The last month of action for the Massachusetts Minutewomen has been like a wild, never-ending roller coaster ride. Along with the ups came the downs that have left the Minutewomen in the middle of the pack in the race for the Atlantic 10 title.

The Minutewomen now stand at 8-9 overall and 3-3 in the A-10 Conference.

Head coach Joanie O’Brien has seen her team, at times, show that it could be one of the most dangerous teams in the Atlantic 10. However, at some points, this team has also shown the frustrations that come with a young team that includes 9 freshmen and sophomores.

However, the coach sees a light at the end of the tunnel.

‘We got two of our tougher road trips of the year out of the way,’ O’Brien said. ‘Going up to Olean is semi-torture.’

The year 2000 ended for the Minutewomen at The St. Peter’s Holiday Classic. That tournament saw the Minutewomen go 1-1 and show the kind of effort that they need to contend in the Atlantic 10. Although they lost their first game, a 74-62 setback to 13-2 Alabama, the Minutewomen’s effort was at a peak. Sophomore Jennifer Butler scored 18 points and fellow sophomore Amber Sneed scored 13.

The Minutewomen dominated in the frontcourt, outrebounding the Crimson Tide 53-35 including Butler’s 18 and sophomore Siiri Livandi’s 12.

However, they saw those rebounding efforts agonizingly go to waste as they only shot 34.9% from the field and turned the ball over 25 times.

While the Minutewomen were having trouble finding the basket up close, Alabama was finding no such problems from the outside, connecting on 10-19 from three-point range including Manisha Redus’s 4-for-4 performance form the Deep Blue Seas.

‘We didn’t play badly, especially early on,’ O’Brien said. ‘We got everything that we wanted, but once again we got into a situation were we didn’t finish our plays. We did a good job of executing early on and got the shots we wanted, and when you don’t make the shots that you worked for and what you want, you’re gonna struggle a little bit and that is what happened to us.

‘I think we were upset after the game that we felt that we let one slip away.’

UMass learned from its opportunity missed against Alabama, and after a day off due to the snow in the Northeast, took out its frustration in blizzard-like form against Fairleigh Dickinson 69-47.

It was the Paige Harris show as the freshman from Rochester, Michigan scored a career-high 19 points, including five three pointers. Her performance gave teams in the Atlantic 10 more to think about.

‘I think the thing about Paige that is nice is that she has more to her game than just shooting,’ O’Brien commented. ‘If you run at her she has the ability to give you an up-fake, give a couple dribbles and pull up for a jumper, and that as a shooter is what you need to be great.’

The Minutewomen, after a sluggish first half leading just 29-19 at the break, broke out with 40 second-half points while using primarily their match-up zone defense to hold FDU to 26 percent shooting for the game and kept them drowning in the same seas that Alabama prospered in as the Knights shot just 3-of-17 from downtown.

‘We didn’t allow them to do anything that they wanted to do,’ O’Brien exclaimed. ‘We did a good job in the post and they tried to bump us around a little bit an we held our own and we didn’t give them any penetration, so it was definitely a team effort.’

Senior Kathy Coyner chipped in 11 points and eight assists as the Minutewomen moved into conference play with a 5-6 mark.

As the New Year dawned on the Minutewomen, A-10 play began. The Minutewomen were about to run into the most important stretch of the season as the rest of their schedule is against conference competition. They got an early test against probably their biggest rival, the Hawks of St. Joseph’s, on January 4.

While evenly contested throughout the entire 40 minutes the game, won by the Hawks 66-54, came down to two simple factors: the Minutewomen’s inability to hit the open shots, and Angela Zampella.

The senior point guard dominated play with 23 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. She, along with Irina Krasnoshiok keyed an 18-4 run in a span of eight minutes that pushed the lead to 35-19 with 15 minutes left.

Then as the Minutewomen were attempting a second-half rally, Zampella also hit 9-of-10 free throws, including hitting 5-of-6 in the last two minutes of the game to salt away any hopes of a UMass comeback.

‘She was their big key,’ O’Brien observed. ‘I think that if that kid had any sense that she should have come to school here because every time she plays in the Mullins Center she is absolutely unbelievable.’

While Zampella and the Hawks hit 41 percent of their shots, the Minutewomen had the lid close in on an ever-shrinking basket as they shot just 28 percent from the field and an eye gauging 2-of-21 from three-point range. Although Butler had a career-high 20 points, including going 10-for-11 at the charity stripe, and sophomore Ebony Pegues scored 12 points in the second half, that was the only semblance of shooting that UMass could find.

Coyner went just 4-of-15 and Harris and Sneed both suffered through their toughest night of the season, going a combined 0-for-18 from the floor.

‘There is no substitute for good shooting,’ O’Brien said. ‘Paige Harris couldn’t ask for better shots. I think she was tight, I think she was more afraid of the game because of the way we talk about St. Joe’s and she played afraid.’

‘You could she her short arm the shots a couple of times and same the thing with Kathy. It came down to that they made shots and we didn’t, so there is only so much you can do.’

