The women's basketball team will enter the NESCAC tournament with a spot in the NCAA tournament on the line. After dropping their last two conference games, the nationally ranked No. 20 Jumbos are far from being guaranteed a spot in the NCAA and need a strong showing to seal up their place.
But waiting for Tufts is a contingent of challenging opponents, including a couple of teams that have already defeated the Jumbos this season.
"We are a team with our back against the wall, and a team like that is the most dangerous type of team to play," senior tri−captain and guard Vanessa Miller said. "It is not a given that we will get a NCAA bid; we have to go out and actively make our season last longer."
Two losses down the stretch to NESCAC rivals Amherst and Bates dropped Tufts down to the fourth seed, setting the team up for a date at Cousens Gym with the fifth−seeded Bowdoin Polar Bears tomorrow afternoon, which should make for an even matchup.
Tufts rose as high as No. 10 in the national rankings early in the year, while Bowdoin made it all the way up to No. 4. The Jumbos won the Jan. 23 meeting between the two teams 52−40 in a defensive struggle.
Tufts was able to hold Bowdoin's third−leading scorer, junior guard Katie Bergeron, to six points on 2 of 10 shooting, and the Polar Bears only managed to shoot 30.4 percent from the field. Meanwhile, on the other end, senior forward Julia Baily dominated down low with 16 points and nine rebounds, including the team's first eight points of the second half.
But regular season results do not mean much now.
"At this point, nobody in the league is a guaranteed win," Miller said. "We played one of our better games of the season against Bowdoin earlier, and we are confident that if we play like we are able to, we can win this game."
The Jumbos will need to return to form on the defensive end if they are to experience success in postseason play. Tufts allowed 50.7 points per game while winning five of their first six conference games, but allowed an average of 60 points in the process of dropping two of their last three.
"We've played 24 games and our bodies are starting to get tired," Miller said. "As much as basketball is a physical game, it becomes more a mental game. The last couple weeks, I think the defensive lapses have been due to mental lapses, so we are trying to get stronger mentally so they don't continue to happen."
The Polar Bears have struggled to put up points against the conference's top teams, and if the Jumbos can control the tempo of the game, they have the tools to advance to the semifinals.
"We need to play solid team defense and play with confidence offensively," sophomore forward Kate Barnosky said. "We can't afford any letdowns and we need to play to our full capability."
If the Jumbos were to get by Bowdoin, they would earn a second shot at the undefeated national No. 1 Amherst in the semifinals. Amherst has been Tufts' kryptonite, beating the Jumbos in the team's last five matchups, including in the last two NESCAC tournaments.
Tufts managed to take a 28−22 lead into the intermission of its regular season matchup against the Lord Jeffs, but the return of Amherst junior co−captain forward Sarah Leyman, who had spent much of the first half on the bench in foul trouble, changed the entire complexion of the game.
Leyman was able to dominate inside, allowing sophomore guard Caroline Stedman, Amherst's leading scorer, to find her stride. Stedman scored 13 points in the second half, including three big three−pointers, and Amherst took the game 65−56. While Tufts knows shutting down Leyman will be integral to its success, the Jumbos also know it will take more than that to beat the Lord Jeffs.
"Amherst is a deep team," Miller said. "If it is not one person having a career night, it's another. We are worried about Leyman, but we are worried about the rest of the team, too. Against a team like Amherst, we think about playing a team defense, not just facing defending one person."
As usual, the NESCAC Tournament is full of top Div. III teams. Besides Bowdoin and Amherst, Bates and Williams also lurk in the tournament, and both found ways to beat the Jumbos in the regular season. Then there are the Colby Mules, who are arguably the hottest team in the NESCAC, having won six straight games and nine of their last 10 on their way to taking the second seed.
Tufts, however, rebounded from its poor performance against Bates last weekend with a 64−44 win Wednesday night over Worcester State. Barnosky led the Jumbos with a career−high 19 points along with eight rebounds, bringing the team's record to 20−4 on the season and sending the Jumbos into postseason play on the heels of a victory.
"We have the ability to be one of the more explosive teams in the conference," Miller said. "I think when we buckle down and play good defense, very few teams can score on us. We have speed, we play very hard, and we have proven this year that we are a very good basketball team. We all want a NESCAC championship very badly. We have played in some very close games in the last few years, and it would mean a lot to us to finally get that."
