KANSAS CITY – The defense of the 2018 national championship unofficially began for Jennies basketball when head coach Dave Slifer took the stage at the MIAA basketball media day Tuesday in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Jennies return their top-three scorers from their national championship run in which they up-ended defending champion Ashland 66-52 and put its 73-game winning streak to rest.

Senior Paige Redmond and juniors Megan Skaggs and Morgan Fleming are the Jennies “Big 3” this season with each averaging double-digit points last season. On the other side, they will try to replace the production of departees Kelsey Williams and Kayonna Lee.

Slifer said the team has a strong core, but Williams’ ability to manage the game and Lee’s inside presence would be hard to find elsewhere.

“I’m not sure you do replace them,” he said. “We actually return our top three scorers, but the contributions that Kay made were incredible. She was a rebounder and an MIAA defensive player of the year.”

Slifer said that Redmond will likely return to playing point guard after moving to shooting guard midway through last season.

“A lot of people told me that Paige was better when she wasn’t at point last season,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but Kelsey was such a good player that it didn’t matter where she was playing. I think Paige will probably end up at point this season, but we have a few freshmen coming in that will give it a shot.

Lee was the Jennies backbone on the glass last season and her 8.5 per game average was near twice as many as any other Jennie. Slifer said he hopes transfer junior Kim Crown can help out on the boards as well.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen there,” Slifer said “Megan and Mo better be ready to not have Kay bailing them out on the boards. Kim Crown is doing a great job for us so far, but she knew our team beforehand. She can do some great things with her back to the basket.”

Redmond said that it’ll take time to integrate newcomers into the rotation.

(Photo by Rick Carlton/Inertia Media)

Senior guard Paige Redmond led the National Champion Jennies in scoring with 16.3 points per game and 3.8 assists per game.

“I think once practice starts we’ll be able to tell who can step up,” she said. “As far as getting back to where we were last year, it’ll take some time, but we’re already working for it.”

Redmond is coming off a career year in which she averaged 16.3 points per game and 3.2 assists per game. She also earned MIAA Player of the Year and MVP at the Elite Eight.

The Jennies were picked to finish first in the conference in both the coaches and media polls Tuesday. Central Missouri earned 169 points and 13 first-place votes in the coaches poll while picking up 291 points and 20 first-place votes in the media poll.

Slifer said the Jennies are ready to be the team to beat in the conference and even be considered an underdog in the national spotlight.

“The NCAA put us at number two behind Ashland, even though they lost all of their production in the post and their head coach,” he said. “That got our girls fired up. They enjoy being the underdogs so we’ll take any slight we get because it’s different being on top.”

The Jennies preseason consists of two road exhibition games in Mississippi State and Missouri State. Mississippi State is one of the top teams in Division I women’s basketball and have made the national championship the last two seasons.

“ I hope we can score at least 20 points,” Slifer joked. “The good news is they lost four starters, but the bad news is the starter they return is a 6’8 center that should be a top-3 pick in the WNBA. So we’re going to need to find ways to score against them.”

Redmond said the goals for this season remain the same and the experience of winning a national championship only made them hungrier.

“Obviously we have the same goals in repeating,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot, but we’re all still hungry, we all still want it. We know what the end feels like, so we want to do it again.”

The Jennies regular season kicks off in Kansas City against Southern Nazarene. Tip-off is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at Municipal Auditorium.