With the St. Joe’s game fresh in their minds, the Minutewomen had to travel up to Olean, New York to take on St. Bonaventure, a place where the Minutewomen had blown an 18-point lead last season.

The Minutewomen would make sure that there would be no letdown this year, as they led from start to finish in a 63-54 win.

The Minutewomen’s constant hounding of the Bonnies, including the defensive pressure put on their two star players, Melissa Fazio (3-for-14 field goals) and Gellaine Clark (two first half points) held them 19 points under their season scoring output of 73 points per game. The Minutewomen also shut down Angela Scott. Scott, who had 25 points and 10 rebounds in last year’s game up in Olean, had just seven points and two boards in this year’s contest. However, it was the defense of Fazio that Coach O’Brien thought was the key to the game.

‘She, other than Sue Moran (St. Joe’s), is probably the best offensive player in the Atlantic 10 because she has a complete game,’ O’Brien exclaimed. ‘We didn’t give her anything easy; we stayed between her and the bucket and we didn’t allow her to get penetration.’

‘I think by having different people guarding her at different stretches of the game, it kept her off balance. She wasn’t able to set one person up like she has with some of the other teams that have played just one player on her, so it was definitely a complete team effort against her.’

The Minutewomen were able to build a 15-point halftime lead at 35-20. However, while their defensive intensity showed up, their killer instinct did not as the Bonnies closed to within five points at 55-50 with less than two minutes left. That is when Ebony Pegues came up big again, as her jumper in the lane opened the lead back up to seven and the Minutewomen cruised in from there.

Pegues had a career-high 14 points and has come up spades since coming off the bench.

‘She has done a good job, she has slowed herself down a little bit, she is not trying to do everything,’ O’Brien said. ‘She is playing within herself and when she plays within herself she becomes a great spark for us.

‘She just has to continue that, learn more about herself and continue to play within herself.’

After the victory over the Bonnies, the Minutewomen tried to protect their ho
me turf against the Rhode Island Lady Rams. The Lady Rams won just two games the year before but URI had won seven contests going into the game at the Mullins Center. The Minutewomen almost made it eight.

As UMass jumped out to another early lead, there were some warning signs in the air of the Mullins that convinced you that this Rhode Island team was not just going to roll over and give way to a circus of Maroon and White points.

The Lady Rams were able to get into the lane and convert on easy shots. The play of guard Neda Djuric help bring URI within six at 37-31 despite the fact that Butler had 17 first-half points. Though the Minutewomen had the lead, the Rams were able to stay close the entire way. When Djuric tied the game at 41, the feeling in the Mullins Center went from one of expected victory to one of unreasonable doubt.

The play of Pegues and Coyner (combined 18 points and six assists) brought the Minutewomen back on top in the late stages of regulation. However, Shayla Johnson (13 points) and Yatar Kuyateh (12 points) brought the Rams all the way back and were able to tie the game at 61 at the end of regulation.

Then Butler reestablished herself in the post. Playing with four fouls in the overtime session, the sophomore from Brooklyn, New York played with the swagger of a polished senior, scoring points and taking a key charge. She ending up with a career-high 28 points and led the way to a 71-66 overtime win. Not only did the Minutewomen hang on for the win, Butler had won a lot of praise from her coach.

‘We played three games in six days and she was phenomenal in all three of them,’ said O’Brien. ‘Sometimes you have players who have to be a presence on the floor that really helps the team and Jen has done that.’

However, Butler and the Minutewomen’s swagger turned into stagger during the first 10 minutes of a frustrating night at the brand new Cintas Center, home to defending Atlantic 10 champion Xavier.

The teams came into the game as complete opposites: UMass looking to slow the pace down and play a defensive struggle, while the Musketeers were looking to run and gun.

It was evident from the start of Xavier’s 77-68 conquest that the pace and the control of the game belonged to the Musketeers and their star point guard, Reetta Piipari.

The sophomore out of Finland, starting at the point due to the season-ending Achilles injury to A-10 Rookie of the Year Amy Waugh, had 14 points and 10 assists. Her 10 assists kept her on par with her nation-leading average of 9.5 dishes per game. She had five of those assists during a decisive 29-7 first half run which saw seniors Nicole Levandusky and Jennifer Phillips score 22 combined first-half points. The Minutewomen were down 37-23 at halftime, a hole from which they were never fully able to climb out of.

‘The first five or six minutes, they really got us,’ O’Brien exclaimed. ‘We went for steals a little bit too much instead of playing defense, and they pounded it inside on us.’

Once one Finnish player in Piipari started to slow down, another Fin, senior Taru Tuukkanen, picked it up by scoring 19 of her game high 23 points in the second half as the Musketeers shot 58 percent from the field.

‘Those two kids (Phillips and Tuukkanen) in the paint are big and strong and we tried to use our quickness against them and for the most part we did okay,’ O’Brien commented.

Back in her hometown of Cincinnati, Sneed scored a career-high 18 points, and Pegues added 11, continuing her strong play.

‘Offensively, [Sneed] came to life,’ O’Brien said. ‘She was aggressive, got herself under control got a couple of easy buckets, hit a couple of jump shots and hopefully that was a chance for her to break out of her slump.’

