2014-2015 Preseason Prospectus I Staten Island Advance Preview (11/13/14) - by Jim Waggoner I NEC Social Media Day Video

Staten Island Ferry - "Going Places" - photo gallery by Dave Saffran I  Media Day - photo gallery by Dave Saffran

Wagner at VCU Game Notes

Staten Island, NY – The Wagner women's basketball team, under the leadership of third-year head coach Lisa Cermignano, opens the 2014-2015 season this weekend looking to build on the momentum generated a year ago when the Seahawks opened eyes by earning the program's first Northeast Conference (NEC) Tournament berth since 2010 and the most league wins since 2004.
 
Schedule
Wagner opens the new campaign with a two-game road swing, beginning with a matchup at VCU on Friday, November 14 at 7:00 pm, followed by a contest at Maryland on Sunday, November 16 at 2:00 p.m.  The Lady Terrapins are ranked No. 8 in the 2014-15 Preseason USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 10 in the Preseason AP Poll. Last season, Maryland reached the NCAA Final Four and compiled a 28-7 record. 
 
The Seahawks' home opener is Tuesday, November 25 at 7:00 pm, vs. Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights, under Hall of Fame head coach C. Vivian Stringer, who won the 2014 WNIT Championship, will mark the first Big 10 opponent to ever play at the Spiro Sports Center, and are ranked No. 24 in the Preseason AP Poll. The demanding non-conference schedule also includes a November 30 date at Big East member St. John's, as well as a December 7 trip to Penn State of the Big 10.
 
"From a competition standpoint, we have to play the best," said Cermignano. "Our kids get excited about it. Last year, we proved everybody wrong because they picked us 10th and we finished a lot higher than that because of our preseason schedule. We went and faced some of the toughest teams in the country and we got into conference play, we were playing at a different level. In order to build a foundation for a program, it's not about how many wins you get, it's about having your team prepared for conference play, and being prepared to get to the NCAA Tournament.
 
"The conference is wide open this year," Cermignano added. "The league graduated two major players, one at Saint Francis U (Alli Williams ) and the other at Robert Morris (Artemis Spanou ), there's not a powerhouse back that's won the last couple of years consistently, and we do have a lot of returners. As I said, we're still very young but the sky's the limit. We're really just building for the next couple of years."
 
Returners
The NEC's most improved team by every measure a year ago, this year's edition is armed with a 12-person roster led by dynamic 5-8 sophomore point guard Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum), who was named the 2014 Northeast Conference (NEC) Rookie of the Year, while earning All-NEC Second-Team honors. The lightning-quick Nwajei poured in a career-high 29 points against Fairleigh Dickinson (2/17/14), and reached the 20-point plateau 12 times, while also leading the NEC in assists per game (5.5) in conference games.


 
At last month's NEC Social Media Day held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, the Seahawks were picked fourth in the 2014-2015 NEC Preseason Poll. Individually, Nwajei had the distinction of being the lone underclassmen named to the 2014-2015 NEC Preseason Team, along with four seniors.
 
"Coming into this season, there's just a ton of excitement, coming off of last season and having so many returners back, there should be only excitement," said Cermignano. "We do have a lot of youth on this team, we are very young. Yet, we have some talented players who last season had a taste of success and we're looking to build on that this year. With youth, every year they just get more excited, more confident and more experienced. "
 
Wagner returns all five starters and nine letterwinners from a squad that finished seventh in the NEC with an 8-10 league mark. Playing a non-conference schedule that included heavyweights Kentucky, Rutgers, VCU and Pittsburgh, the Green & White were 9-21 overall. Despite the return of a host of well-honored players, as Cermignano stressed, the 2014-2015 roster is a young one, with just three upperclassmen - one senior and two juniors – along with six sophomores and three freshmen.
 
Junior guard Jordyn Peck (Shaker Heights, OH/ Shaker Heights), combines with Nwajei, to form one of the nation's top scoring backcourt tandems. The crafty, 5-6 left-handed Peck tossed in 21.1 points per game in league play last season, tallied a career-high 30 points vs. Central Connecticut (1/11/14) and tallied 20 or more points on 17 different occasions.


 
Senior center Ugo Nwaigwe (Valley Stream, NY/Valley Stream South) was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year last season, becoming the first Seahawk to earn this honor, while also being tabbed a member of the NEC All-Defensive Team. Enjoying a breakout season in 2013-2014, Nwaigwe ranked No. 4 nationally in blocked shots per game (3.80), while also leading the NEC in blocks per game (4.50), shooting percentage (.630) and ranking No. 4 in rebounds per game (10.2). In 2013-14, her 114 blocks rank No. 2 on NEC all-time single-season list.


 
On February 17, 2014, in a game seen live on ESPN3.com. Nwaiagwe registered the first recorded triple-double in school history vs. Fairleigh Dickinson with 12 points, 19 rebounds and a school-record 13 blocked shots. Nwaigwe pulled down a career-high 24 rebounds vs. Robert Morris (2/3/14) while totaling a career-high 15 points vs. St. Francis Brooklyn (2/15/14).
 
 














Ugo & Jasmine with ESPN 3 Announcer & Wagner Hall of Fame member Brenda Milano

Another lefty, 5-7 guard Lyndsay Rowe (South River, NJ/St. John Vianney), was a consistent, durable force in a freshman season where she averaged 7.1 points while averaging 31.8 minutes per game while playing all 40 minutes in five games. Redshirt-sophomore, Jazmine Hamlet (New York, NY/Francis Lewis), a 5-7 guard, averaged 3.7 points and hit for a career-high 10 in three different games.
 
