The 3rd player for the Bearcats will be incoming Freshman Lojain Elfatairy. Lojain is a guard from Giza, Egypt where she played for Smart Village Academy. Elfatairy also played for the Egypt National team for the last few years before deciding to take her talents to the states and join coach Clark-Heard and the Bearcats. Elfatairy is a guard who has the ability to push the ball up and down the court very quickly and give teams a lot of problems with how fast she likes to push the ball up the court. This kind of player fits perfectly in coach Clark-Heards system as she will fit perfectly alongside guards Sofia Gritzali and Jillian Hayes.
The 4th player up is Louisville transfer Malea Williams. William’s provides a big tall, athletic forward who not only played for a Top 5 team in the country last season, but has a lot of talent that can help the Bearcats on both sides of the court after they lost Ilmar’i Thomas who transferred this offseason. Williams has so much upside to her game as she’s willing to push the ball up the floor, make shots, protect the rim with her athleticism. William’s is looking to make an immediate impact right away and prove to #Bearcatnation why she was high on coach Clark-Heard’s list when she entered her name in the transfer portal this offseason. Bearcats fans have to be excited to have Malea Williams especially coming from a powerhouse program like Louisville, this is a big time player to keep your eyes on heading into the season.
The Bearcats 5th new face will include Virginia Tech transfer Naveah Dean. Dean is a Cincinnati native as she played her high school ball in West Chester, Ohio where she attended Lakota West High School. Dean was a three star player before signing with Virginia Tech, and she now lands back home to play not only in front of her family, but also #Bearcatnation. Dean is a forward who is a known scorer as she can light up the stat book very quickly weather it’s on offense or defense. Dean will play a huge role for the Bearcats in the future and I think her and Malea Williams will compliment each other very well heading into the next season.
The 6th new face for the Bearcats will be West Vriginia transfer Taziah Jenks. Janks is a very talented player who has played at a high level program with West Virginia University. Jenks is a very versatile player as she can do it all on the court whether it’s shooting the deep ball, using her size and quickness to get to the rim, but she can also shoot the midrange ball very well which is something that we saw work very well for the Bearcats last season as freshman guard Jillian Hayes made that her game as she was able to find that shot multiple times versus teams throughout the 2020 season. Jenks not only provides some size for the Bearcats, but she also brings more experience and that will make this team come together quickly as they added multiple players from other high end programs.
