The women's basketball team showed off its defensive improvements against Bates College on Saturday en route to a 62-46 victory. The win moves Tufts to 4-0 in the NESCAC, and puts the team in first place in conference standings ahead of conference rivals Amherst and Bowdoin, who are tied for second place.
The loss for the Bobcats moves them into second-to-last-place and leaves them still searching for their first NESCAC win.
The Jumbos have been talking about their defense all season. "I would say the pieces are falling into place," junior forward Hayley Kanner said after the team's critical victory against Amherst. "But [our defense] is still not where we want it to be."
However, the first taste of Tufts' defense potential was on display in the first 13 minutes of the game when the Jumbos held the Bobcats to just four points.
Tufts scored the first three points of the game with a 3-pointer by junior Kelsey Morehead, and Bates quickly retaliated by scoring four quick points in the span of 30 seconds.
In the following 10 minutes, Tufts scored 18 unanswered points until 6:24 in the half when junior Allaina Murphy of Bates scored two free throws. At the half, the Jumbos had held the Bobcats to just 16 percent shooting.
With a 20-point lead coming out of halftime, 32-12, the Jumbos continued their trend of outworking opponents and exhausting other teams' scoring options. Despite two 3-pointers made by Bates towards the end of the first half, the Bobcats seemed reluctant to take a lot of shots or make worthwhile passes.
The NESCAC's top scorer, Bates senior Meredith Kelly, was held to just 3 points in the first half on 1-of-7 shooting, a testament to the defensive prowess of Tufts.
The second half, however, saw a shift in momentum. The Bobcats returned with a renewed sense of purpose and energy, and outscored the Jumbos 34-30. In the presence of a large crowd of Bates supporters, including the men's basketball team scheduled to take the court immediately after the women's game, the Bobcats ignited their fans by scoring the first basket of the second half via a mismatch that saw Tufts 5'2" junior Kelsey Morehead defending Bates 5'11" freshman Allie Coppola.
The Bobcats fed off of that momentum to start the half on a 10-5 run; cutting Tufts' lead to fifteen. But the Jumbos quickly slowed down the Bobcats and silenced the crowd with 12 unanswered points of their own.
A late 12-2 run, led by eight points from Kelly, brought the lead to 16 with less than three minutes left in the game but was just too-little-too-late as the Bobcats were unable to fully compensate for their lackluster first half.
Leading the conference with 22.7 points per game, Kelly scored 13 of her game-high 16 points in the second half, to go along with four rebounds, four assists and three steals.
"I think a lot players stepped up," senior tri-captain Liz Moynihan said. "Hannah [Foley], Caitlin [McClure] and Emma [Roberson] helped to guard her, and hold [Kelly] below her average."
Despite the emphasis on defense, the Jumbos, who are ranked as the top defensive team in the conference, also have their unselfish offense to credit for their success thus far. This selfless play has become a staple of Tufts' basketball, and Saturday was no different. With less than five minutes left in the first half on a fast break by the Jumbos, junior Ali Berman, the first player back on offense, made a selfless pass to senior tri-captain Caitlin McClure, who made an acrobatic layup for the bucket.
The win, coupled with a non-conference win against Emmanuel College last Wednesday, moves the Jumbos to 16-0 overall. This ends the stream of home games for the team, who play their next five games (four in the NESCAC) away, before closing out the regular season with three home games starting Feb. 11.
"I think what's going to be important over the next stretch of games is that we create our own energy," Moynihan said. "Especially when there are mid-week games not on our home court and we are going to have to rely on ourselves to bring it every single game."
