The women's basketball team learned a painful lesson over the weekend: No one is immune to March Madness.
Nationally ranked No. 16 Tufts suffered a 57-55 defeat at the hands of The College of New Jersey in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday night in Bethlehem, Pa., ending the Jumbos' season with a 22-5 overall record. Managing just five field goals over the final 10 minutes of play, Tufts surrendered a 12-point second-half lead en route to the upset loss.
After trailing for much of the first half, the Jumbos appeared to take firm control of the game with a 15-0 run coming out of halftime. Sparked by eight points from sophomore point guard Colleen Hart, Tufts turned a 27-23 deficit into a 38-27 advantage with 11:14 remaining.
The Jumbos maintained a double-digit lead for the next few minutes before the Lions, led by senior captain and Jostens Trophy finalist Hillary Klimowicz, began a furious comeback bid. Klimowicz contributed eight points and three assists during a 6:54 stretch in which TCNJ outscored Tufts 17-4, putting the Lions up three with 2:28 remaining.
"They made the adjustments they needed to make," junior guard Vanessa Miller said. "I have to give credit: Their guards hit some shots down the line, and [Klimowicz] was obviously very clutch for them. They made the big plays. Especially in NCAAs, when a team gets on a run, it can be very hard to stall their energy. In the end, they had a little bit more than we did."
The Jumbos came within one point in the final two minutes but never regained the lead. A potential game-winning three-pointer by junior guard Casey Sullivan at the buzzer was blocked by Klimowicz, sealing the Lions' second upset victory over a ranked opponent in as many nights.
Foul trouble contributed to Tufts' woes down the stretch. After picking up her fourth foul 13 seconds into the second half, senior forward Katie Tausanovitch, who is also a layout editor for the Daily, was limited to just two second-half minutes before fouling out with 3:55 remaining. Junior forward Julia Baily, meanwhile, avoided foul trouble until the final 3:30 of the game, when she picked up her fourth and fifth fouls 1:09 apart.
The duo's departure forced Tufts to play the final 2:13 of a one-possession game without its starting frontcourt.
After building up its seemingly comfortable second-half cushion, the Jumbos' offense became stagnant, opening the door for a Lions comeback. Following a three-point play by Baily that put Tufts up 44-33 with 9:22 remaining, the Jumbos notched 11 points the rest of the way, turning the ball over five times while making just four field goals.
"We've been struggling a lot towards the end of the season to find the good shots and get into a rhythm offensively," Miller said. "They had a very effective trapping, three-quarter court press that really took us out of our comfort zone and put us back on our heels. A lot of times, we were fighting the shot clock in our possessions. I think in a lot of possessions, especially as we got closer to that final buzzer, we started to panic and people took shots that they normally wouldn't usually look for. It's the nature of the beast; it's what you start to do when you see your season start to slip away from you."
The Jumbos also suffered from breakdowns on the defensive end. After allowing TCNJ to score 31 points through the first 30 minutes of the game, Tufts yielded 26 points to the Lions in the final 10.
Baily paced Tufts with 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Hart chipped in with 12 points. One night after dropping 31 points on national No. 19 DeSales, Klimowicz accounted for nearly half of TCNJ's production, leading all scorers with 28 points to go along with eight rebounds and three blocks.
For the Jumbos, Saturday's loss came on the heels of their 80-70 victory over Moravian in first-round action Friday night. Tufts shot a blistering 64 percent from the floor in the second half and opened up as much as an 18-point lead before dealing the Greyhounds their first home loss of the season.
"It was a great game for us," said Tausanovitch, who had 13 points and six boards. "We had an up-tempo game. It was probably our best transition offense of the year. It was a lot of fun. When you're running and have momentum like that, the game is a lot of fun. It's fast-paced, and we definitely controlled that."
The Lions' Cinderella run now moves on with a Sweet Sixteen matchup against Rochester Friday night. Meanwhile, the Jumbos will head into the offseason after a 2008-09 campaign in which they racked up the second-most wins by any squad in program history. But a year after making a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, this season's early exit leaves the team with a hollow feeling.
"It's very bittersweet at this point," Miller said. "Do a lot of us feel that we underachieved in a lot of ways this season? Yeah, I think we do. This season is going to be tainted by a lot of disappointment because we did have very high expectations for ourselves. At the same time, we recognize that because our expectations were so high, we still did a lot by underachieving. We don't take those things for granted."
