By Nick Pipitone
Last year the Pride would not have been able to prevail from a two-game losing streak to end the season. Nor would it have been able to bounce back from two double-digit losses heading into the Colonial Athletic Association tournament.
But this season, with a deeper and more balanced roster, head coach Felisha Legette-Jack thinks the team will be rejuvenated and ready to challenge for its first conference championship this weekend in Fairfax, Va.
The Pride clinched a bye and the fourth seed in the tournament. The team will face Georgia State tonight at 5 p.m. in the quarterfinals round, having already beat the Panthers twice already this season.
The tournament is single-game elimination, meaning the Pride will have to win three games in three days in order to win the conference and secure an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
“We don’t think about streaks, winning or losing,” Jack said. “We think about the next minute and the next game. We didn’t go as hard as we could the last two games. We saw the wall and we backed up. We have to go through it.”
Certainly, this is the best shot the Pride has had to win the conference since it joined the CAA during the 2001-02 season. Losing its final two games at Drexel and Delaware, the Blue & Gold (17-10 overall, 12-6 CAA) finished with its first winning record since 1993-94.
The 17 total wins were the most for the Pride since the 1983-84 season, its first year as a Division I program, and also ranks as the third-most in Division I program history.
However, despite rattling off a a program-tying six-game winning streak from Feb. 5-24, the Pride ended the season with two crucial losses. The Blue & Gold lost to the Dragons and Blue Hens by a combined 42 points. The two losses were its second and third most lopsided defeats of the season, respectively.
“It’s all about team energy and we allowed [Drexel and Delaware] to come out and set the pace,” junior center Vanessa Gidden said. “But it’s good that we got those two losses out of the way so we could focus on some of the mistakes we made and correct them.”
Energy did in fact play a big role in the losses to the Dragons and the Blue Hens. In the 69-46 loss at Drexel the Pride came out flat in the second half. The team trailed by as much as 20 with 10:38 remaining after allowing the Dragons to go on a 25-4 run to start the half.
In the tournament, the Pride will not have the luxury to lose focus. One loss and its season will come to a screeching halt.