Before the year began, the Massachusetts women’s basketball team’s Head Coach Joanie O’Brien said that she thought her team could crack the top 10 in the country in rebounding.
Today, however, the Minutewomen will be attempting a different type of rebound, when they try to bounce back from last Friday’s 68-42 drubbing at the hands of Holy Cross in their season opener.
In the game against the Crusaders, the Maroon and White (0-1, 0-0 Atlantic 10) were outplayed in all facets of the game, and it hopes to avoid a similar performance when St. Peter’s comes to the William D. Mullins for a 7 p.m. tip off.
All signs point to another very difficult game for UMass, which will begin the 2001-02 campaign playing a high level of competition in the season’s first few contests.
“I think this year’s team will be better than last year’s,” said O’Brien about a Peahen squad that went 17-11 a year ago. “The thing they don’t do as well as they would like is shoot the ball, but they are a penetrating team, play hard and they get to the free throw line. This might be a team we will zone up a bit.”
St. Peter’s did lose three starters from last season’s team, including leading-scorer Courtney Wicks (14.6 points per game), second-leading scorer Beth Ann Dickinson (12.6 ppg) and leading post player Leah Cromer (.519 field goal percentage), but that does not mean that it is short of firepower.
Leading three-point shooter Sue Porter returns for her senior year at the one for the Peahens, as does fellow senior guard Felicia Harris. In St. Peters’ first contest of the year against No. 22 Arizona State, Harris and sophomore Lindsay Gonzalez both dropped 15 points, while freshman banger Tyiana Sears picked up an impressive 13 points and nine boards in her first collegiate contest.
The Peahens ended up dropping the game 72-69, but in the process showed that they could play with just about any team in the nation.
UMass, on the other hand, needs to regain its composure after a disastrous outing in Worcester. The young guard trio of Cleo Foster, Katie Nelson and Monique Govan especially struggled, committing 13 turnovers in comparison to only a pair of assists.
If the Maroon and White plan on winning tonight’s contest, then improvement will need to come from the backcourt.
“Leadership comes in many different ways,” O’Brien said. “I expect those three (Govan, Nelson and Foster) to handle this basketball team better than they did against Holy Cross. If they lose their minds, everybody loses their minds, but if they are calm and under control then everybody else will be that way.”
Size seemed like it would play an important role against the Crusaders, as the Minutewomen were short on height at almost every position. This time around, the roles will be reversed, as the Maroon and White seem to have the advantage down low against the Peahens.
According to O’Brien, however, size had nothing to do with Friday’s 26-point UMass defeat.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with size,” the eleventh year coach said. “Obviously they were a little bit bigger than us, but they didn’t post us up or rebound over us. What they did is that they were able to take us off the dribble and it really ended up costing us very early in the game.”
