 2023-24 Big West regular season title. The Rainbow Wahine (96) received six first-place votes and came in one point ahead of the 'Eaters. Reigning Big West Player of the Year Déja Lee was named to the six-member All-Big West Preseason Team. Lee was also included on the World Exposure Report's Top-50 Mid-Major Players to Watch.

REIGNING CHAMPS
In 2023-24, UC Irvine won the second conference tournament title in program history, and first in 29 years. The second-seeded Anteaters received a double-bye into the semifinals where they defeated No. 7 seed Long Beach State, 69-57. They then took down fifth-seeded UC Davis, 53-39, in the final. The 'Eaters earned the conference's NCAA automatic bid, marking their third-straight national postseason tournament appearance, and fifth overall. UCI also made it to the 2023 WNIT (second round), 2022 WNIT (first round), 2018 Women's Basketball Invitational (first round) and 1995 NCAA Tournament (first round).

20-20-20
For the first time in program history, the Anteaters recorded three-straight 20-win seasons. UCI finished with 20+ wins in 1983-84 and 1984-85 before a 34-year drought. Head coach Tamara Inoue then led the 'Eaters to 20 wins in her third season at the helm (2018-19). Her squad also went 21-12 in 2021-22, finished with a school-record 25 victories in 2022-23 and went 23-9 in 2023-24.

TENACIOUS D
UCI has ended each of the last two seasons ranked among the top-15 in the nation in scoring defense. Last year, the Anteaters allowed 55.7 points per game to rank 14th in all of NCAA Division I. They held 22 of their 32 opponents to 60 points or less and gave up fewer than 10 points in a quarter 25 times. In 2022-23, the 'Eaters were seventh in the country with a program-record 53.2 points allowed per contest.

BETTER AT THE BREN
Since 2017-18, UCI is 69-24 (.742) at the Bren Events Center. Last year, the 'Eaters went 10-2 with a +12.0 scoring margin on their home court. They finished fourth in The Big West in average home attendance (821). The Anteaters set a program record with a crowd of 2,294 on Kids Day against Long Beach State on Jan. 25, 2024.

TRAVELING ANTEATERS
After playing their first four games of the season at home, the 'Eaters will be on the road for the remainder of the calendar year. They have a 46-day stretch where they play seven games, all on the road, with trips to Philadelphia, Albuquerque, Denver, Bakersfield and Oregon. Following its final non-conference game at the University of Oregon on Dec. 19, UCI has a two-week layoff over winter break. The Anteaters then return home to resume Big West play against Cal Poly on Jan. 2. The 46 days in between home games is the second-longest stretch among NCAA DI teams this year, behind only Columbia (47).

INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
UC Irvine has six international student-athletes from five different countries - Summah Hanson (Australia), Déja Lee (Canada), Clara Djoko (France), Ines Gnahore (France), Shirel Nahum (Israel) and Daniela Falcón Hernández (Spain). 

100 AND COUNTING
Ninth-year head coach Tamara Inoue ranks second among the program's all-time winningest coaches with 140 career victories. She is only 18 wins behind Dean Andrea (158), who spent 13 years at the helm from 1978-1991. Inoue, the 2021 co-Big West Coach of the Year, has led UCI to a pair of conference championships, four of the Anteaters' five national postseason tournament appearances, their first victory in a national postseason tournament (WNIT), four of their six 20-win campaigns and school records in both overall (25) and conference wins (16).

CHASING 1,000
Senior Déja Lee has 781 career points, putting her 219 away from joining the 1,000-point club. If she accomplishes the feat, she would be the first Anteater to do so since Stephanie Duda in 2008.

HISTORY MADE
Déja Lee made history as UC Irvine women's basketball's first Big West Player of the Year. In 2023-24, she averaged a team-best 13.9 points per outing, while also registering 3.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.6 steals per contest. The 5-foot-9 point guard upped her numbers in conference games where she ranked among the top-five in the league in scoring (14.8 ppg), steals (3.1 spg), field goal percentage (46%), 3-point field goal percentage (37%) and 3-pointers made (2.0/gm). She had seven 20-point outings with a career-high 29 (5-6 3FG) in an overtime win at Long Beach State. Lee is a two-time All-Big West selection, earning first team honors in 2023-24 and honorable mention recognition in 2022-23. She was also named the 2024 Big West Championship MVP after a 21-point effort (8-12 FG) against UC Davis in the final.

