Women's Notebook - February 11, 2021

Women’s Notebook

Games continue at a rather halting pace but despite the interruptions, some items piqued my interest…

As many of you may know, Concordia is closing their doors at the end of this academic year (see Chris Granozio’s great article from last week – https://www.d2easthoops.org/men/features/Super_75/MEN-S_NOTEBOOK), which means the end of their athletic programs. The women’s basketball team has struggled for years (no winning seasons since the ’86-’87 season and only one with a double digit victory total since then) but it’s still hard to see a program disappear - they will be missed.

The Clippers are playing this winter, though, and they had a memorable moment on January 30, as sophomore Marigona Bacaliu scored 35 points (third most in program history) in a 68-65 CACC win over Bloomfield. Bacaliu (a Worcester, Massachusetts native whose previous best was 15 points) went 14-22 from the floor, 4-10 from three-point land and 3-7 at the stripe to gather her point total. She stood tall when the game was on the line, too, by scoring the last eleven Clipper points, including an 8-0 run that put Concordia ahead to stay, 65-58 (5:24).

Georgian Court is off to a 5-0 start (their best in more than a quarter century), netting CACC wins against Dominican, Nyack, Felician, Concordia and Caldwell to get their season underway. Hanna Thrainsdottir, Jariah Patterson and Tian Addison have all been solid for the Lions but freshman Anyssa Fields has really shined. The 5-10 product of Long Beach, New Jersey submitted three double-doubles to start her GCU career (including a 32-point, 17-board outing against Felician) and backed it up with 21 points in their latest victory over Caldwell. Looks like the Lions are a legitimate CACC contender this time around… Dominican lost their CACC opener (to Georgian Court) but followed it up with three straight victories, so the Chargers may be the biggest CACC obstacle for the Lions. Veterans Taylor Tomlinson, Korina Guerra and Khay’la Latimer are DC’s driving forces.

Tip of the cap to D’Youville for earning their first Division II win with a 72-64 victory at Clarion. Sara Pfeiffer (21 points, 8 boards) and Danielle Hore continue to lead the Saints with production and leadership as they navigate the D2 waters… Despite seeing their home court winning streak end at 19 games, Daemen (6-1) remains the class of the region. The Wildcats split a pair of highly competitive games with Gannon (the road team prevailed in each game), winning 70-68 before dropping a 65-56 decision. A late 16-6 run gave Daemen the impetus to win in Erie, with Mickayla Ivy’s foul shots with seven ticks left as the difference. Gannon responded with a late 13-3 surge in New York on the way to their win but the teams proved to be just about equal over 80 minutes of play.

AIC’s solid start continued with a split against Mercyhurst at Butova Gym at the end of January. The Yellow Jackets picked up a 69-66 overtime win in the first game thanks to 26 points each from Destine Perry and Kyla Smith. The latter sent the contest to an extra frame with a bucket at the 20-second mark and won in with a three-pointer just before the OT buzzer (1.4 seconds). Although the Lakers bounced back to beat AIC the next day, the Jackets (assuming they play enough games) seem to be well placed as a regional contender.

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Yes, this asterisk season is weird for many reasons, one of which is no spectators at any games. Which led me to wonder – does it make any difference to be at home? I realize the sample size for this year is tiny but when an idea strikes, you don’t delay in examining it.

Thus far, home teams in the region sport a 19-11 (.633) record, which includes all games. For recent comparisons, here are the numbers by conference over the last three seasons. Keep in mind that this chart reflects conference games only, plus playoff games with the home team actually playing in the game. (I left out non-league games in this chart, since they can be misleading – this keeps it on a relatively even playing field)…

As you can see, the overall numbers tilt solidly toward the home team (56.5%) with the ECC having the highest percentage of home winners (60.1%). The ECC also has the highest (70.4% in ’18-’19) and lowest (50% in ’17-’18) single season home records over this span while the CACC has the smallest deviation from best (56.9%) to lowest (50.7%) marks.

What does it mean? That, despite a pandemic and a funky schedule, it is still better play at home than on the road. Some things remain universal.

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The NCAA is still planning a Division II national tournament, if anyone is still wondering. The Division II Management Council and Presidents Council affirmed the news in a February 5 release, noting a few key things…

1. The field is still expected to be 48 teams, six per region.
2. The women’s Elite Eight will be held in Columbus, Ohio (Convention Center).
3. The regions have been tweaked to try to keep regional and geographical balance. 

The third one jumps out at me. Based on the NCAA’s review, the normal regional alignment would have resulted in three regions having 36 or more teams while three others would have less than 15. Thus, they decided to enact a one-year regional realignment that results in seven regions having between 27 and 33 teams. The outlier? Yup, the East. 

For some reason, our little sliver of the world has not been touched at all, leaving only the 14 teams active on their own. This includes seven CACC teams, six ECC teams and AIC, the only NE10 team that has played games. The NCAA apparently considers D’Youville, a transitioning program ineligible for ECC/NCAA tournaments, as an active number in this scenario, so the number really is 13. So what they seem to be saying is that it’s fine to re-work the other regions to have at least 27 teams but it’s ok to leave the East at 13/14? Odd.

I get the desire to keep things at least reasonably the same for post-season purposes but this just feels off to me. The very least the NCAA could have done is to add the three active PSAC teams (Clarion, Gannon and Mercyhurst) to this region to make it 16 (ok, 17) teams. After all, those three teams have already played ten games against East teams this winter. Maybe they could have combined the East and Atlantic regions (41 total teams under the rejigged format) and sent two teams to the Elite Eight instead of one each. It’s all about legitimacy, which is already stretched perilously thin. Think outside the box, NCAA folks.

All of this came days after the NCAA cancelled all Division III championships due to fewer than 50% of the eligible basketball teams playing this season. (The threshold is 60% to hold a championship, according to the NCAA). The February 5 release does not mention any threshold percentage for Division II, which would have been helpful.

Honestly, I have plenty to say about what’s happening this season but I’ll take the high road for now and not vent any further. Let’s let the full season play out and then I’ll rewind and criticize. 

Questions, comments, ideas, rants? Glad to hear them. Email me at Anfield13@aol.com.