LU women will be looking for their next star to emerge

With eight points and eight rebounds in a first-round NCAA tournament loss to Louisville last Sunday in Baton Rouge, La., Megan Frazee’s Liberty career came to quiet, unceremonious end.

Now the question? Who will be the next big star for Liberty women’s basketball?

First, it was Elena Kisseleva, who helped launch Liberty’s decade-long run of NCAA berths. Then Katie Feenstra came to town and led the Flames to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament before becoming the school’s first WNBA draft pick.

Then came the Frazee triplets, led by Megan, a two-time Big South player of the year who will likely be the Flames’ second WNBA draft pick later this month.

Which begs the question: Who will emerge next?

The rest of the Big South is assuredly licking its chops as the Flames lose 67.8 percent of their scoring from this season, including Megan Frazee’s 19.8 points per game. Seniors Moriah Frazee, Rachel Hammond and Rebecca Lightfoot will be gone as well. But every time the Flames seem to be set for a rebuilding year, a new star player comes out of the woodwork.

Next year, that player could be Devon Brown, the former Waynesboro High School standout who redshirted this season due to a stress fracture in her foot. The 5-foot-10 Brown finished her Waynesboro career with 2,728 points, the second most in Virginia High School League history.

She’ll be counted on to take on much of the scoring load next season, as will redshirt freshman Brittany Campbell, the former Brookville High standout who averaged 7.0 ppg before injuring knee ligaments in December at James Madison.

The Flames will have a solid frontcourt tandem in Avery Warley, who averaged 8.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, and Kylee Beecher, who came off the bench and averaged 4.4 points in 21.4 minutes per game.

Warley shot 62.6 percent from the floor but still needs to work on finishing around the basket. Beecher proved she can stretch defenses and shoot mid-range jumpers and 3-pointers.

The Flames will still have plenty of size inside, but a secondary ballhandler must emerge if they want to combat one of their biggest issues this season — turnovers. Amber Mays will return for her senior year and was the only Liberty player with more assists (126) than turnovers (114) this season. Rachel McLeod, who backed up Mays at the point, returns as well, and she’ll likely remain a backup at both guard spots.

There’s no doubt Megan Frazee will be missed, though. None of the returning Flames have been charged with carrying a team at the Division I level. (Brown did it plenty in high school, though.)

Frazee finished her career with 1,883 points, which ranks fifth on the Big South’s all-time list. Her 951 rebounds put her fourth on the league’s all-time list. But consider this: Had Frazee not missed 25 games during her career, she likely would have been tops in both categories and the first player in conference history to finish with 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

If she averaged 18.5 points and 9.8 rebounds for the 17 games she missed her freshman year, and the 19.8 points and 9.9 rebounds she averaged the eight games she missed as a senior, Frazee would have finished with 2,356 points and 1,197 rebounds. The Big South’s all-time scoring leader is Kisseleva (2,154), and the rebounding leader is Charleston Southern’s Kate Sanford (1,127).

So it’s no surprise that Frazee is often called the most complete athlete to ever play in the Big South. Now the big question for Liberty looms — how do the Flames replace her?