During the next two weekends, the women and men's basketball teams enter the homestretch of the 2003-04 regular seasons. The good news is that both teams can control their own destinies. The bad news is that all four games will be played on the road.
This weekend will find the Garnet teams traveling to the North Country to play St. Lawrence on Friday and Clarkson on Saturday. The final weekend finds Union at Vassar and Rensselaer. Those final four games will determine where Union is seeded in the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Championship tournaments the weekend of February 27 and 28, which will be held at the site of the regular-season champion. The winner of the UCAA event earns the conference's automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.
While both teams have destiny in their own hands, the women's team is looking for its first UCAA regular-season title while the men still need to qualify for the four-team event.
(Click here for the men's preview)
The Dutchwomen head into the final four games riding the crest of a 13-game win streak that lifted their overall record to 18-2. More importantly, however, is the fact that the Mary Ellen Burt-coached team is 10-0 in the UCAA and starts the week leading Rensselaer (7-2) by two and a half games and third-place St. Lawrence (6-3) by three and a half games.
“We will continue to approach the final four games the same way we have played the first 20 games,” said Burt, who guided last year's team to a program-best 11-3 second-place finish in the conference's regular season and to a second-place finish in the postseason tournament – also a program best.
Burt, who earned her 100th career coaching victory (all as the Dutchwomen's head mentor) on December 9 with a 79-35 victory at Russell Sage, has led her team to an overall standard of 86-40 (including this year) over the last five seasons. Union is 40-7 the last two years.
“Our ability to use all 14 players on our bench over the last two seasons, has been one of the major factors of our success,” explained Burt. “The other key component is the willingness of every single player to put the team's goals ahead of their own personal goals and statistics.”
While most teams point to players with the highest point or rebounding average, Union's key statistic has been minutes played. Eleven of the Dutchwomen's 14 players are averaging double figures in minutes played. Sophomore Erika Eisenhut leads the team with her 23.5 average and is among five players who are averaging more than 20 minutes. Nine of the 14 Dutchwomen have started six or more games.
“Being a starter on this team really means nothing more than who is on the court when the referee tosses up the opening jump ball,” explained Burt. “Once the game begins, Jamie (assistant coach Jamie Seward) and I continually shuffle players in and out of the game.”
The system allows the Dutchwomen to play extremely hard all the time, especially on defense and in the critical rebounding department.
“We have a lot of talented players on the team and that allows us to compete at a high energy level every minute of every game,” said Burt. “Because Jamie and I are always making sure that we have fresh players on the court, we are able to work extremely hard on defense and in the critical area of rebounding. We can create scoring opportunities off of those two important aspects of the game.”
The strategy has worked well for the Dutchwomen as Union leads its UCAA opponents in 12 of 19 categories including: scoring offense (64.8), scoring defense (46.5), scoring margin (+18.3), field goal percentage (.440), three-point field goal percentage (.371), rebounding off the defensive boards (31.7), rebounding margin (+7.8), assists (16.7), steals (13.3), turnover margin (+4.60), assist-to-turnover ratio (0.96), and three-point field goals made (3.90).
Individually, Eisenhut ranks sixth with her 11.1 scoring average while junior forwards Emily Scott (4.8) and Katlyn Cunningham (4.7) are 20th and 21st respectively, among the conference's rebounding leaders.
Yet the Dutchwomen boast several top-10 players in the parts of the game that stress team play. Junior guard Melissa Marra ranks third among her conference peers in assists with her 4.6 average while Eisenhut and senior point guard Tayrn Scinto are 10th with their 2.50 average. Meanwhile, Eisenhut is second in the circuit with her steal average of 3.90 with Scinto 12th (1.60). Marra is second in the conference with her assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.54.
“Our goal as a team is to focus on our next opponent,” said Burt. “St. Lawrence is next up on our schedule so that is who we are focusing on. As long as all of our players continue to perform with a high level of energy, trust in their teammates, and play within their capabilities, we'll be fine.”
The Dutchmen are in a bit of a different situation. Already assured of their sixth consecutive winning season thanks to their 16-5 overall record, Union is in the fourth and final tournament position with its 6-4 UCAA record. Unfortunately for the Garnet, last Saturday's 90-80 overtime home loss to Hamilton gives the fifth-place Continentals (5-4) the tie-breaker over the Dutchmen as the Buff and Blue also won on its home court (74-57). The Continentals' final five games are against homestanding Hobart (3-6), as well as with Vassar (0-9) and Rensselaer (6-3) in Clinton. Hamilton closes out the regular season at league-leading Clarkson 8-1 and St. Lawrence 4-5.
“I feel the last four games will be a very challenging stretch of the season for us; part of a schedule that has offered this team tough opponents throughout to compete against,” said head coach Bob Montana. “I certainly hope that this year's schedule has now prepared us for this final stretch run.
“First of all the “North Country trip” is always considered one of the most challenging road trips on every league teams' schedule, and even for the non-league teams, for whatever reason,” Montana explained. “We will continue to focus on each game and team separately as we have for eight years, and not any other elements.
“The Vassar and Rensselaer weekend will also offer us two challenging road games. Vassar, like every team in the league, is well coached, works very hard, and has some skilled perimeter kids to go with some physical inside scorers. They have struggled win-wise in the league so far, however, every coach in the league has great respect for Vassar as an opponent and knows that Vassar can have an impact on the league's playoff picture.”
Union already owns three victories against its final four opponents, having beaten St. Lawrence, (62-57), Vassar (78-48), and Rensselaer (56-48) while losing to Clarkson, 57-56, after the Knights rallied from a 12-point first-half deficit. Clarkson took the lead with 32 seconds left to play then held on as Union's potential game-winning jumper failed to fall.
Sophomore guard John Cagianello ranks fifth among the league's scoring leaders with his 14.9 average while classmate, forward Brian Scordato, is 14th at 11.9 and ninth among the rebounding leaders with his 6.9 average.
Sophomore point guard Chris Murphy leads the UCAA by a wide margin with his assist average of 5.20 (Skidmore's Frank Murray is next at 4.90) and also tops the circuit with his assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.74.
“St. Lawrence, Clarkson, and Rensselaer are all post-season type teams fighting for the opportunity to make the league's top four,” Montana explained. “We will have played a very challenging schedule, with 14 of our 25 games away from Memorial Fieldhouse. Hopefully that will make us “road tested” and not “road weary” as we heard to this challenging yet exciting period in the UCAA schedule.
“I am confident that our kids will continue to work hard to prepare themselves for each game.”