Women's Basketball | Revenge on Jumbos' minds as Ephs return to Cousens

    The women's basketball team's conference slate tips off tonight with a grudge match.
    Nationally ranked No. 12 Tufts will host Williams at 7 p.m. in Cousens Gym with the first of two weekend games that will commence what promises to be a hotly contested NESCAC season. The Jumbos will follow the match by taking on Middlebury tomorrow afternoon in a rematch of last season's conference quarterfinals.
    "The non-conference schedule and the conference schedule are like two different seasons," coach Carla Berube said. "These [games] are the ones we've been looking forward to and that we've been working all preseason and all season to get geared up for. It's exciting … and I'm confident that we'll be ready."
    Last season, Tufts and Williams met in Williamstown with the Jumbos sitting in a tie for first place in the NESCAC and nearing their first-ever regular season conference title. The Ephs derailed those plans, running away with a 63-46 victory that ultimately denied the Jumbos both the NESCAC's top seed and the opportunity to host the conference tournament.
    "I don't think we've forgotten that," Berube said. "That was a tough loss. It was not Tufts basketball that we played out there. I hope it's a little bit of an added incentive to go out there and have a great fight."
    Since that game, however, Williams has been far from the up-and-coming NESCAC contender it seemed poised to become just last February. The Ephs ended last season with three straight losses, beginning with a setback to a Conn. College squad that had lost its previous 10 NESCAC games and culminating in a first-round exit from the conference tournament.
    The downward spiral has continued into this season, as Williams has opened with a 5-9 start that includes a 1-3 mark in four out-of-conference games against NESCAC foes. The Ephs did rattle off a string of three victories in four games after sophomore forward Taylor Shea, who sat out the first six games of the season with mononucleosis, returned to the lineup. But since then, the team has reverted back to its surprisingly poor play, suffering a 30-point blowout loss to No. 4 Amherst and a 41-point shellacking at Wesleyan in just the past week.
    "The kids playing for us are really freshmen and sophomores," Williams coach Pat Manning said. "When you're so young, it's hard to have consistency, and that's really what we're striving for. We can play with anyone, we feel, but we can also struggle big time. It just depends on the team that shows up that weekend. We had a great game against Bates two weeks ago and horrendous games against Amherst and Wesleyan. I think because we're young, it just sort of goes like that."
    In the midst of a six-game winning streak, Tufts enters tonight's game with its momentum going in the complete opposite direction of Williams. The Jumbos rattled off a 9-1 record against stiff early-season non-conference competition, which included wins over five teams that appeared in the NCAA Tournament last season. Though Tufts and Williams have enjoyed varying degrees of success this season, the Jumbos anticipate that a tough opponent will be awaiting them tonight.
    "We're expecting a great team to show up here on Friday night," Berube said. "Williams has got some not-so-great losses, but they also have some quality wins, which shows you that they've got a great deal of talent and they know how to play together. We'll be expecting their best game … We're going to have to come out and play our best basketball if we want to get a great win."
    Tufts' second NESCAC contest of the weekend will feature a matchup against Middlebury, whose 6-6 mark includes a victory over Williams on Nov. 22. The teams have met each other in the quarterfinal round of the NESCAC Tournament in each of the past two seasons, with the Jumbos taking each contest and four in a row against the Panthers overall.
    "It's a team that has experience," Berube said. "They have a lot of returners that were playing very well at the end of last year, and they picked that up at the start of this year. They're going to be difficult. They've come in here the last few years and we've had some great wins against them, so I'm sure they're going to come in fired up to play us."
    With Bowdoin's seven-year stranglehold on the conference crown over, several contenders have emerged from a league that is strengthening across the board. A Tufts team with legitimate title aspirations has a tough road ahead, but it knows that a good start this weekend is an important first step.
    "This NESCAC season, we're looking for a regular-season NESCAC championship, and we're looking to host the NESCAC Tournament," Berube said. "There's lots of incentives and a lot of goals we're looking towards right now … I think that to start off 2-0 after this weekend will put us in a good position to begin the season. We'll see. It'll be a fun ride, and hopefully we'll start playing the best basketball that we've seen this year."