While Sneed and Pegues had good nights shooting, it was an exasperating night for Butler. Though she had 14 points and 10 boards, she felt as if she was being shafted by the officials down in the post and the frustration led to her getting a technical foul late in the second half after she was called for a personal foul on Tuukkanen.

‘[Jen] very much had a right to get frustrated,’ O’Brien exclaimed. ‘She doesn’t get a call ever and it is unfair and I can’t criticize the officials too much because you’ve got to put up with them all year, but when someone moves somebody out of the way and they don’t call it, I really don’t get it, and I don’t blame her for getting frustrated.’

The Minutewomen had a quick turnaround from the Xavier game as they had a Sunday afternoon game against the Flyers of Dayton. In this game the Minutewomen were able to turn the wobble of the Xavier game back into the strut that they have shown glimpses of during the year. The 69-57 win was UMass at its best this season.

They hounded the Flyers on defense, holding them to just 34 percent shooting from the game. They took out the best players the Flyers had to offer as RaeLynn MacIntosh and Alena Martens, who scored a combine 34 points against Rhode Island in the previous game, scored a combined eight in this battle.

Although the Flyers led at the half 31-30, the Minutewomen were forcing them to take outside shots, a sight which Coach O’Brien could take.

‘We made them play the type of game that they didn’t want to play,’ O’Brien stated. ‘They made five three pointers in the first half and we were kind of banging our heads against the wall for allowing that to happen.’

The key to the win was the Minutewomen’s offensive performance in the second half. After some sloppy play in the first half, the Minutewomen put together the best 20 minutes of basketball of the season. They passed the ball crisply around the court, taking open shots and not committing a second stanza turnover until there were four minutes left and the game was salted away.

With family members and friends cheering from the stands of Blackburn Court, Pegues and Sneed once again led the way.

‘We might have to pretend that we are in Ohio all the time if they are going to keep this up,’ O’Brien boasted.

Pegues, who is averaging 11 points per game in conference play, had a career-high 17 points and Sneed had 16 points and eight rebounds as the Minutewomen placed four players in double figures for the second straight game (Butler 14 points, Coyner 12 points).

‘The first half we did not get anything executed; we would make one pass and then try to make something happen,’ O’Brien stated. ‘In the second half, we just made that extra pass, got some good things going and Amber and Ebony hit some big shots. I hope they can continue that for a little bit longer.’

That little bit longer that Coach O’Brien is looking for started Saturday against George Washington in a game that brought back old memories for both teams. GW had eliminated the Minutewomen from the Atlantic 10 semifinals the year before. An already heated, bitter rivalry intensified in the late portions of the game.

However, unfortunately for the Minutewomen, everything that went on other than that was covered in Colonial Blue.

In what might have been the Minutewomen’s worst performance of the season, the Colonials took it to UMass from start to finish in a 74-46 thumping.

‘If you can’t dribble with the basketball and you are afraid to attack then you are going to get yourself into trouble,’ O’Brien commented after the game. ‘It was a very physical game, a very emotional game and we are a young team that if you’re going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk and we didn’t do that today.’

Without Petra Dubacova, out after hitting her head in the previous game against Fordham, Kristeena Alexander of GW was talking and walking over the Minutewomen with 16 first-half points as the Colonials got out to a 15-5 lead in the first six minutes of the game and never looked back. With help from Lindsey Davidson hitting a pair of three pointers, the Colonials shot 46 percent for the game and 9-of-19 from the land of three.

While the Colonials were exquisite offensively, the Minutewomen were caught in a web of tur
novers as they committed 15 leading to a 44-16 halftime deficit.

In the second half, while the Colonials continued bombing away, the Minutewomen were held to 20 points with 12 minutes left in the game.

That is where all the fun began.

Alexander was picked off by a hard screen by Butler (eight points and nine rebounds), which set up a Harris (12 points, 4-for-4 three point field goals) basket. It cost GW a technical as head coach Joe McKeown continued to argue the call.

‘He is saying that she set a nice screen over on Alexander and maybe Jen stood over her for a second, but that’s just her reaction,’ O’Brien remarked.

‘With the things that those kids have done and said, for there to be any comment from GW, to me, is ridiculous.’

That is when things got chippy between the two squads the rest of the way.

With less than four minutes left, as the Minutewomen were down by 30, McKeown kept his starters on the court, and with the feistiness of the game, the Minutewomen picked up a technical foul as the Colonials put away the game.

The fun culminated with O’Brien and McKeown’s mid-court meeting after the final horn had sounded in which the animated discussion put both coaches into bad moods and Coach O’Brien with some words afterwards.

‘If I am up 30 points and I still have my starters in the game with three minutes to go, you know what, someone better be taking a shot at one of my kids,’ O’Brien fumed. ‘That’s not good coaching especially when you have 13 kids in uniform over there.’

O’Brien added, ‘When we go play them again on February 16, we better strap it on because they are going to be gunning for us.’

As for the rest of the season, UMass fans better buckle up: this ride has a long way to go.