ST. PAUL Minn. – With the recent announcement that the NSIC basketball season would begin in early January, the Concordia-St. Paul women's basketball team is hard at work preparing for their upcoming schedule.

"It's a really fun group to be around, so we're really looking forward to the season" said Head Coach Amanda Johnson. "The girls have been giving great effort on the court so preseason has been going very well."

The Golden Bears are coming off a 2019 campaign that saw them finish 15-14 with a conference record of 12-10. The team entered the NSIC Tournament as the fourth seed in the NSIC South before being eliminated by Northern State in overtime.

"We only lost one senior last year, so we have a lot of chemistry" said Senior Guard Danielle Schaub. "This team is like sisters to me and we get along so well."

With Cassidy Byrd being the lone senior to graduate last year, the Bears bring back most of their core players and add in two talented freshmen in Lindsey Becher and Sarah Kuma.

CSP will begin their 16-game schedule with a pair of road games against Minnesota Crookston on January 2 and 3. From there, the team will play 14 conference games over the course of 7 weeks, playing the same opponent at one site on back-to-back days. The Bears' first home game will be January 15 against Augustana.

"The majority of this team knows what it's like to compete in this conference and just the maturity level as far as coming back for another year and understanding what it takes to win games" said Head Coach Amanda Johnson.  

For more on the upcoming basketball schedule and other fall preseason updates, stay tuned to cspbears.com.