The UNC Wilmington women’s basketball team won’t have the same appearance as the squad that made school history a season ago, but the new-look Seahawks are still confident they have all the pieces for another conference title run.

Last season, the program enjoyed its first ever postseason appearance in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, losing in the second round to Eastern Michigan. The Seahawks also won 24 games, a single-season record, and finished tied for second in the CAA standings. The team’s success drew national attention as the Seahawks spent the final 10 weeks of the season ranked in the top 25 of the Collegeinsider.com women’s mid-major poll, finishing at 16th by the season’s end.

Hall-of-Fame coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is entering her second year with the program and will have her work cut out for her again this season. The CAA Coach-of-the-Year lost her top three scorers in Brittany Blackwell, Martha White and Kristen Hanzer, who accounted for 58 percent of the team’s scoring last season.

With the offense being a question mark heading into this season, UNCW will have to hang its hat on defense. The Seahawks were dominant on the defensive end during the 2010-11 campaign, averaging a league-best 12.4 steals per game, also ranking 10th in the country in that category.

Last year, the emphasis on offense was placed on half-court sets, while feeding Blackwell and White the ball. Cooper-Dyke doesn’t intend to get away from the inside-out game, but does think the personnel she has now will require some different looks and mistakes will have to be limited.

“We won’t change our style of play. We’ll still try to be aggressive defensively and we’ll still try to get up and down the court,” said Cooper-Dyke. “I just think we have to be smarter. We have to pick and choose our moments where we run and push the ball. We have to pick and choose when we go for certain things in the half-court setting, and I think we have to let our offense feed off of our defense more this year.”

Cooper-Dyke went the junior college route with the majority of her recruiting during the offseason. She nabbed four junior college transfers and one high school senior to play for the Seahawks this season and all of them should see significant playing time. There are only six returning players on the Seahawks’ roster this year.

Junior transfers Karneshia “K.T.” Garrett and Tawanna Lee figure to be major fixtures in the offense this season, along with returning sophomore point guard and reigning CAA Rookie-of-the-Year Alisha Andrews. The 4-foot-11 inch, Stone Mountain, Ga. product, led all the returning players with 10.8 points per game last season.

“Coach has placed a lot of high expectations on me,” said Garrett. “She’s going to play me wherever she feels like playing me at the time and I have stepped up and taken on that challenge to lead this team and take us to a higher level.”

At the CAA women’s basketball media day, the Seahawks were picked to finish seventh in the conference after the preseason vote by the league’s 12 head coaches. The pick isn’t completely surprising considering what the Seahawks lost and the uncertainty of how well the revamped roster will perform.

However, the Seahawks have proven in recent history that it doesn’t matter where you are picked in the preseason, but where you stand at the end of year. Just last season, UNCW was picked to finish eighth in the conference before going on its historic run. The players and coaches are hopeful that the same will be true this season and they can get over the hump to earn a CAA Championship.

“I think (winning the conference title) is doable,” said Cooper-Dyke. “But we have a lot of work to do and we are a long way from a CAA Championship, so we have got to do our part in order for us to be in the running.”

 UNCW will face one of the tougher non-conference schedules it has had in recent history. The Seahawks will face two powerhouses from the ACC in Duke and North Carolina State, as well as a home game against Atlantic 10 champion Xavier. Four of UNCW’s non-conference opponents are ranked in the nation’s top 50 RPI, including Duke, Xavier, Penn State and UNC Charlotte.

“We are just going to look at the team as another team and we aren’t going to worry about the name on the jersey,” said junior guard Jessica Freeman. “I feel like those games are going to help us in the long run with our season and our conference. When we make it to the big dance, it’s going to help us when we see those big teams and it’s not going to be something different for us.”

The Seahawks will open the regular season Nov.11 against Middle Tennessee State in the Lady Lion Classic at Penn State. After a three-game road trip, UNCW will return to the newly renovated Trask Coliseum for its first home game against East Carolina on Nov. 20.