On Tuesday, Nov. 5 the Towson University women's basketball team returns to the court after a momentous 2018-19 campaign resulting in the program's first conference championship since the 1983-84 season.
 
Tuesday's season opener will be part of a doubleheader evening with men's basketball. Towson hosts Penn State at 4 p.m. and will unveil the banner for the 2019 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championship pregame. The game will be streamed on FloSports and live stats are available on TowsonTigers.com. All streaming links can be found on the women's basketball schedule page.
 
Entrance is free to students with a Towson OneCard and tickets can be purchased at the door or by calling 1-855-TU-Tiger.
 
The 2019-20 Tigers
Returning to the court this season are four of Towson's five starters from last year in leading scorers Kionna Jeter (17.3 ppg), Nukiya Mayo (14.3 ppg), and Q. Murray (8.5 ppg). Also returning in the Black and Gold is Ryan Holder, who started in 29 of 33 games. Mariah Gray, Shavonne Smith, Tess Borgosz, Rayna Barbour and Jennifer Davis are all back from last season as well. New to the roster this year are Bianca Glover, Myka Johnson-Matthews, Myasia Jones, Maggie Sharp, Wiebke "Tilly" Schwartau, Khyra Williams, LaKaitlin Wright. The seven newcomers are composed of four transfers and three freshmen.
 
Scouting the Lady Lions
The Nittany Lions come to town under a new head coach, Carolyn Kieger. The Lady Lions have three of their top five scorers returning, including Siyeh Frazier who averaged 9.9 points per game last year. Penn State is coming off a 12-18 year that ended in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament after losing to Wisconsin 65-57. In the preseason the Lady Lions defeated Kutztown in an exhibition game, 64-44, last Friday night. Penn State had 16 steals and forced 32 turnovers against Kutztown and the team was led by junior Kamaria McDaniel with 25 points and 10 rebounds.
 
The Penn State Series
Tuesday will be just the third meeting between these two teams. The series is split 1-1 Towson's last victory came in 1975 in the EAIAW Mid-Atlantic Tournament. In 2014 the teams faced each other in the Preseason WNIT and Penn State took a 71-64 victory. A win on Tuesday would be the first win over Penn State for head coach Diane Richardson and the first season-opening win for the Tigers since the 2016-17 season.
 
Tuesday's Doubleheader
Tuesday afternoon will be the first chance fans have to get a taste of the regular season action ahead for both Towson basketball programs. Students are encouraged to come out early as there will be free T-shirts for the first 500 to arrive, starting with the women's game at 4 p.m. Also free to students is a food setup in the Tiger Zone at 6 p.m. Before the women's game starts, the team will celebrate the 2019 CAA Championship with banner reveals and a video presentation and the team will return during halftime of the men's game to celebrate again.

Exhibition Win Over Alderson-Broaddus
Last Thursday the Tigers hosted Division II program Alderson-Broaddus out of Phillipi, West Virginia in an exhibition. Towson defeated the Battlers 75-43, led by Nukiya Mayo with 15 and Kionna Jeter with 13. Point guard Q. Murray also dropped 10.
 
Tigers Collect CAA Preseason Honors
Announced on Oct. 10, the Tigers were voted to finish third in the CAA Preseason Poll. Collecting preseason accolades were Kionna Jeter and Nukiya Mayo who were both named to the CAA Preseason All-Conference First Team. James Madison was voted to win the league while Drexel was voted to finish second.
 
Jeter Receives CAA Inspiration Award
Over the summer Kionna Jeter received national attention as a finalist for the 2019 Honda Inspiration Award. It was later announced that she was the recipient of the 2019 John Randolph Inspiration Award from the CAA.
 
Coaching Staff Updates
The Towson coaching staff saw movement in the offseason. Diane Richardson had her head coaching contract extended through the 2023-24 season and Zach Kancher was elevated to the Associate Head Coach position. Richardson added E.C. Hill as an assistant coach and promoted Cheyenne Curley as her second assistant coach. Myles Jackson remains in an operations role with the staff.
 
The 2019-20 Nonconference Outlook
This season holds new locations and new opponents for Towson. Later this week the Tigers will fly into San Diego for a pair of games against San Diego and San Diego State, it will be the first meeting for both opponents. Towson will also play in a Thanksgiving tournament, the Puerto Rico ClasicÓ in San Juan, facing Iowa and Iona. Some nonconference foes are familiar with American, Marshall and Mount St. Mary's on the calendar. The Tigers also travel to play Rutgers and will host Temple in the first meeting with the Owls for the annual STEM Day game on Dec. 4.

Tigers in the Community
The Towson University athletics department deems community service as one of its highest priorities to give back to the Greater Baltimore area. For the seventh consecutive year, the department exceeded 10,000 hours of community service to the Greater Baltimore region, finishing with 11,162 hours of community service in the 2018-19 academic season. Towson ranked No. 1 nationally for community service and won the 2018 National Championship for Community Service through the Helper Helper NCAA Team Works Competition. Towson had a 97% participation rate, attended 118 community service opportunities and volunteered with 19 organizations. Towson won the 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award from Susan G. Komen of Maryland.