Saturday afternoon’s game between the Massachusetts and Fordham women’s basketball teams will be a matchup of teams struggling to work their way through the Atlantic 10 schedule.
Fordham (10-11, 1-5 A-10) has only defeated lowly Rhode Island (1-19, 0-5 A-10) thus far in its A-10 schedule and only a few of its other games have been all that close. The Rams’ last two games in particular proved to pose too big of a challenge, as they handily fell to Dayton (13-5, 5-1 A-10) and Charlotte (13-7, 5-1 A-10), who both sit near the top of the A-10 standings.
UMass (6-14, 1-4 A-10) has had similar struggles with teams ahead of it in the conference, losing each of its last three games by no less than 14 points.
One of the things UMass will look to build on will be an impressive shooting night from 3-point territory against
Duquesne on Wednesday night. The Minutewomen went 8-for-15 from beyond the arc against the Dukes (15-5, 3-2 A-10), which was highlighted by a 7-for-10 clip by the hands of Megan Zullo. The senior guard tied the UMass single-game record for 3-pointers made with the performance.
The Rams have a fairly balanced offensive attack between their five starters, all of whom average at least six points pergame. Arielle Collins and Becky Peters lead the way in the scoring department for Fordham, as they average 11 and 10.9 points per game, respectively.
Collins, who also gets after it on defense, averaging close to two steals a game, hardly ever comes out of the game. Collins averages just under 38 minutes per game thus far this season.
Peters, one of four Rams to start every game this season, has not only provided offense but chips in on the boards as well, averaging 5.3 per game despite only being a 5-foot-7 guard.
Peters showed her ability to score against URI, where she posted 20 points, her second highest scoring output of the season.
As a team, the Rams have struggled mightily shooting the ball from just about anywhere. Their field goal percentage stands at 35.4 percent and their 3-point shooting is at 31 percent. To top it off, Fordham only converts 64.7 percent of their free throws.
Despite being such a poor shooting team, the Rams have kept opposing teams’ shooting percentages at bay, which has helped them stay in games. For the season, Fordham has held its opponents to 39.3 percent from the field and 28.8 percent from beyond the arc.
In contrast, when UMass has been successful, its shooting has been what has kept it in games, especially from beyond the arc. With reliable long-range shooters like Zullo (43.5 percent) and Emilie Teuscher (40.6 percent), the Minutewomen have stayed in games when they otherwise may have been in trouble.
The struggles inside the conference are nothing new for either of these team as last season, Fordham went 4-10 in the conference, while the Minutewomen went 3-11.
However, both teams are showing some signs that they may be improving from the previous season. The Rams are already only two wins away from matching their season total from last year (12), and UMass’ six wins are one away from tying their mark from last season.
After the two square off at 5 p.m. on Saturday, each team will continue to try and improve upon their conference record against some of the tougher teams within the conference, including Charlotte and St. Bonaventure.
Eric Mansfield can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_Mansfield.
