USF Slated to Play Mississippi State in 2019 Duel in the Desert

USF will travel to Las Vegas for the 2019 Women’s Duel in the Desert on Dec. 19-21, and will face Mississippi State in the opening contest

TAMPA, JUNE 7, 2019– The USF women’s basketball team will travel to Las Vegas for the 2019 Women’s Duel in the Desert on Dec. 19-21, announced by Basketball Travelers, Inc., on Friday.

USF will open the tournament against Mississippi State on Dec. 19 at 4 p.m. at UNLV’s Cox Pavilion. The field includes the Bulls, MSU, Virginia and host UNLV. The tournament will feature a classic four-team bracket and a champion will be crowned on Dec. 21.

The Bulls and the Bulldogs will face off in the first contest of the tournament on Dec. 19, while UNLV and Virginia will tip at 2 p.m. on Dec. 20. All four teams will return to action on Dec. 21, with the two losing teams competing for third place at noon, followed by the championship game between the two day-one victors at 2:30 p.m.

All games will be live streamed on FloHoops, which typically requires a subscription. Teams will stay at the world-famous New York New York hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

For more information about the 2019 Duel in the Desert, visit www.duelindesert.com.

USF will enter the 2019-20 season returning last season’s leading scorers in Enna Pehadzic (Horsens, Denmark) with 12.1 points per game and Sydni Harvey (Nashville, Tenn.) with 11.7 points per game as a freshman. The Bulls had a strong freshman class in Harvey, Beatriz Jordao (Pombal, Portugal), Elisa Pinzan (Murano, Italy) and Luize Septe (Ventspils, Latvia), who earned plenty of experience when superstars Laura Ferreira (Lisboa, Portugal) and Kitija Laksa (Riga, Latvia) sustained season-ending injuries.

The four freshman combined for an average of 32.2 points per game in 2018-19, with Pinzan and Jordao missing games due to injury, and Septe joining the team in December. Notably, redshirt freshman Silvia Serrat (Banyoles, Spain), who has been on campus battling injuries for two seasons, is expected to return to the Bulls’ healthy roster in the fall.

The USF senior class will feature proven player Tamara Henshaw (Palm Coast, Fla.) returning to lead the Bulls in 2019-20. The Bulls look forward to welcoming five-star recruit Kristyna Brabencova (Brno, Czech Republic), freshman Mihaela Lazic (Slavonxki Brod, Croatia), six-time Florida state champion and Miami Country Day product Maria Alvarez (Bal Harbour, Fla.), and NJCAA All-American junior college transfer Bethy Mununga (Belgium) to campus this fall.

Pehadzic will return alongside fellow junior Shae Leverett, who helped the Bulls on the boards with 7.5 rebounds per game last season. Mununga will also join the junior class at USF.

The season ticket renewal period for the 2019-20 season is open now, but ticketing information for the Duel in the Desert, the Cancun Challenge, new season ticket packages and single-game tickets will be announced at a later date.

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USF notched its eighth consecutive 19-win season and eighth straight postseason appearance in 2018-19. The Bulls celebrated two all-conference honorees in Enna Pehadzic and Sydni Harvey.

USF has made 15 postseason tournament appearances and had six NCAA Tournament berths in head coach Jose Fernandez’s 19 seasons. The all-time winningestcoach in program history, Fernandez has guided USF to nine 20-win seasons, two WNIT final four appearances, the 2009 WNIT championship and won more than 350 games.