In what may be the biggest weekend of the team's season, the 15-3 (4-2 NESCAC) Jumbos will head to western Massachusetts Friday for a matchup with No. 2 Amherst before traveling to Connecticut for a critical Saturday afternoon game against Trinity.
The Lord Jeffs are undoubtedly the cream of the crop in the NESCAC. The team did not graduate a single player from the group that made the NCAA Div. III Final Four in 2010. If anything, Amherst got even stronger with the return of senior co-captain Jaci Daigneault, who struggled with an injury for much of last season but is now second in the NESCAC in scoring, averaging 14.5 points per game.
There is no easy answer for stopping Amherst; the team has seven players averaging at least 7.5 points per game. All of them can get hot at any time, making any double team — specifically in the post — a risky proposition.
"As anyone that has played against Amherst knows, any single one of them can have a career day on any single day," said senior guard Vanessa Miller, the only member of the team around for the last victory over the Lord Jeffs, in 2007. "I'm going into this with the mindset that we aren't thinking about stopping one person, we are thinking about the entire team defense that we can play and the energy we need to bring in."
Amherst's only loss this season came in overtime on the road against No. 3 Kean University, the team that knocked the Jumbos out of the NCAA tournament last season. But otherwise, the Lord Jeffs have cruised, winning every game this season by double figures and beating six opponents — including Wesleyan — by more than 40.
"A couple of us went and watched them play Williams this year," Miller said. "Everyone is very fundamentally solid, from the top of their team to the bottom. They are very patient offensively and will use the entire shot clock and make the people defending them play perfect defense the entire time. On defense they do the same, exploiting any mistake you might make."
But there is definite hope for the Jumbos, who match up well with the Lord Jeffs and led them by six points at halftime in 2010. Amherst has no players above six feet, which is an advantage for the undersized Tufts side. Also, Miller, the reigning NESCAC Player of the Week, is playing some of the best basketball of her career at exactly the right time, while sophomore Bre Dufault and freshman Liz Moynihan are on form as well.
"We can win this game if we bring energy and focus from the first minute to the last minute, if we limit our turnovers and if we are constantly communicating on defense," Miller said. "I think that has been our Achilles' heel. We are undersized, so we try to help our post players defensively, and that requires good help rotation. But Amherst will exploit any mistakes we make in the rotation."
The game may come down to who can hold onto the ball better, with both teams possessing extremely high turnover margins. The Jumbos average 21 takeaways to 12 giveaways, while the Lord Jeffs average 25 and 16.
Unfortunately for Tufts, senior guard Colleen Hart remains questionable for Friday's game with a sprained ankle. Her return would obviously be a major spark to the team's offense, but the Jumbos will be prepared one way or the other.
If Tufts cannot pull the upset Friday, Saturday's game against Trinity will be crucial for both the team's NESCAC positioning and NCAA tournament hopes. The Bantams have struggled of late, dropping four of their last five games, but still pose a threat, especially against a team that will still be recovering from what is sure to be a hard-fought game against Amherst.
"The last two years we have been lucky enough to play Amherst second, allowing us to rest our starters a bit in the Trinity game," Miller said. "But having Amherst first, in order to play with them and maybe pull out the win, it is going to take a lot of effort from a lot of people."
The Bantams are led by junior guards Kaitlin Ciarleglio and Michelle Royals, who average 10.8 and 8.8 points per game, respectively. While their guard play is strong, they lack much of a post presence, which plays right into the hands of the Jumbos. If they can put pressure on the Bantam shooters, the Jumbos should be able to shut down the conference's third-worst-scoring offense and walk away with the victory.
It will be a make or break weekend for Tufts, who currently sit in a tie for third place in the conference with Bates. The Jumbos and Bobcats will play each other on the final weekend of the regular season, and getting at least one win this weekend will put Tufts in position to take the No. 3 seed in the NESCAC championship tournament — a valuable spot given that the Amherst team that looms on the other side of the bracket.
