Nov. 3, 2007

GREEN BAY, Wis. - The Green Bay women's basketball team has its first practice run of the 2007-08 season Saturday as the Phoenix entertains Northern Michigan at 3 p.m. in the Kress Events Center in the first of two exhibition contests. It will be the first-ever women's basketball game in the new facility since it opened in October.

Following Saturday's contest, Green Bay will then host the Wisconsin AAU All-Stars Tuesday, Nov. 6 for a 7 p.m. exhibition game before opening the regular season Friday, Nov. 9 at 2007 NCAA tournament qualifier Drake.

Despite coming off the best season record-wise in Horizon League history, Green Bay was selected to finish second in the 2007-08 league race in a preseason poll of Horizon League coaches, media representatives and sports information directors. Instate rival Milwaukee received 13 first-place votes to edge Green Bay in the preseason prognostication by nine points, 253-244. Green Bay gathered nine first-place votes.

Junior guard Rachel Porath (Luxemburg, Wis.) was selected to the Horizon League's preseason first team, the league announced earlier this month. Porath enters her third season with Green Bay as the team's top returning scorer, as the native of Luxemburg, Wis., averaged 9.4 points per game in 2006-07. She established herself as one of the top shooters in the Horizon League, firing an impressive 53.5 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from three-point range. Porath's three-point clip was tops in the Horizon League last season.

Green Bay earned one point in the preseason 2007-08 ESPN/USA Today/WBCA women's basketball coaches poll. The Phoenix is coming off a record-breaking 29-4 campaign in 2006-07, where the team ran through the Horizon League season unbeaten, clipped off a team and league-best 26-game winning streak and posted a victory in the 2007 NCAA tournament, advancing to the second round for the second time in program history.