23-24 UW Women’s Basketball Preview

Rising!

In her Third season, Head Coach Tina Langley is building on last season’s growth and creating a culture of excellence

BY BART POTTER • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE

Numbers — points and rebounds, wins and losses — tell part of the story about the rise of the Washington Huskies women’s basketball team. It’s a pretty good story: The Huskies, in their second season under Coach Tina Langley in 2022-23, improved their win total to 19 after winning seven games the year before. Washington advanced to the Fab 4 of the Women’s NIT, the program’s first appearance in the postseason since 2016.

This edition of the Huskies begins Pac-12 Conference play Dec. 10 in Pullman against Washington State in the opener of the Boeing Apple Cup Series. Last December, the Huskies similarly opened conference play against the rival Cougars and scored a rousing 82-66 victory over the eventual Pac-12 tournament champions.

Last March, the Huskies made a national statement in the WNIT, defeating San Francisco, New Mexico, and Kansas State in early rounds before downing Pac-12 rival Oregon in the semifinals and falling to Kansas in the Fab 4.

Delayah Daniels

Lauren Schwartz

Jayda Noble

NUMBERS ON THE RISE:

• They outrebounded opponents last season by 7.7 rebounds a game.

• They reduced their turnovers from 18 a game in 2021-22 to 16.3 last year.

• They return five of their top seven scorers from last year, led by junior forward Delayah Daniels (11.3 points a game, along with 6.7 rebounds).

They’re positive numbers, indicative of a program making its case in the Pac-12 and nationally.

Numbers, however, are not the whole story. Words — words to play by, words to live by — tell the bigger tale about this team and this program.

Lauren Schwartz, a senior forward from Union, Ky., knows the words after five years with Tina Langley as a mentor.

Words like, “Be where your feet are.” It means, Schwartz said, not getting ahead of yourself, leaving the bad plays behind, doing what you can in the present moment.

Or words like, “Fight for the mind, fight for the body, fight for the soul.” Schwartz knows the Langley culture better than anyone, having been recruited by then-head coach Langley to Rice University in Houston. Schwartz played three seasons for Langley’s Owls, after which she worked through the NCAA transfer portal to enroll at Washington for the 2021-22 season.

Langley, by then the head coach on Montlake, was able to plug the versatile 5-foot-11 Schwartz into the starting lineup for all 37 Husky games over the past two seasons, including a team-leading 30.3 minutes a game in 2022-23. Last season, she averaged 8.7 points, second to Daniels among returning players.

She’s an 88.5-percent free-throw shooter in her career at Washington.

Schwartz has become a top defender, Langley said, guarding anyone from off-guard to post. She can bring the ball up court, if needed.

Sayvia Sellers

Elle Ladine

Hannah Stines

She can post up. Most of all, Langley said, she appreciates Schwartz the person. She’s humble, a core program value.

She’s a uniter, another Husky core value. She has a “growth mindset,” yet another embedded value on this team.

Langley said, “to have someone like Lauren in your program is an incredible blessing.”

The pairing of Schwartz with the 6-4 Daniels down low presents opponents with a formidable frontcourt. Daniels, a homegrown Husky from Seattle’s Garfield High School, played two seasons at the University of California before transferring to Washington. Langley said Daniels was a dominant defender in the post last year and is working to expand her shooting range before she eventually moves on to play forward in professional basketball.

Jayda Noble is another “whatever it takes to help my team” piece on this tight-knit squad. The 5-11 junior guard is the defensive heart of the Huskies (1.65 steals per game) and hits the boards hard (5.6 rebounds a game, second only to Daniels last year).

“That’s just the effort part of the game,” Noble said. “I think I thrive in those roles because it’s just effort.”

Noble checked in with 4.6 points a game in 32 starts in ’22-23. According to her coach, she is a more-than-capable offensive player with a pure shooting stroke who is just as likely to make the extra pass to a teammate as take the shot herself.

Langley loves Noble the warrior. “You know when she’s on your team that you’re going into battle with the best,” she said. “She’s going to fight for every single possession every single moment. That’s something you can’t teach.”

Two sophomore backcourt players are assuming larger roles for the Huskies alongside Daniels, Schwartz and Noble in the Husky starting lineup.

Elle Ladine, 5-11 from San Francisco, earned Pac-12 and USBWA National Freshman of the Week honors in February after she scored 21 points off the bench in the Huskies’ win over No. 2 Stanford. She averaged 6.1 points per game in 16 minutes a game

Ari Long

Olivia Anderson

Chloe Briggs

Hannah Stines, 5-11 from La Mirada, Calif., averaged 6.8 points, fourth on the team, in 21.6 minutes a game last year. She also averaged 1.6 assists a game and had 24 steals.

The Huskies lost six seniors from the 2022-23 squad (including 9.4-point/5.3-rebound stalwart Haley Van Dyke) but restocked with four highly regarded freshmen in a recruiting class ranked in the top 20 nationally.

In-state recruit Olivia Anderson, a 6-6 forward from Ellensburg, was named No. 1 on PrepHoops’ Washington prospects list after averaging 22 points and 7.1 rebounds in a career at Ellensburg High School that included two Class 2A state championships. She brings length to the Huskies along with shooting touch and a willingness to learn the game at the college level.

“I love how she works,” Langley said. “She’s like a sponge. She has the ability to have a great impact for us.”

Sayvia Sellers, a 5-7 guard, finished her career at Anchorage Christian School as the all-time leading scorer (2,651 points) in Alaska state history.

Chloe Briggs, a 5-11 guard from Ontario, Calif., averaged 28.2 points, 10.8 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 3.3 steals over four years at Ontario Christian High School. In her final high school game, she scored 32 points to pass all-time great Cheryl Miller as the leading career scorer (3,458 points) in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section.

Ari Long, a 6-foot guard from Moreno Valley, Calif., averaged 28 points, 4.4 assists, 12.4 rebounds, 4.1 steals, and 2.0 blocks for her career at Valley View High School. She ended her senior season with games of 61, 54 and 52 points.

Langley looks at her assemblage of talent, young and older, and sees a team that might “take off at any moment” given a commitment to daily disciplines and the Husky process.

“The ceiling is pretty high for this group, but we’ve got to put a lot of work in,” Langley said. “I think we’re going to be dynamic and fun and play really hard, learn from what we don’t get right and celebrate what we do.’’