The College of Charleston’s offense was just a notch too good for the Hofstra University women’s basketball team in their first loss in conference play, 64-51, on Friday, Jan. 11.
“Tough game for us,” said Hofstra’s head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “They are very aggressive, which we knew, they’re very intense defensively, we knew they were going to press us for 40 minutes. We’d done a great job of handling the teams’ pressure and not turning the ball over but that got away from us tonight.”
The Pride committed a season-high turnover when matched up against the Cougars’ high-intensity, nearly omnipotent full-court press for the length of the game.
Ramatoulaye Keita, a sixth-year transfer from Gardner-Webb University, stood out with an 11-point, 15-rebound double-double. The tricky part wasn’t when Keita drove to penetrate and find an open lane, but when she would pull down a rebound and give it to a more open shooter that couldn’t connect.
“I thought [Keita] did a great job,” Santos praised. “She plays with such intensity with which we can rely on. We know she’s gonna rebound, and some of the rebounds she came up with were huge, were big, multiple times in a possession. We’ve gotta be able to step up and convert out of those offensive rebounds, but her intensity helps us.”
Keita and fellow center Zyheima Swint were relied on more heavily since freshman center LaNae’ Corbett was unavailable for the game according to Hofstra Athletics.
The typical stars of the program, Emma Von Essen and Chloe Sterling, had a mixed bag of results, with Von Essen pouring in 11 points on 4-15 shooting, including 3-13 from beyond the arc. Sterling, the starting point guard, was held to 1-11 throughout the contest but contributed otherwise with three rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals.
“I thought it was a tough night for [Sterling],” Santos sympathized. “She’s gonna be key on everyone’s scouting report. I thought they did a good job of holding her, being tough, playing her physical. I thought there was a lot of contact on a lot of her shots at the rim and I think that gets frustrating … but she still managed us offensively, still kept our tempo in ways that we needed to keep it and ran us offensively. She’s a competitor, she’ll be back ready for Sunday.”
While the Pride opened the first quarter with pep in their step, Charleston’s offensive and defensive machine became too much in seemingly the blink of an eye.
“I thought in the first half we were aggressive, we were getting to the basket, we were able to play a lot more in transition,” Santos said. “Second half, they started jamming us on the rebound, that slowed us down a lot. Great adjustment for them, jamming that rebound[ing] and slowing us up.”
A positive takeaway despite the loss was the team’s hunger for rebounds, cashing in over 50 of them.
“We knew we needed to be forty-plus rebounds from there, but we knew we needed to limit their rebounds,” Santos explained. “That spread and that margin needed to be a little bit bigger.”
On a larger scale, the competition level was right where Santos wanted it to be.
“The goal for this year is not to beat Charleston, the goal for us is to continue to get better, continue to grow, continue to become our best team and get ready for March,” Santos said.
With Drexel University’s visit to Hempstead on Sunday, Jan. 12, the priority now was for the Pride to take more shots and make the most of them when they do let the ball fly as well as being hyperaware of the coming curveballs.
“Drexel’s movement offensively, we gotta be locked in, keyed in,” Santos said. “[Also], just really aware of what they’re gonna be doing on the ball and off the ball, they do a great job of slowing it down at times and forcing you to defend at the half-court, and I think that’s an area of growth we’ve seen for us.”
Tipoff for the game was at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 12, at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex.
