Women’s Notebook – 2023-’24 - Season Introduction
By Stephen Zerdelian
It’s been nearly eight months since we last had any Division II East Regional action, but the new season is on the horizon and closing in quickly. Assumption represented the region at the Elite Eight last March but fell to Minnesota Duluth, continuing the streak of E8 losses for the region (the last win came in 2016, courtesy of Bentley). What will the outcome be this season, and how will we get there?
Last year at this time we were all hopeful that after three straight COVID-marred seasons we would have a full, uninterrupted campaign, and thankfully that was the case. Let’s hope we never see anything like those messy, scary, and uncomfortable times again.
Change continues to impact the region. Last season saw the departure of two premium D2 programs in Stonehill (reclassified to Division I) and the University of the Sciences (taken over by St. Joseph’s University and no longer a stand-alone entity); this winter we bid adieu to regular NCAA participant Le Moyne (another program which has reclassified to Division I, joining Stonehill in the Northeast Conference) and Alliance University (formerly Nyack College), which has closed its doors. Two more schools gone, and none (yet) to replace them.
This means that the 2023-’24 season has a total of 33 teams in the region, a dozen each in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (two six-team divisions) and the Northeast 10 Conference (one single division), and nine in the East Coast Conference, the lowest total in the region since the CACC came under the regional umbrella prior to the 2003-’04 campaign. It also means that almost 25% of the teams in the region will earn an NCAA bid, an extremely high total.
With the NE10 now at 12 teams, the top nine will advance to the playoffs. The 8th and 9th seeds will contest a first-round game while the top seven seeds take immediate quarterfinal spots and await a survivor from the opener. Meanwhile, the ECC and CACC retained their same playoff formats from a season ago – the ECC sends its top six teams to the playoffs (with the top two receiving byes) and the CACC grants the top four teams in each division playoff status.
There were four regional coaching changes during the off-season with three of them in the CACC. Jon Plefka left Post for the job at D2 Auburn University at Montgomery and was succeeded by Courtney Burns, formerly the head coach at Mitchell College. Jim Connolly departed Chestnut Hill and was replaced by Reggie Daniels, most recently an assistant coach at Division I Binghamton University. James Howard is the new mentor at the University of Bridgeport, taking over for Mike West. Daniels comes to UB after a six-year stint as the head coach at Division I Georgetown University. In the NE10, Will Brown, a former assistant coach with the College of Saint Rose men’s program, assumes the women’s head coaching role after the departure of Whitney Edwards. Brown’s last position was as the men’s head coach at Division I University of Albany from 2001-2021.
I’ll get into the details about the region, its players and prospects next time out but with more than half of our ten D2 East Hoops 2022-’23 All-Stars returning to the court this winter, it promises to be a very competitive season.
As for us here at D2 East Hoops, we will do our best to give you fresh and interesting content all season. Due to the nature of the beast, we are exploring a variety of subscription-based avenues to help our cause, including more content exclusively on Patreon. This will be a work in progress this winter, so please bear with us. Regardless, whatever we provide will be borne of our love and passion about the game and the region.
Things we would like to stress – please check us out on twitter (or X, as it now is known; @D2EastHoops) and give us a follow if you would like to keep on top of all of our postings. I just mentioned Patreon, which is a subscription-based platform that we will use more frequently this season. If you like our work and want to contribute/subscribe, we gladly accept both at www.patreon.com/D2easthoops. Also, feel free to email me personally at Anfield13@aol.com if you have any questions, suggestions, rants, etc. I’m all (mostly) ears.
Games that matter tip off starting this Friday, November 10. Go see one, or more. Enjoy!