Now 10 games into the season, there’s been ups and downs for the UMass women’s basketball team.
The Minutewomen boast an 8-2 record, including a seven-game winning streak that featured a pair of dramatic wins at the FIU Thanksgiving Classic tournament, earning them a championship trophy. But during that time, they’ve dealt with a rash of injuries, with Angelique Nglalakulondi, Sydney Taylor, Laila Fair and Makenna White all missing game time due to various ailments.
After two straight weeks of travel, UMass finally got a chance to take a break following the Briann January Classic in Arizona. The Minutewomen had a full week off following their Dec. 3 loss to Missouri leading into Saturday’s game against Columbia.
“We needed it coming back from Arizona. The fact that we played two back-to-back tournaments with one game in between, but not a lot of turnaround time,” UMass head coach Tory Verdi said. “We gave them three days off to get back in the swing of things and exams are starting, so our players are going through it all right now. We wanted to give them a little space. I think it will be beneficial in the long run.”
So far, players are reaping the benefits of rest, whether they were healthy or injured before the break.
“We’ve been traveling for the last two weeks straight, just on the plane, off the plane, on the bus, off the bus, so there’s been a lot going on… I was in my bed for like two days straight and didn’t move. I was at the point where I was too tired to even eat, I had my teammates bring me a bowl of soup,” UMass guad Destiney Philoxy said. “It did feel good to get my body back, because it was gonna crash sooner or later because traveling for two weeks is a lot.”
Players got back on the court Thursday for practice after three days of rest to prepare for Columbia on Saturday. They’ll have at least one player back in action – Taylor has been cleared to play again, and she should be in back in the lineup. White, who was on a tear before an injury sidelined her, is still questionable.
“Makennah is still day-to-day working through her foot injury. I would say there’s probably a 50-50 chance for her to be in uniform on Saturday, but it’s just something that we’re taking cautiously,” Verdi said. “She’s doing some rehab stuff on the sidelines so that when it does come time, she’s not that far behind.”
After dropping a close game to Missouri, UMass has turned its attention back to Columbia, a team that Verdi thinks is at the top of the Ivy League conference. The Lions should give UMass a lot to handle, particularly if they can get going behind the three-point line.
“They score at a high volume, they score in bunches, they move the ball extremely fast and there’s four people out on the perimeter who can all shoot the basketball. They shoot them at a high percentage, we’ve got to make sure we do a great job defending the three-point line,” Verdi said. “This game (will be) two really good teams going at it. This game’s going to come down to mental toughness, who’s the tougher team. Last year we were the tougher team at their place, and it’s going to come down to rebounding.”
Though the Minutewomen fell to Missouri 71-66 in their last contest, there was a memorable moment for one UMass player in particular. During the game, Philoxy became the new all-time career assists leader for the UMass program, besting the current record of 578 set by Sabriya Mitchell. The honor still hasn’t quite sunk in yet for Philoxy.
“It hasn’t hit me yet because at the same time, we did lose the game the same day I got the assist [record], so it was like a bittersweet moment because I wanted to win and get that at the same time. But I made history, and my name is officially stamped in this school, and nobody can take that away from me, so I feel like that’s a big accomplishment,” Philoxy said. “I’m just proud of myself for keeping my head straight and playing my basketball, doing what Destiney do best.”
With two starters sidelined by injuries last week, UMass had to rely more on its bench than ever before. A group of four sophomores – Fair, Alexzeya Brooks, Stefanie Kulesza and Kristin Williams – picked up the majority of the minutes for the Minutewomen. Fair and Brooks have been seeing more regular minutes as subs, but Kulesza really shined in her 10 minutes of playing time on Saturday.
“I think they played well, especially Stef. She came in the game, just flying out rebounds, threes – honestly, I haven’t seen that from Stef in a while, so I was proud of her because I feel like that game was her proving to coach that she’s one of them, that she can keep up with us,” Philoxy said.
UMass earned a lot of respect around its conference and nation-wide when it won its first A-10 tournament title last year, punching its ticket to the NCAA tournament. But with that success came an unexpected obstacle – a difficulty finding teams that wanted to play a now very successful program.
“We’re looking to play anybody, and this past year it was very difficult to schedule. We had several teams that we were supposed to play, but after you win a championship, things change, and we had some teams cancel out on us. Then we were scrambling for games,” Verdi said. “This one (Columbia) happened to be a return game. We thought two years ago, we knew they were going to be good, and we wanted to play some good teams to prepare us for conference play. Last year’s game helped us out, this game will help us out as far as the NET [rating] goes.”
Tip-off against the Lions is noon at the Mullins Center, and will be broadcast on NESN and ESPN-Plus.