The defending champion FDU-Florham Devils took a blow on the injury front this offseason. FDU-Florham athletics file photo

The celebration of its national title and perfect season officially ended for the FDU-Florham women’s basketball program as soon as this year’s team photo was snapped last Wednesday. 

Even though the images of that special season will last forever thanks to social media, the Devils are poised to create more memories despite missing a key component from their championship machine. They realize the road to repeating as national champions will not be easy, but they are prepared for the arduous journey ahead.

The Devils enter the season as the consensus No.1-ranked team in Division III thanks to many key and talented returners from last season’s 33-0 team. FDU-Florham is excited for the preseason attention, but knows it has a target the size of the Atlantic Ocean on its back.

“I really don’t take much into preseason rankings,” FDU coach Marc Mitchell said. “The respect and recognition is nice for our program and university, but we still have to play the games. Clearly everyone didn’t know that our starting post player would be out for the year. But it doesn’t matter. We just want to be No. 1 at the end of March.”

Despite the loss of Rachel Groom, who tore her ACL in a summer league game, the Devils still have plenty of pieces capable of leading them to a repeat this year. The voters actually did know that Groom was injured when casting their preseason ballots.

“Rachel is a huge loss for us,” Mitchell said. “I would tell you that we would win the national championship again, but we know it’s going to be much more difficult. We have great players and a lot of good pieces on this team.”

The Devils featured five battled tested seniors in Kyra Dayon, Kara Dayon, Leigh-Ann Lively, Quaneisha Harrison and Delisha Thompson along with junior Schalette Brown.

Kyra is special.

The returning first team D3hoops.com first team All-American is one of the most explosive, dynamic and top players in the country this season. However, the best part about Kyra is off the court where she has a sterling personality, is humble and loves to laugh. Mitchell called the computer science major a ‘great human being.’

“It’s going to take a lot from us to repeat,” Kyra Dayon said. “We’re down a player and we don’t have that much height. We’re going to have to rebound and run. Coach Mitchell told us that what we did last year was great and unbelievable, but we have to focus on this season and leave all that in the past.

“We understand that teams are going to give us their best shot every time we take the floor. We’re just taking it as we have a target and we are using it as motivation to succeed this season. Our hunger is stronger.”

It took a couple weeks for Mitchell to see that hunger from his team.

“I felt like they were satisfied were with winning,” Mitchell said last week. “This year coming into practice, we had to work hard to get in shape this year whereas last year the team was in shape when practiced opened. It’s different. We had to do more running than before. Now, we’re much better. After our first scrimmage, we were able to kick it into gear. We’re back now.”

The good thing about the Devils is they are far from a one-or-two woman team.

Though Groom’s 10.1 points and 5.8 rebounds will be tough to replace, Mitchell believes somebody else will embrace the opportunity of becoming a consistent scorer alongside Kyra and Brown, who had 10 double-doubles last season while averaging 11 points per game.

Kyra enters the season with 1,471 career points. She had six double-doubles and scored in double figures 28 times. Her twin sister, Kara, is a lockdown defensive stalwart.

Alicia Cox, a 5-3 junior transfer from Cumberland County Community College, could pick up the slack. She dazzled with a team-high 24 points in the Devils’ 85-77 exhibition setback to Division I Farleigh Dickinson last Friday. Sophomore Alyssa McDonough will assume starting point guard duties for the Devils this season after an impressive first year of averaging 7.2 points per game.

Lively, who made a team best 52 3-pointers last season, has added pieces to her game this summer. She was far from satisfied with being known as a 3-point specialist.

“I’ve spent a lot of time this summer improving different aspects of my game so I can become more of threat and go to the basket more,” Lively said. “While last year was fun and our campus is expecting the same thing, we are ready to move forward and work harder than last year. We’re a different team this year and we have new puzzle pieces. We have to adjust and make it work in a different way.”

Mitchell made sure to load his schedule with some difficult games this season. The Devils will play road games against Kean, Baruch, Brooklyn and Catholic. They will get stern challenges in the Freedom Division from Eastern, Delaware Valley and DeSales. Super-confident by nature, Mitchell made no Pat Riley-like guarantees of repeating. He only promised one thing.

“We understand that this season will be different than last year,” Mitchell said. “I am about going on the road and we like playing road games. Should we expect an undefeated season? That’s not fair to do. We will be heard from this season. I assure you that.”

Beating the big boys

In most cases, exhibition games for Division I schools are opportunities to make money, get fans excited about the upcoming season and work out a few kinks on the both ends of the floor. Rarely, do those games end with the Division I school losing -- unless third-ranked Augustana and the University of Southern Maine are the opponents. In an unusually rare occurence, two Division III schools have knocked off Division I schools in exhibition contests.

Augustana never trailed in defeating Bradley, 58-56, and the University of Southern Maine topped Maine, 78-73 in preseason exhibition contests. Augustana junior Hunter Hill fired in a game high 18 points. He was the lone Augustana player in double figures as he hit six of his 14 shots from the floor, including two of six from 3-point range and was 4-of-5 from the free throw line. The smallest guy on the floor, Hill also grabbed six rebounds and led the team with five assists.

What does it mean? Nobody knows for sure, but it does say that the level of talent competing at the Division III level is solid and worth watching.

Southern Maine surprise 

When the University of Maine made the two-hour trip from Orono to Gorham, it expected to be a leisurely off-campus workout against a squad that won seven games last season, graduated its top three scorers and doesn’t feature a senior on its roster.