Sophomore forward Jackie Dluhi (Middletown, NJ/Middletown South) is a rugged 5-11 force who saw action in 27 games as a freshman. Sophomore guard Maria Conyers-Jordan (Philadelphia, PA/The Friends' School) showed flashes as a freshmen a year ago. The 5-8 wing totaled career highs of nine points and seven rebounds at NJIT (12/30). 
 
Junior Tessa Wade (Penn Valley, PA/Lower Merion), a 5-8 guard who saw action in 18 games last season, provides further depth in the backcourt. Up front, 6-1 Taylor Butigian (Rockaway Park, NY/Christ the King) displayed a soft shooting touch while showing physicality in averaging 3.1 and 2,8 rebounds per game, respectively. She scored a career-high 14 points vs. VCU (12/1/13) and ranked No. 3 in blocked shots per game (1.6) in conference play.
 
All told, the Seahawks return the NEC's top two scorers in Nwajei - 21.9, Peck - 20.3), top rebounder (Nwaigwe -10.2), top assist leader (Nwajei - 5.5), top field goal percentage leader (Nwaigwe - 63%), and two of the top three blocks leaders (1. Nwaigwe - 4.5 and 3. Butigian - 1.6).


 
Newcomers
Wagner also welcomes a trio of talented freshmen to the 2014-2015 roster, in 6-2 forward Sofia Roma (Richmond Hill, NY/Nazareth), 5-8 guard Tanasia Russell (Vineland, NJ/Vineland), and 6-1 forward Sam Sullivan (Manasquan, NJ/Manasquan).
 
In August, Roma competed for Puerto Rico at the FIBA Americas Women's U18 Championships in Colorado Springs, CO, helped lead her talent-laden Nazareth Regional HS team to a 21-7 record and to its third straight Class "A" State Championship as a senior.
 
Russell is an explosive, athletic 5-8 shooting guard who possesses a scorer's mind-set and goes by the nickname "Pogo," a moniker that helps describe her uncanny leaping ability. Blending a wide assortment of quick moves, with tremendous court vision and a lethal jump shot, Russell ranked fifth in the state of New Jersey at 28.5 ppg.last season, while being named the South Jersey Times Salem/Cumberland County Player of the Year.
 
Sullivan was a stalwart for Manasquan HS throughout her career, totaling 1,067 points and 748 rebounds. As a senior, Sullivan averaged 12.6 points, 6.1 rebounds in helping to lead the Big Blue to a 27-6 record and the No. 2 ranking in the state of New Jersey by The Star-Ledger in the 2013-2014.
 
Coaching Staff
Another major plus for the Seahawk women's basketball program has occurred off the floor as Cermignano added a trio of assistant coaches, headed by former long-time Vanderbilt assistant coach and Rutgers Hall of Fame Player Vicky Picott. An established, respected coaching veteran, Picott began her coaching career as a student assistant in 1991-1992 at her alma mater, Rutgers, where she played for Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Theresa Grentz.
 
Assistants Tiffany Morton and Bob Dunn have also arrived on Grymes Hill after serving on the women's basketball staffs at LSU and Kentucky, respectively, a pair of programs that each reached the "Sweet" 16 of the 2014 NCAA Tournament.
 
Morton spent the 2013-2014 season as a graduate assistant at LSU, where the Tigers reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Prior to joining the staff at LSU, Morton served the 2012-2013 season as an assistant coach at the University of Montevallo (AL) where she helped the Falcons set an NCAA Division II- era school record with 17 victories.
 
Dunn spent the last two seasons serving as video coordinator at Kentucky, which compiled a 26-9 record en route to its Sweet 16 appearance last season, which came on the heels of a 2012-2013 campaign where Dunn contributed to a Wildcat team that went 30-6 and reached the NCAA Tournament's "Elite 8."
 
Prior to his two years in Lexington, Dunn served a two-year stint as a graduate assistant with the men's basketball program at Dayton, his alma mater, where he spent one season under Brian Gregory (now head coach at Georgia Tech) and one working for Archie Miller.
 
"All three of our new assistants come from the SEC and are accustomed to the highest level of collegiate women's basketball," said Cermignano. "Tiffany will head our recruiting efforts and work closely with Vicky on coaching our post players. Bob will also have a significant role in recruiting, while his focus on the floor will be in developing our backcourt players."
 
The Wagner staff also includes a familiar face in Melanie Williamson, who enters her first year in the role of Graduate Assistant for Women's Basketball Operations. A talented Seahawk recruit in 2010, Williamson was poised to begin her promising Seahawk career before a heart ailment ended her career before it began.
 
Williamson elected to remain a Wagner student, serving three seasons an undergraduate manager, majoring in sociology with a psychology minor, prior to her 2014 graduation.
 
"Mel continues to be an inspiration for our student-athletes," said Cermignano. "She is an essential part of our program and I'm elated that she is continuing with us in her new role."
 
Academic Success
In addition to engineering an on-court turnaround in 2013-2014, the Seahawks also received high marks on the academic side. In May, it was announced that the Seahawk women's basketball was one of five Wagner athletic teams, in addition to men's and women's tennis, women's cross country and women's golf, that were cited by the NCAA with public recognition awards. The APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship and measures eligibility, graduation and retention each semester, providing a clear picture of the academic performance for each team in each sport.
 
Follow Wagner Athletics on Twitter (@wagnerathletics) for all the latest news and updates on the athletic department, @Wag_Swagg for news and updates on the men's basketball program.