Only five weeks remain until the America East women’s basketball championship tournament kicks off at the University of Hartford on March 7.
With six of the conference’s nine teams within a game of each other at the top of the standings, every game from here on out is of the utmost importance.
And after losing three of its first four conference games and appearing to be in a January nosedive similar to last year, the Boston University women’s basketball team has used three straight conference wins to get right back into the race for the top seed in the tournament.
The Terriers hope to stay on this path when they visit Hartford’s Chase Family Arena tonight for a rare Wednesday clash with the Hawks.
The words “enigmatic” and “unpredictable” can only begin to describe Hartford’s 2001-02 season. The Hawks were picked to finish third in the preseason coaches’ poll but currently find themselves in seventh place after a 75-66 loss to the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Saturday. The Hawks earned a win at preseason favorite University of Vermont (their first win in Burlington since 1989), but lost to Yale University (RPI rank 237) and the University of Eastern Washington (RPI rank 253), while also dropping a home conference contest to fifth-place University of Maine.
Part of Hartford’s inconsistency can be attributed to its defensive and rebounding woes. Opponents are shooting 40.2 percent from the field (third-worst in the conference) and 32.1 percent from behind the three-point arc (worst in the conference). Hartford is also last in the conference in total rebounding (34.8 per game) and defensive rebounding (23.4 per game) and second-worst in offensive rebounding (11.4 per game).
With that said, Hartford is still the second-best shooting team in the conference (41.6 percent) and the best three-point shooting team (37.4 percent). They also have a distinct edge in experience (six seniors to the Terriers’ three), even if this edge has yet to manifest itself this season on a consistent basis.
The Terriers won their first meeting with the Hawks, 66-58, at the Roof on Jan. 7. In that game, freshman forward Adrienne Norris came off the bench to score a career-high 18 points and pull down a game-high 11 rebounds as the Terriers outrebounded the Hawks, 45-34. They’ll need a similar type of performance on the glass tonight if they hope to erase the sting of the 66-41 drubbing they suffered at Chase Family Arena last year.
The top of the America East standings may be a mess, but one team has emerged as the best story of the year in the conference.
In only its second season in Division I, the SUNY-Binghamton Bearcats find themselves at the top of the conference with a record of 14-4, 5-2 in conference play, and an RPI ranking of 78. They lead the conference in scoring and field goal percentage defense.
What makes this story so remarkable is that, in addition to being new to Division I, Binghamton has a very low profile outside of the state of New York, making recruiting quality players all the more challenging.
If the Bearcats keep this up, expect their head coach, Laurie Kelly, to get plenty of conference Coach of the Year votes.
Adrienne Norris began her collegiate career burdened with the hype that goes along with being part of one of the top recruiting classes in the country.
In addition to a pair of crucial conference wins for her team, Norris’ 14.5 points per game last week netted her America East Rookie of the Week honors.
Norris has experienced her share of rookie growing pains this year but has turned the corner since the start of conference play. Norris is averaging 11.8 points and 7.5 rebounds in the Terriers’ first seven conference games, and she has scored in double-figures in five of those contests.
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