Hoops Time: Flames, Lady Flames kick off 2025-26 season with house wins

With the 2025-26 basketball season tipping off this week, Liberty University’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball groups will look to copy final 12 months’s success on the courtroom, the place each squads took house their first CUSA crowns. 

The Flames, led by Thirteenth-year Head Coach Ritchie McKay, opened the brand new season on Monday with a 98-57 thrashing of Kentucky Christian at Liberty Arena. Sophomore guard Brett Decker Jr. led the crew with a career-high 29 factors in his first profession begin. Senior ahead Zach Cleveland (13 factors, 10 rebounds) notched his second profession double-double, and redshirt senior guard JJ Harper (11 factors) and redshirt freshman ahead Ryan Jones Jr. (10 factors) each reached double figures of their Liberty debuts. 

The Flames have been voted the CUSA preseason favourite. The crew earned a 28-6 document final season and received its first 2025 CUSA Championship to punch its first ticket to the Big Dance since 2021. No. 12 Liberty fell to No. 5 Oregon within the first spherical of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. 

It was not too long ago announced that Washington Wizards ahead Anthony Gill is serving because the crew’s chief basketball advisor, a brand new function created to additional promote student-athlete improvement. 

This 12 months, the Flames will tackle an thrilling non-conference schedule, with video games towards Charleston, Florida Atlantic, Dayton, ACC opponent NC State, and extra. 

The Lady Flames opened their season Tuesday evening with a dominant 78-49 victory over Frostburg State University, outrebounding the Bobcats 46-25. Sophomore Emmy Stout recorded a double-double (16 factors, 11 rebounds) and started a 21-0 second quarter run that broke the sport open. 

The Lady Flames now have a tricky three-game stretch arising towards East Carolina, James Madison, and Duke. 

The 2025-26 marketing campaign marks the primary with out longtime Head Coach Carey Green, who retired in August after 26 years on the helm. Liberty is now led by Head Coach Alexis Sherard, who served for 18 years as an assistant with Green. 

The Lady Flames additionally welcomed some new faces this season; seven gamers have been sporting the Liberty uniform for the primary time on Tuesday. 

In his new function, Sherard will look partially to the management of junior ahead Elisabeth Aegisdottir, who began each sport for final season’s convention championship crew, in addition to Stout and sophomore Avery Mills. Mills and Stout have been every voted to the 2025 CUSA All-Freshman Team. 

The Lady Flames have been picked second within the CUSA preseason ballot. They will host preseason CUSA favourite Louisiana Tech on Jan. 11 in a contest that will likely be nationally televised on ESPNU. 

The ladies’s squad dominated convention play final season with a 16-2 document. The No. 13 Lady Flames narrowly misplaced a 79-78 thriller to No. 4 Kentucky within the first spherical of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship. 

The Lady Flames at present boast a 66-9 all-time document at Liberty Arena since its opening in 2020. The males’s crew holds a 70-10 document on its house courtroom.

Fans should buy single sport tickets for each males’s and ladies’s basketball video games at Liberty.edu/Tickets. While season tickets for the lads’s video games are at present bought out, Liberty is providing mini-plan ticket packages with large financial savings. Fans can nonetheless buy season tickets to observe the Lady Flames.