With season-opening jitters out of their systems and a high-scoring road match under their belts, the Redbirds of the Illinois State womens basketball team will look to home court advantage as they prepare to rebound from a 100-79 loss at Western Michigan Saturday and take on Butler, Monday night, at Redbird Arena.
With tip-off slated for 7:05 p.m., Illinois State enters Mondays home opener with an 0-1 record while Butler comes to town with the same mark after a loss to Bradley Friday night. The Birds are 2-1 under head coach Jenny Yopp in home openers at Redbird Arena.
In the season opener, the Redbirds were led by junior Taren OBrien who scored a career-high 21 points and dished out five assists. Yopp hopes the team will continue to post high point totals in the future and knows that with a solid defensive effort, her team will have great opportunities this year.
Butler is a rebuilding team, a little smaller and feistier then Western Michigan, Yopp said. We will need to put together a complete game against them. Butler is a very different team then what we have seen in the past and this year, and we havent seen much this year. It is still early in the season.
Yopp also said that being back at home, playing in familiar surroundings will be a comfort for the squad.
The comfort and familiarity of playing at home, in Redbird Arena will play a big part in our game on Monday, Yopp continued. I know what we didnt do against Western Michigan is manageable and against Butler, we will come out ready to play again. Being at home is good for us and our challenges we faced in that first game are fixable.
