Oct. 30—VERMILLION — For fans watching University of South Dakota women’s basketball this season, you’ll be forgiven if you need to reference the team roster a few times.
Of the 11 players from last season who got playing time for the Coyotes, only two are back for 2025-26. That’s two South Dakotans with junior guards Coral Mason and Olivia Kieffer, who combined represent only 7 returning points from last year’s USD roster that scored 65 points per game.
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That means there are 13 new players for the Coyotes in coach Carrie Eighmey’s second year in the program. USD, which was 11-20 overall and 5-11 in conference play last season and earned the seven seed in the Summit League Tournament, was picked fourth in the preseason coaches and media poll.
“We’ve got a really competitive team. They want to get better and they want to be a part of something really special,” Eighmey said. “There’s ten juniors and seniors on the team, so they’ve been in college. They’ve seen college basketball and they have varying levels of experience, but I think having that many upperclassmen has helped us get acclimated a lot quicker and make good progress.”
The biggest vacancy is from the end of talented guard/forward Grace Larkins’ career, after she scored 24 points per game last season and USD’s other double-figure average scorers departed as forward Alexi Hempe also graduated, and forward Carley Duffney transferred closer to home and rejoined former Coyote coach Kayla Karius at Wisconsin-Green Bay.
USD added seven transfers from Division I programs. That includes two from the Summit League, with senior guard Angelina Robles, who played the last three seasons at the University of Denver and is a preseason all-league second-team selection after averaging 11 points per game in Summit play for the Pioneers. Junior guard Jenna Hopp transferred from South Dakota State to USD after playing 19 games for the Jacks last year.
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Patience Williams, a Minneapolis native, will be one of the leading forwards for the Coyotes after two seasons at Georgia State. Williams said the coaching staff has done a good job of understanding the skills of each player and attempting to fit the scheme to the personnel.
“I know there’s talk about how we lost a lot, but I feel like we gained so much more that we’re ready to show,” Williams said.
One of the most impactful transfers could be a familiar name to local high school basketball fans, with Rapid City Central graduate Josie Hill joining the Coyotes after playing four seasons at Chicago State, where the 6-foot-1 center averaged 10.1 points and nearly 7 rebounds per game and was regularly among the nation’s top shot blockers.
Eighmey brought Williams and Robles along to Summit League media day in October, two players who have not yet played an official game for the Coyotes. The coach said the players are emblematic of the hunger and urgency of the players on their team because it’s their final years of college basketball.
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“They understand the level that we need to be at in order to be the team that we want to be here in a couple months and by March. There’s a lot of new with our team, but that doesn’t scare me,” Eighmey said. “Experience is an extremely valuable thing because they’ve had those moments in college basketball games where they can draw back on those experiences and be like, ‘OK, in this situation, this is what I need to do.'”
Eighmey also spotlighted two freshmen as potentially impactful players this season, with freshman guard Tori Schlagel and freshman point guard Alyssa Bartlett, with the coach commending both players as quick learners.
One of the clear goals for the Coyotes is to improve defensively after allowing 72.2 points per game to their opponents. Stronger defense likely would help USD avoid a backslide like they experienced in the final six weeks of the season, when they lost 11 of their last 13 games, all facing Summit League teams.
The coach said she expects the scoring duties to be shared throughout the lineup, not counting on one player to lead the team in scoring, as Larkins was leaned on last season 25 times in 31 games. The Coyotes open the season against NAIA-level York (Neb.) on Monday, Nov. 3, before hosting the Air Force Academy on Nov. 7.
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“I just feel like we’ve got a team full of weapons and they’re players that understand, ‘Hey, we’ve got to work together to be able to score points. We’re not probably going to have a 25-point scorer that’s consistently our leading scorer night after night,” Eighmey said. “It’s going to be a group of players that we don’t really care who gets the job done as long as it gets done that day. … I think that’s a good thing for us where we’re at right now.”
