Times have changed for Johnson C. Smith women’s basketball.

Going 20-8 last season, JCSU posted its most successful season under coach Steve Joyner Jr. Now in his fourth season, the JCSU alumnus is 35-21 after taking over in 2012.

“We’re excited. We’re coming off of our best year at Smith so far with a 20-8 win season,” he said. “We’re looking to improve on that.”

JCSU commences the campaign at home on November 14 against Glenville (W.Va.).  

Smith’s success during the regular season earned them a bye at the CIAA tournament, where they lost to Livingstone in the second round. Joyner has his sights set on getting the program past the second round.

“That’s definitely one of our goals,” he said. “[My] first year, we left in the first round. The next year we won a game in the first round, and lost in the second round. This past year, we were fortunate enough to finish second in the Southern Division and get a bye, but still met a very talented team in Livingstone.”

The Golden Bulls, who averaged 68.1 points per game and allowed 63.7 last season, converted 39.5 percent of their field goal attempts and 27.9 percent on three-pointers.

With upper classmen comprising 69 percent of the team, Smith has a mature and experienced rotation.

“We’ve been doing some team bonding—something that I really haven’t done since I’ve been a head coach, but our upperclassmen, our senior class, felt that it was very important that we do that early on,” Joyner said.

Senior center Ashley Porter (6-foot-3-inches) came off of the bench for the Golden Bulls last season, but ranked fourth in scoring, averaging 9.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. With the departure of LaKendra Wilkerson and Anika Jones, Porter’s presence could dictate a portion of the program’s success.

“We’ve been doing some things off the court to help them to get to know one another—their backgrounds—exactly where they’re coming from and where they are in life,” Joyner said. “At the same time, we’re mixing up how we do workouts. It’s not always post with post. We’re doing post with the guards—rotating things like that. [We’re doing] a variety of things to get them to come together, but most importantly, when we are together it’s just to work hard."

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