Image Credits: M. Bordeaux
This past week was anything but grounding for the West Chester University Women’s Basketball Team, as back to back divisional losses brought almost every piece of their play into question. Now, with only six games left, and the post-season being far from what we expected, the team might have some serious questions to answer.
The Golden Rams had two major matchups this past week, against the now 13-8 Kutztown and the 12-9 Millersville. The Golden Rams went into these nights, after their decisive 27-point win against Mansfield on Jan. 31, likely looking to keep this momentum going. It was here however, that they were instead met with a wall.
Monday night’s game, Feb. 2, against Millersville can best be described as a shootout, for better or for worse. In that game, WCU found themselves going four for 25 from three-point range, as Millersville managed to clog up their interior game. This would mark the second lowest three-point rate WCU has put up so far this season since their 50-83 loss to Division I LaSalle University back in November, a game that saw them make only 3 of their 28 three-point attempts. Ultimately, WCU would end up with a 59-73 loss to Millersville at home Monday night, despite seeing almost 50% more shot attempts than their opponent, and ending the night leading in both steals and rebounds.
Head Coach Kiera Wooden expressed a clear frustration with this shooting performance after the game, calling it “uncharacteristic of what [they] do,” and saying that this high shot-attempt volume was less a part of their plan going in, and more so a result of their opponent’s strong inside defense.
“[Usually] we score a lot of points interior-wise,” Wooden reflected after the game “and I thought that they said, ‘go ahead, shoot the three and see if you can beat us doing that.’”
In Wednesday night’s game, Feb. 4, against Kutztown however, WCU was able to refocus its offense towards the interior, but still got clogged up defensively, losing 52-64. Starter consistency seemed to be the topic of conversation towards this game, as it has been somewhat for the Rams all season. Going into the week, Freshman Guard Macie McCracken held the highest points-per-game of anyone on the team, at 10.0, despite having yet to start a game. Similarly, the overall points leader so far this season was a tie between Freshman Forward Lena Stein, who had started every game thus far, and Graduate Forward Marianna Papazoglou, who had only started four games going into Monday night.
This bench presence reared its head again Wednesday against Kutztown, with Freshman Guard Alivia Mauz leading all WCU players in scoring with 10, despite not starting. The bench as a whole outscored the starters 31 to 21. These numbers were also exacerbated by the fact that, five minutes into the first quarter, Marianna Papazoglou, in her sixth start of the season, hit the floor on a defensive stand, being forced to limp off the court and not return for the remainder of the game.
The difficult element here is that Coach Wooden had told reporters, before Wednesday’s game, that Papazoglou was “more than likely” going to be moving into a consistent starting role, given her numbers through the first half of the season. Now however, the severity of her injuries are unknown.
“At the end of the day this first round was my team trying to figure it out,” Coach Wooden told reporters after Monday’s loss to Millersville, this “first round” referring to the fact that many of their opponents thus far were teams that WCU had been yet to play this year, yet would see again, and that these initial meetings can be difficult on “freshman and sophomore heavy” teams such as WCU is this year.
Of the 14 players listed on the WCU Women’s Basketball Roster, nine are either freshman or sophomores, with the only upper-classmen to start ten or more games for the Rams this year being junior forward Erin Daley. Following their loss to Kutztown, West Chester is left with a 6-9 PSAC conference record, leaving them in the sixth seed and just two wins above Shepherd University. On top of this the 4-10 Shepherd team is on a hot streak, having won three of their last four. The two will be set to match up, possibly in a duel for that lowest-seeded post season spot, on Feb. 18. WCU, however, will first travel to Shippensburg on Feb. 7, before taking on Bloomsburg at home on the 11th, in the hopes of righting their ship.
M. Bordeaux is a Senior History Major with a Minor in Journalism.