By Nick Pipitone

You could call it inconsistency if you wanted to. You could call it lack of depth. You could even say that this young Pride women’s basketball team is simply going through growing pains at this point in the season.

Really, you can take any perspective you want, but it won’t change the numbers on the stat sheet. The Pride has not been able to string together a pair of wins since it beat Sacred Heart University on Dec. 11 and Harvard University on Dec. 17.

Since then, the Pride has alternated wins and losses and the pattern continued with a 75-69 home loss to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) this past Sunday.

“I really don’t understand it myself,” head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said after Sunday’s loss. “We’re inconsistent in practice because of injuries, but we have to stop using that excuse and turn it into a positive.”

The Pride had plenty of positives to look for going into Sunday’s game, such as a record-setting crowd at the jam-packed Hofstra Arena.

Thanks to nearly 2,000 advanced ticket sales from the Girl Scouts organization, the Pride tripled the previous attendance record of 905. The 2,713 people in attendance certainly were a distinct advantage for the Pride, but not enough to help it fend off a feisty VCU team. The Pride trailed or was tied with the Rams for most of the first half and headed into halftime down 37-35.

After trading blows for nearly the entire second half, the Rams pulled away at the 7:21 mark, going on a 12-0 run that put them up 69-58 with only 2:03 remaining. The Rams were able to survive a late Pride rally and hold on for a 75-69 win.

The loss dropped the Pride back down to .500 at 9-9 and 4-5 in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), while VCU improved to 7-11 overall and 3-6 in the CAA.

Sophomore Cigi McCollin led the team with 29 points, posting a game-high and career-high total. McCollin shot seven of 11 from three-point range and added seven rebounds and two steals.

Center Vanessa Gidden put up 21 points along with nine boards and four blocks and freshman guard India Ali had a career-high 12 assists. In the end, the Rams out-rebounded the Pride, bringing down 20 boards off of the offensive blocks, the one area that mattered most in the game’s final minutes.

Certainly, with sophomore Lana Harshaw’s 6-foot presence in the paint, a few rebounds here and there would have gone the Pride’s way.

Unfortunately, the forward sat out Sunday’s game with a knee injury, missing her fourth game in the past month. Not that injuries and lack of depth are anything new for the Pride.

“At this point, we’re practicing with seven kids every day,” Legette-Jack said. “It’s not impossible, but it’s very hard.”

Senior forward Amaka Agugua has yet to return from off-season surgery as expected and multiple players have been in and out of the lineup. In fact, the only two players to suit up for every game thus far are Lizanne Murphy and Gidden. Even though the Pride was able to sign Carla Golden, a freshman junior-college transfer from Paulsboro, N.J. in late December, it is still often outnumbered by most teams.

Luckily for the Pride, it has three sophomores in the lineup that are capable of shouldering the heavy load of an undermanned team.

McCollin has been a godsend, quickly becoming an effective team leader and a dangerous sharp-shooter. The Long Island native leads the team in points-per-game and steals and is second in minutes played and three-point percentage.

Already this season, McCollin has led the team in points nine times. Simply put, the third-year sophomore has established herself as a presence in the Pride lineup after two seasons in the wings.

Another pleasant surprise for the Pride in the first half of the season was the development of Gidden. After starting only five of 27 games last year, the 6-foot-3 center has turned into the low post player the Pride desperately needed in Agugua’s absence.

The sophomore didn’t even start playing basketball until high school but, as of Sunday, leads the team in blocks and is second on the team in both points-per-game and rebounds-per-game.

But perhaps the most important player for the Pride so far this season has been Murphy. Not only does she lead the team in rebounds-per-game, minutes, and field goal percentage, the sophomore captain ranks 11th in the nation in rebounding. Her nine double-doubles this year leads the CAA and ranks ninth in the nation. In addition, the two-time CAA player of the week averages a double-double.

But while there have been plenty of personal accolades for the Pride thus far, its 4-5 CAA record lands it in a tie for fifth in the conference, a spot it would rather not be in for a competitive CAA in early February.

With only a month remaining until the conference tournament, the Pride will have to find a remedy for whatever mysterious cause has forced this unlikely trend.

“We’ve got fighters,” Legette-Jack said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out in our favor. We might be a young team that’s getting older, but we’re never going to quit.”