Women’s Notebook – Elite Eight Recap, Mid-Season review, notes
By Stephen Zerdelian
Daemen’s NCAA tournament Elite Eight stay was short, as they lost to Texas Woman’s University on Monday, 76-44. The Wildcats scored the first five points of the game, but the Pioneers ripped off an 18-2 surge (18-7, 4;19 of the first quarter) and never looked back. The gap stood at 29-12 after one frame and Daemen was unable to claw back any of the territory. TWU led 43-22 at the break and rode an early third quarter run (13-2) to a 56-24 edge. Their lead crested at 34 points in the final stanza as the Wildcats saw their season end.
Alahna Paige (13 points, 5 boards but just 5-19 from the field) and Gabby McDuffie (12 points) topped the Daemen scoring while Scout Huffman (21 points, 9 caroms; 9-15 FG), Ashley Ingram (16 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and a perfect 12-12 at the line) and Leila Patel (16 points, 6 boards; 6-11 FG, 4-7 3FG) accounted for the bulk of the TWU scoring. The Pioneers shot better (42%-28%), made all 16 of their foul shots (Daemen went 4-7), and used the ball much more efficiently (18/11 assist/turnover ratio to Daemen’s 10/19 day).
The defeat doesn’t diminish the Wildcats fine season, one in which they tied their program Division II high in wins (23), won 20-or-more games for the fourth straight season, and earned its fifth consecutive NCAA bid. The meeting with TWU was their fifth against a WBCA top 25 team this season, which also includes wins over Ferris State, Assumption and Jefferson, and a defeat to Bentley. Paige (1,203 career points and 171 three-pointers) is expected back to lead Daemen’s bid to repeat and reach another Elite Eight.
The wait goes on for an East regional winner to claim a game at the Elite Eight, though. Since Bentley won it all in 2014, the only regional team to earn a victory is the 2016 Falcons, who reached the NCAA semifinal stage before bowing out. We all live in hope, and maybe 2025 will snap the slide.
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I do like to check back to the mid-season break column and see what translated to the end of the campaign. If you recall, there were eleven teams which posted .667 or better winning percentages through the recess just after Christmas. Seven of them reached the NCAA tournament in the end with two others falling short. Bentley (#1 seed), Assumption (#2), the College of Saint Rose (#3), Jefferson (#4), SNHU (#5), Daemen (#6) and Franklin Pierce (#7) all ended up in the eight-team regional while Holy Family (11-1 at the time), Pace (9-1), AIC (8-1) and UDC (11-2) all missed out. Mercy (7-5 at the time) filled out the field by snaring an at-large bid by winning ten in a row before falling in the ECC title game.
Once again, the mid-season info proved to be a relatively solid barometer of who eventually makes the NCAA field. A breakdown of the last few non-COVID years…
|
Season |
Teams on list |
Reached NCAA’s |
Not on list, made NCAA’s |
Within a game of .667 |
|
2023-‘24 |
11 |
7 |
1 |
0 |
|
2022-‘23 |
8 |
6 |
2 |
0 |
|
2021-‘22 |
9 |
6 |
2 |
3 (2 made NCAA’s) |
|
2019-‘20 |
11 |
5 |
3 |
3 (1 made NCAA’s) |
|
2018-‘19 |
12 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
|
2017-‘18 |
10 |
7 |
1 |
0 |
It may be worth remembering who appears on the list around the holidays next season.
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The WBCA announced their All-American list and honorable mentions last week. The only East Regional player made the top 10 All-American list was SNHU’s Adriana Timberlake, and there were a few tabbed as honorable mentions – Briana Lee (AIC), Molly Stokes (Assumption), Maggie Whitmore (Bentley) and Sam Yencha (Jefferson). Jefferson’s Tom Shirley was named as regional Coach of the Year.
Notice who is bizarrely missing from this list? Somehow, Alahna Paige isn’t even worthy of being a WBCA honorable mention. Now maybe she wasn’t nominated but I find that hard to fathom, since she did win ECC Player of the Year and has a fantastic support staff at Daemen to highlight her achievements. Assuming she was nominated, what’s up WBCA? Where the heck is Paige? A glaring omission that makes the organization look incomplete at best, irresponsible at worst.
Meanwhile, Paige was named to the D2CCA All-American second team while Yencha earned honorable mention honors.
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This is the final women’s regional notebook of the season. It’s been a pleasure to bring you some insight into the region and hopefully it was an enjoyable read. With luck, I will be back again next season. Thanks to all who helped, contributed and, mainly, who read this column all season long.
Here is my final plea… Please follow us on twitter at @D2EastHoops, so you don’t miss any releases, and if you like our work and want to contribute (this stuff gets pricey!), we gladly accept donations at www.patreon.com/D2easthoops. Also, feel free to email me at Anfield13@aol.com if you have any questions, suggestions, rants, etc. I’m all (mostly) ears. Thanks to all who have contributed this winter.
That’s it for now - until next time…