By Nathan Keil | Sports Writer
Former Lady Bear sophomore post Beatrice Mompremier is inching closer to making a decision about where to continue her basketball career.
Mompremier’s former head coach at Miami Senior High School, Samuel Baumgarten, told USA Today that there was strong mutual interest between Mompremier and the University of Tennessee.
However, talks with the Lady Volunteers stalled out over time as Baumgarten later told the Miami Herald that the visit with UT was postponed and that Mompremier would be taking visits to top programs in her home state of Florida. Mompremier visited Florida State on April 28 and the University of Miami on May 2.
Baumgarten believes that Mompremier, who led Miami High to consecutive state titles, deserved more playing time at Baylor and probably does not want to travel too far.
“I think she wants to play closer to home,” Baumgarten told the Herald regarding the 2015 Miss Florida Baksetball. “She’s more valuable than the minutes she was given.”
Mompremier averaged eight points and six rebounds in 32 games for Baylor this season, but saw her production and playing time reduced from her freshman season with the emergence of fellow sophomore post Kalani Brown and freshman forward Lauren Cox.
Mompremier was given her release from Baylor back on April 19.
After signing a training camp contract with defending WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks on April 20, former Lady Bears’ senior forward Khadijah Cave was waved by the team on April 28, prior to the team’s May 2 preseason opener against the New York Liberty.
Cave averaged seven points over the course of her 146 game career for Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey and was the 2015 Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year.
Two time All-American forward Nina Davis, who also signed a training camp contract with the Sparks, was waived on May 5.
Davis appeared in two preseason games for Los Angeles, tallying five points on two of three shooting from the floor in just under eight minutes in an 81-65 loss to the New York Liberty on May 2 and five points in four minutes of action in a 79-62 loss to the Connecticut Sun on May 3.
Neither Davis nor Cave have been signed by any other WNBA team.
For the two former Lady Bears that were taken in the 2017 WNBA draft, guards Alexis Prince and Alexis Jones, the pre-season has been extremely valuable to them.
In two games for the Phoenix Mercury, Prince averaged nine points in 19 minutes per game. She shot 42 percent from the floor, and 40 percent from three-point range.
Phoenix opens its regular season at 4 p.m. Sunday against the Dallas Wings at Talking Stick Resort Arena.
In two games for the Minnesota Lynx, Jones averaged nine and half points in 17 minutes of action. She dished out three assists per game while shooting 40 percent from the floor and 30 percent from beyond the arc.
Minnesota opens against the Chicago Sky at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.
