Cullowhee — (WLOS) There was a palatable buzz around Western Carolina women’s basketball last year. In his first year as head coach Jonathan Tsipis had done what many have tried and turned the Catamounts into a Southern Conference threat. The record wouldn’t reflect it, but nearly every game was taken into the fourth quarter as a toss up. It left fans excited to see what he can do in year two.
In a not-so-different-way than his maiden campaign, Tsipis will be trying to do that with several faces new to his program.
Taj Hunter (4.4ppg, 511 minutes) and Grace Pack (5.6ppg, 3.0rpg, 311 minutes) are the two most experienced returners, with Kehinde Obasuyi as the only other player logging more than a hundred minutes.
The Catamounts have enlisted five freshmen along with four transfers to fill out the roster.
“They’re naturally hard workers. Now, are they working at the level we need them to be yet? They’ll get there, but we had a good summer,” Tsipis assessed. “We had to spend more time just doing chemistry and relationship-based activities as much as basketball.”
In particular Sacramento City College transfer Joyce Mulumba could strengthen an area of weakness. The six-footer averaged 18.4 rebounds per game for the Panthers in 2024-25 and was one of just two players in women’s college basketball at any level to record more than 500 rebounds last season. Mulumba boarded 516 misses in 28 games, second only to Mary Schleusner of Washington & Lee (569).
Ary Dizon is another six-foot-plus addition from Cal State-Bakersfield who Tsipis hopes the quintet of freshmen can learn from about succeeding at college basketball.
“No freshman ever has the physicality and the speed of the game figured out,” Tsipis mused. “We use Taj Hunter as a great example. You can’t tell it, but she’s gained fifteen pounds since the spring to just absorb that contact when you’re playing division one college basketball; being able to get open, being able to guard someone who’s trying to get open. They have to understand that’s why the weight room is so important, that’s why we can’t call a bunch of fouls [in practice] except for more of the hand stuff.”
In a stark contrast from previous seasons, Western Carolina led the Southern Conference in offensive scoring in 2024-25 at 69.9 per game. Tsipis hopes that aspect remains, but also believes his newest team will be stronger at keeping opponents off the scoreboard.
“I think it’s a more invested defensive team. Last year’s team could score really well and we relied on that too much. This is a group that wants to do it right,” he said. “Now, we don’t have someone in an Alpha role like we had with A.C. Carter last year. I think Ary Dizon is going to do some wonderful things for us and can score on different levels, but I think we’re going to have more scoring by committee.”
The WCU women will join the men on October 20th at 7:30pm for ‘A Night in the ‘Whee’ to celebrate the start of a new season. The Catamounts first game is slated for November 6th against Virginia-Lynchburg.