There’s no more basketball or hitting the hardwood this season for the University of the Virgin Islands’ Women’s Basketball team. UVI announced on Monday they had canceled the remainder of the 2022-2023, due to injuries and ineligible players. Interim Athletic Director Henville Pole described the situation as “unfortunate.” He said the fall season started short-staffed with seven players on the roster. But then, injuries followed.
“Our HBCU Classic, we had six players dressed for that tournament. During that time some of our players experienced some injuries. There were two players that had some knee injuries, one actually being a season-ending injury. After that tournament, it really left us in a challenging position in terms of being able to continue for the rest of the fall season,” said Pole, who is both the interim athletic director and executive assistant to UVI’s Provost, and director of budget.
Due to injuries, Pole said UVI postponed games that were scheduled for the remainder of the fall. UVI and the team were hoping those games could be rescheduled and played during the spring. But when the spring season began, UVI’s women’s basketball team still faced injuries, as well as player eligibility issues. In an effort to salvage the season, UVI hosted tryouts.
“We did walk-on try-outs on January 28th. Unfortunately, we were not successful with our efforts to have walk-on tryouts. At that point we made the decision that we’re going to need to reach out to our other teams that are on our schedule, inform them that we will not be able to fulfill our obligation to play those games, and we will need to cancel the rest of the season,” said Pole.
UVI has also begun a search to replace Coach Lynika Collins as the women’s head basketball coach. She left in December after almost three seasons. Pole said the Interim Women’s Head Coach is Shannon Taylor, who also serves as the men’s head basketball coach.
“We are moving forward, and moving in a new direction. We got our men’s head coach, Shannon Taylor that is leading the effort right now in terms of maintaining a workout regime with the existing players that we still have on the team and on campus. And also leading the recruitment effort to really rebuild our women’s basketball team for the 2023-2024 season,” said Pole.
“UVI is poised at this point to really move forward with a strong men’s and women’s basketball team starting in fall of 2023 to 2024. But we’re really looking forward to a bounce-back season for both men’s and women’s teams. It’s onward and upward from here for UVI’s athletics program,” said Pole.
