Extended winning streaks followed the first two losses of the UMass women’s basketball season. The Minutewomen won five in a row following their first defeat at Boston College in overtime, then they prevailed in four straight games following a defensive defeat against Rhode Island.
That’s why UMass isn’t wallowing over its third loss at Saint Louis on Sunday.
“We look forward to the next game, we put it behind us. We learn from it. We don’t dwell on it too long,” UMass senior Maddie Sims said. “You never know which game’s going to be your last, so we might as well just keep looking forward to the next one.”
The next one is at 1 p.m Friday against Saint Joseph’s at the Mullins Center. UMass (10-3, 6-2 Atlantic 10) is finally playing at home after three straight road games. It would have been four if their Jan. 17 contest at Richmond (then VCU) wasn’t scrubbed because of COVID-19 protocols. The Minutewomen have been on the road for eight of the past 14 days largely confined to hotel rooms, so playing at Mullins again will be a welcome return despite the lack of fans.
“Being at home is always an advantage and always a good thing. It’s been a long two weeks,” Sims said. “Getting home is going to be good for us, especially come to the gym, settle in and go through our daily routine like we always do.”
Another routine UMass would like to return to: scoring regularly on offense. The Minutewomen have the A-10’s highest scoring average at 69.5 points per game but have only mustered 61.5 over their past five games, which would rank 10th in the conference. They made a season-low 26.2 percent of their field goals Sunday against the Billikens, 10 percentage points below their previous low of 36.8 percent against Fordham.
“In our two (conference) losses, there’s no question we struggled to score. That’s where I communicated our lack of offensive production affects who we are defensively, and we can’t allow that to happen,” UMass coach Tory Verdi said. “Those are nights we need to grind it out. We need to be consistent.”
Saint Louis zeroed in on Sam Breen, the A-10’ second-leading scorer at 17.6 points per game, holding her to 13 points Friday and a season-low five Sunday.
“There are going to be some games where opponents scout you, they’re going to take away your strengths. Having a balanced doing attack is something that we need,” Verdi said. “We got to make sure we stay within our offense. When we struggle offensively sometimes players take it amongst themselves to force the issue and start going 1 on 1. That’s not what we want to have happen.”
Verdi focused practice on resharpening his team’s offensive sets and keeping the squad in a collaborative mindset. The Minutewomen aren’t getting discouraged.
“Everyone has a bad game, I’m not too worried about it, and I don’t think any of us are too worried about it,” Sims said. “We came in to practice focused on playing together and playing well, I think we’ll be fine.”
They’ll need to be on their game to outpace Saint Joseph’s. The Hawks are second in the A-10 scoring 69.2 points per game and boast the conference’s second best scoring margin (10.4 points per game. That’s just 0.6 behind league-leading Dayton and ahead of UMass (9.6). They accomplish that largely through balance. Alayna Gribble, a graduate transfer form Pittsburgh, leads the team at 16.3 points per game, and Gabby Smalls – ironically one of the team’s tallest players at 6-foot-2 and leading rebounder – scores 11 per contest, but they have two players above eight points per game and seven that score at least five.
“We need to make sure we match their physicality and not let them run offense,” Verdi said. “We’re going to see a ton of motion offense from them. They’re very similar to Fordham where they’re going to set screens and curl screens, and whatever you do defensively they’re going to read and react.”
Saint Joseph’s has the second-best field goal defense in the conference, holding opponents to 34.6 percent shooting. That will contrast the Minutewomen’s leading shooting percentage: 44.2. The Hawks also shoot the 3 well (38.3 percent) and keep opponents in check from deep (28.2 percent).
“Regardless of our opponent it goes in the win column or the losing column. This is the same as Saint Louis and VCU and Fordham. They all matter,” Verdi said. “I want to see us come out with great energy and focus and be more systematic. I think we’ve gotten away from that a little bit. I’d like to see us rise to the challenge.”
UMass took down two of the top three teams in the A-10 preseason poll on the road over the past two weeks. The Hawks were picked 13th of 14 teams.
KULESZA IN THE FOLD – Reinforcements are on the way in the form of a top-100 recruit. The Minutewomen announced Thursday that Stefanie Kulesza enrolled early at UMass. She signed a letter of intent in November and graduated high school in Delaware early.
Kulesza is eligible to practice and play immediately but is unlikely to suit up this weekend due to the university’s COVID-19 travel requirement for out of state students.
“We are thrilled to welcome Stefanie to UMass earlier than expected,” Verdi said. “In my five years here, she is the highest-ranked player to join our program. She is an incredibly talented player and a great student, and we cannot wait to see her add depth and impact at the guard position soon.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.