By Nick Pipitone
PHILADELPHIA-If this season has told the Pride women’s basketball team anything, it’s that it needs a major contribution from Vanessa Gidden.
In a 65-52 home win over Drexel University on Jan. 8, the junior center posted a game-high 21 points and a season-high 17 rebounds en route to scorching the Dragons and ending a three-game losing streak against them.
This past Sunday at the Daskalakis Center, Gidden was held to 10 points and nine rebounds as the Pride were out-maneuvered and out-hustled by the Dragons, 69-46.
The 46 points were a season-low for the Pride and the 23-point loss was its largest margin of defeat since an 86-49 loss to then No. 8 University of Connecticut on Dec. 22. The loss snapped a Division-I program record-tying six-game winning streak.
“It seemed like we were just mentally tired,” head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “We seemed so drained. I don’t know what it was, but we were not ourselves and we couldn’t snap out of it.”
The Pride (17-9 overall, 12-5 Colonial Athletic Association) split the weekend’s two games after a 71-53 home win over Towson last Friday. The team has one game remaining on the regular season slate when it travels to Delaware (20-6, 12-5) tonight. The two teams are currently tied for second place in the conference standings, so the game will be crucial, as the top four teams will get a bye in the conference tournament.
After Gidden’s career-day against the Dragons in January, Drexel focused on shutting her down. Legette-Jack said Drexel was deploying up to four defenders on Gidden at times, accounting for her 5-for-11 shooting and mostly ineffective day.
“[Gidden] beat us convincingly up at [Hofstra],” Drexel head coach Denise Dillon said. “Our biggest key was focusing on her and [Cigi McCollin] as well. I think if you can try and take them a little bit out of their game, you can disrupt their offense.”
Drexel used an 11-3 run in the final five minutes of the first half to go up 29-17 at halftime. The 17 points tied a first-half season-low for the Pride, who shot only 23.1 percent from the field. Dragons senior forward Catherine Scanlon and sophomore guard Narissa Suber combined for 17 points in the first half.
The Blue & Gold started the second half with a small 8-0 run to draw the deficit to within four, but the Dragons responded with a 17-2 run of their own to put the game out of reach. Trailing 50-29 with 10:38 remaining, the Pride didn’t get within 15 the rest of the way.
“If you’re a pessimist, you’ll think of [this loss] as a setback,” Legette-Jack said. “But I’m an optimist and I believe that it was something we had to go through in order to get victories.”