A squad can’t turn the ball over and expect to win many games in college basketball.
The Massachusetts women’s basketball team (0-2) has been a prime example of this in its first two games of the 2001-02 campaign, committing 50 turnovers in the two losses.
Game two for this year’s squad against St. Peter’s was as tough turnover-wise as Friday’s 26-point loss to Holy Cross. Each game saw the Minutewomen commit 25 turnovers, with 11 coming in yesterday’s second half, as the Maroon and White blew a nine-point lead with nine minutes remaining.
After Holy Cross caused problems for UMass with a trapping full court press, St. Peter’s played a similar style defense with similar results against Head Coach Joanie O’Brien’s team.
Not that pressing is anything out of the ordinary for the Peahens this year.
“We press a lot,” St. Peter’s Head Coach Mike Granelli said. “Sometimes just to energize [the team]. We did cause a good amount of turnovers. We have tried to gamble a little bit to compensate for not being the strongest offensive team.”
The dice rolling paid off in the end for the New Jersey squad. The Peahens scored 11 points off turnovers on the evening. If not for the team’s horrific 22-for-61 shooting performance, it could have been much, much worse.
Granelli pointed out that the defense saved the game for his squad, which shot just 36 percent from the floor.
“We played reasonably good defense,” the 30-year head coaching veteran said. “We struggled, but we kept ourselves in the game with our defense.
“I wasn’t overly pleased with what some of us were doing, but they are giving us the effort,” Granelli added. His team made 14 steals in the contest.
O’Brien expects to see more and more pressing from future opponents until her squad can consistently break the press – which she sees coming in the near future.
“If we keep turning it over [we’ll see the press from everyone],” O’Brien said. “We just have to be able to handle the ball better with a little more discipline.”
After a lackluster turnover-to-assist ratio against the Crusaders (13-to-2), the UMass backcourt improved the ratio (13-to-8) but not the total number of turnovers.
The number of turnovers credited to the guards in yesterday’s game was somewhat inflated, however, due to some post players’ inability to move to the pass. This allowed the Peahen defender a chance to tip the ball away – thus giving the turnover to the passer, not the player that really made the mistake.
The Minutewomen will face two quality opponents this weekend, Rice and Clemson. In order to have any chance in either game, they will have to cut their average turnovers-per-game in half. Both the Owls and the Lady Tigers will likely take greater advantage of the mistakes made by the Maroon and White than St. Peter’s managed to yesterday.