However, Southern Maine, of the Little East Conference, had other ideas. It made sure that the Black Bears’ ride home was a long one as it claimed a 78-73 victory in an exhibition that sent shockwaves across the Division III landscape. Southern Maine scored 43 points in the second half to beat Maine.

Sophomore Zach Leal had 15 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals to lead four Huskies in doubles figures in the win. Junior Jacob Little Field added 12 points and six rebounds, while junior Sean Caddigan and junior transfer Alex Fraser each tossed in 11 points. Caddiganm Cole Libby and Aaron Toman were recently named the team captains this season.

“This is a game that did have some meaning,” Southern Maine head coach Karl Henrikson said recently in an interview with the Portland Press-Pilot. “Obviously we haven't played UMaine in quite a while. We are a Division III school and we wanted to make sure we represented ourselves well. So we prepared well. But we prepare well for every game. The kids were happy with the result, but not content. It fueled the fire to make ourselves better. This group is really going to push to do that.”

Tommies Top Division II foe

The St. Thomas men got 17 points from Marcus Alipate and 16 points and seven rebounds from Taylor Montero in Saturday's 74-52 win at Minnesota State Mankato in exhibition play. The Tommies, ranked No. 13 in Division III, returns four players with starting experience from a 22-6 team that won the MIAC crown. Minnesota State, ranked No. 7 in Division II, returned seven players from a 30-5 team that reached the NCAA playoffs, including their top two scorers.

If history is any recent indication, the Tommies will win at least 30 games and make a deep run in the NCAA tournament. They have won 30 games in each of the last three odd-ending years: 2008-09, 2010-11 and 2012-13. This year ends in an odd number, so we’ll see.

St. Thomas has had the MIAC on lockdown over the last decade. The Tommies are attempting to win their 10th consecutive conference championship. The Tommies have recorded 157 victories over the last six seasons (2008-14) -- the most in Division III and an average of 27 per season. The Toms' 157-23 won-loss record includes a 117-14 record against conference opponents. St. Thomas has made nine consecutive NCAA playoff appearances. The Toms' nine consecutive 20-win seasons give them the third longest current streak in Division III.  

Leading St. Thomas this season will be seniors Conner Nord (11.5 ppg., 6.8 rpg) and Alipate. Nord was a first team all-MIAC last season and Alipate was an honorable mention all-MIAC selection.

Happy Homecoming

Last week when Pacific played at Division I and 25th-ranked Utah in an exhibition, it was a special homecoming for two Boxers. A pair of Utah natives, senior Riley Grandinetti and junior Skyler Burgess played their first collegiate games in the Beehive State.  Grandinetti played his junior college basketball at Southwestern Oregon CC in Coos Bay before matriculating to Pacific for the 2013-14 season.  A newcomer to Pacific, Burgess came to Pacific after two seasons at Treasure Valley CC in Ontario. Grandinetti led the Boxers with 11 points in the 93-38 setback to the Utes. He connected on 4 of 10 from the field and three three-pointers.

Purple Reign returns

The Violets return all five starters from last season's NCAA Tournament team, which posted a 20-6 overall record. Two of those players returning for NYU are 2013-14 First Team All-University Athletic Association honorees Megan Dawe and Kaitlyn Read. At No.15, NYU is the highest ranked team in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll that finished last year unranked.

Both players competed in Brazil this past summer as part of the USA Sports Tours & Events D-3 Women's Basketball Team. Dawe, who is interested in the fashion industry, led the Violets with 14.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Read enjoyed a breakout freshman season that included averages of 13.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game, in addition to a team-leading 2.9 steals per game and a school-record .449 three-point shooting percentage.

Dawe had a fascinating summer of traveling and participating in activities that she loves to do. In addition to spending 10 days in Brazil, Dawe worked as an intern in Los Angeles at the fashion public relations firm Bismarck Phillips Communications and Media.

“It was busy summer,” Dawe said. “It wasn’t the most relaxing, but it was so much fun. It was really cool playing with different athletes from around the country and come together as one. I met girls from the Whitman team. We played four games which was cool. The competition is different down there than here.”

The squad opened with a contest against an older team, which was an eye-opening experience for them. They learned from the experience and were able to finish the exhibition games strong by winning the remaining contests. In addition to meeting new people, taking lots of pictures and playing basketball, the most memorable part of the trip occurred away from the court.

“My favorite part of the trip was our off day,” Dawe said. “We stayed in Rio on the beach and explored the area. You end up being surrounded by people from all over the world. To relax to and enjoy that atmosphere was the coolest part.”

Overall, the preseason women’s Top 25 poll features six teams that ended last season unranked. The others are Williams (No.17), Wheaton (No. 19), University of New England (No. 20), Bowdoin (No. 22) and Messiah (No. 25).

NYU is one of two UAA teams ranked in the Top 25. Washington U. is ranked ninth.

“It’s exciting to get the recognition of being nationally ranked,” Dawe said. “We want to return to the tournament and advance further than we did last year. There’s been a good level of energy during our practices. Everybody is focused on continuing our success. We are looking forward to beginning the season on Friday.”

Help me

I am serving as the national columnist this season for D3hoops.com. I was the Atlantic/Mid-Atlantic Regional columnist last year. To help with telling the best stories, delivering fun and insightful nuggets while providing teams the recognition they deserve, please add me to your email list for press releases and postgame releases at rob.knox@d3sports.com.

Don’t worry about flooding my inbox. I am also going to try to get as many names into my column as possible and will do so in the weekly shout out portion Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter @knoxrob1.