IRON WOMAN
Senior Nikki Tom has played in every game since her arrival at UC Irvine in 2021-22. Her 97 consecutive appearances, 74 starts and 2,837 minutes played lead the team. Last year, Tom averaged 6.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.9 steals per outing. She was also tops on the squad with an 86.0 free throw percentage (49-57), which is the seventh-best in single-season school history. The Fresno, California, native has 23 career double-figure scoring performances and was a 2022-23 All-Big West honorable mention selection.

STEALING THE SHOW
Déja Lee set a single-season school record with 82 steals last year. She had 15 games with at least three takeaways and swiped a career-high six steals on two occasions. Nikki Tom also had nine outings with 3+ steals and matched her career-best with five against Eastern Washington, at Texas Tech and at UC San Diego. Tom has 157 career steals which is one away from cracking the Anteaters' all-time top-10. Lee also sits at 152 career takeaways.

SHARP SHOOTERS
Lee and Tom were the only two 'Eaters with 30+ 3-pointers made last year. Lee led the squad with 56 triples, which ranks seventh in single-season school history. She has 99 in her career which is nine shy of entering UCI's all-time top-10. Tom also knocked down 31 threes in 2023-24, a year after making a career-best 41 from beyond the arc.

SUPER SENIOR
Graduate student Nevaeh Dean is back for her fourth collegiate season and third at UC Irvine. Dean transferred to UCI from Cincinnati and made an immediate impact as a starter on the Anteaters' back-to-back Big West championship teams. She has started 63 of 64 games played and is averaging 4.6 points and 3.7 rebounds, while shooting 43% from the field as an 'Eater. Dean graduated with a bachelor's degree in criminology, law and society in June 2024, and is currently working toward her master's in Legal and Forensic Psychology.

LEADER ON AND OFF THE COURT
Senior Amelia Scharpf played in all 64 games with 26 starts over the last two years. She finished the 2022-23 regular-season championship campaign as a starter, averaging a career-best 5.1 points and 2.8 rebounds per contest. Off the court, Scharpf serves as the president of UCI's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

ON THE MEND
Two important pieces are back for UC Irvine in 2024-25. Last year, both Hunter Hernandez and Olivia Williams redshirted while rehabbing from knee injuries sustained during the 2022-23 conference season. Hernandez ended up missing seven games that year, but was still the Big West regular-season champion Anteaters' only first-team all-conference selection. She averaged 12.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.5 steals in 25 outings. In addition, Hernandez was a Big West All-Freshman Team selection in 2021-22.

Williams started the first 18 games of the 2022-23 campaign before her season-ending injury at Hawai'i (Jan. 19, 2023). She was averaging 8.2 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.2 steals per outing. Williams was also named to the Big West All-Freshman Team in 2021-22.

SOPHOMORE TRANSFERS
Summah Hanson comes to UC Irvine from Sacramento State where she was the 2023-24 Big Sky Freshman of the Year. The 6-foot-3 forward averaged a team-best 14.0 points and 8.8 rebounds. She led the conference and ranked 35th in all of NCAA Division I with 14 double-doubles. Hanson hails from Brisbane and competed for Australia at the 2022 FIBA U17 World Championships.

Jaida Brooks also brings impressive credentials to UCI as a 2023-24 NJCAA first-team All-American at Mesa Community College (Arizona). She led the Thunderbirds to a 28-7 record and a third-place finish at the NJCAA Division II Championship. The 5-foot-6 point guard averaged 11.8 points on 41.7% shooting, while dishing out a team-best 139 assists (4.1 apg).

UP NEXT
UC Irvine is back in action on Thursday, Nov. 7, when it welcomes Pepperdine to the Bren Events Center for an 11 a.m. Kids Day tip-off. Local elementary schools have been invited to attend the game as part of a field trip.