For most teams, being classified as a “young” team is just a term used to make excuses for inconsistent play and a lack of team chemistry.
For the University of Tampa women’s basketball team, being a “young” team has brought upon a rejuvenation of sorts for the program.
With only two returning players from last year’s team, it was important coming into the 2012-2013 season that the incoming players were able to establish chemistry with each other and play at a high level from the beginning.
A positive aspect of gaining new players is the incoming players were not around to experience the failures of the year before.
After finishing the 2011-2012 season with a dismal 11-16 record, it was important to Head Coach Tom Jessee that this season would represent a fresh start for the program. Fortunately, this season has
been just that for the team. The Spartans kicked opened up the season by winning 10 consecutive games, which even earned them a spot within the top-10 of the Division II National Rankings.
“Not any one person has made the team successful, it is the whole group,” Coach Jessee stated. “Defense has been the key and has kept us alive in the ballgames.”
The team’s lone Senior Moriah Hodge has helped lead the team’s resurgence through her strong leadership and her motivation to improve on last season’s disappointing record.
“Coming off of our record last year, it was a challenge to build off of that and completely wipe last year away,” Hodge commented on the team’s strong start to the season. “With new recruits you would think it would be difficult to play together as a team but we were able to overcome that as well.”
While the Spartans started off the season strong, the team hit somewhat of a rough patch once conference play began.
Since entering SSC play, the Spartans have lost four of their first seven conference games. Their struggles have been compounded by an injury to starting guard Shamika Williams that’s kept her out of the team’s last two contests.
“Familiarity is the most challenging aspect of conference play,” stated Coach Jessee on the team’s recent struggles in conference play.
“In conference play teams scout you better and teams know you better.”
The SSC is one of the more difficult conferences in Division II. For women’s basketball in the SSC, coaches of the different teams engage in frequent game
tape exchanges whereby all of a particular team’s game film is made available to whichever coach wants to scout that team.
Thus, teams are able to become overly familiar with opponents and are thereby able to more effectively game plan.
In order for the Spartans to maintain their success so far, they will have to play smart and together.
With more success comes more scrutiny, so teams will be stepping up their game in order to defeat the Spartans.
“The recent losses made us wipe the chip off our shoulder after our 10 game win streak,” commented Moriah Hodge on the lessons that can be learned from the losses. “The losses have shown us we need to keep working hard so we can play better when we play those teams again.”
The Spartans next game is a home matchup with Palm Beach Atlantic on Feb. 2 at 2 p.m.
All stats accurate as of 01/29/13.
J.P. Haney can be reached at johnpatrick.haney@spartans.ut.edu.