By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — St. Bonaventure women’s basketball coach Jim Crowley is not making excuses.
On the back of a nailbiter of a win over Buffalo which saw the team move to 5-0 for the first time since the 2009-10 season, he admitted there is still a lot his team needs to improve.
While they might be undefeated through five, their last three games have been decided by just 15 points combined. They defeated Binghamton by three, Canisius by five and Buffalo by seven, with the latter game of that trio of results having been tied with less than two minutes to go.
There are a lot of significant positives Crowley can take away from the close calls. One of which being how quick his near-entirely new squad has gelled together, which has allowed them to pull out these victories.
But Crowley wants his team to get away from these hold-your-breath, final-minute games. The fix for that, he noted, falls a lot more on the mental side than the physical. As was the case against the Bearcats and Golden Griffins, it’s about entering games with the right mindset so they don’t get put on the back foot immediately. In the game against Buffalo, the lesson learned was that they can never be comfortable, no matter how big the advantage.
“We’re still just five games in,” Crowley said. “We’re getting better, we’re learning stuff. (Against Buffalo) I thought we saw improvement in our defense, I thought we saw pretty good improvement in where to find the ball. … We’re still leaning on some folks who are in their fifth college game, but I’m not going to ever make excuses for the growing pains. We do some film, we talk through it, we show different options, but we always got to be prepping for our next opponent as well. So a lot of it is just continuing to get comfortable with who we are and what’s available, and just keep getting more consistent with it.”
Another big perk of this year’s Bona roster that has become apparent through five games is its depth. In its three games against Div. I opponents prior to the Buffalo fixture, the Bonnies’ bench has accounted for 85 of its 208 total points, just under 41%. The lowest amount of bench points in that span was 23 against Binghamton. The Bulls held the bench to just nine points — a drastic drop off. Granted, while they were not getting as much production from their bench, the team’s starters took center stage. Aaliyah Parker finished with 16 points and seven rebounds and Laycee Drake recorded her first career double-double with 21 points and 14 rebounds, both career-high numbers.
However, those performances, stellar as they were, does not mean Crowley is going to stop looking to his substitutes. Instead, what he is anticipating, and hoping for, is a big response from a bench stacked with people with a competitive fire burning within them, especially ahead of a strong test against UAlbany.
“They’ll be ready, and they need to be, because UAlbany is really good,” Crowley said. “They’re really well-coached, and they’re going to figure out ways to make Aaliyah and Laycee really work. So, there’s going to be opportunities for other people. … There’s going to be some open shots and some opportunities and I’m pretty confident they’ll be ready for that.”
UAlbany is coming into the Reilly Center with a 3-2 record in tow. They have defeated the likes of Marist, Dartmouth and Siena, all at home, and fallen to Syracuse and Atlantic 10 member Rhode Island, both on the road.
The key players for the Great Danes will be the duo of Martina Borrellas and Amaya Stewart. Both clocking in at 6-1, they are big threats on the boards. But what they provide their team offensively are completely the opposite from one another.
“Those two players from Albany are very different,” Crowley said. “(Borrellas) does a lot of stuff off the bounce, can shoot the 3 and has really good pace and movement. Stewart plays at the high post a lot, the low post, works to the paint, is very smart with her body and has a really nice touch around the rim. So, they’re very different players, but we can’t let Stewart get rolling and we’ve got to really make Borrellas work hard for her baskets. Those two are two of the top three scorers and have been really consistent for Albany.”
After getting good performances from the likes of Kylie Buckley and Gabby Robinson in the last two games, Crowley will be looking to them once again to keep Stewart and Borrellas quiet. That being said, the UAlbany team is much deeper than just those two and if the Bonnies get too preoccupied with trying to stop them from affecting the game, that will just open up others thanks to the technical things they do.
“Albany runs their stuff really well,” Crowley said. “You’re going to see some Princeton stuff that they run and execute very well. Ball-screen stuff, they execute. So, we’ve got to guard as a group … it’s a good challenge. What we’re working towards is getting everybody contributing on the same day, and Saturday is a day we’ll need that because of the level of opponent.”
Delanie Hill and Lara Langermann are the other two members of the Danes averaging over eight points per game.
This game has another layer to it in that Drake transferred from UAlbany to St. Bonaventure ahead of the season. Crowley admitted there is no way for players to completely rid themselves of the nerves or emotions of going against a former team, but noted that she will be able to rely on her teammates to level her out if she needs them. Specifically, he referenced Parker after she made the trip up to Niagara to face her former team earlier this season.
“She can lean on her teammates,” Crowley said. “Obviously, Aaliyah went through it and Laycee had the game, while it wasn’t a former team, she was down in Binghamton, in front of 40 of her people. She showed some nerves there, and then recovered pretty well. That’s the thing that happens when you play your former team, so once the ball gets going up and down, it’s about the recovery. You may be really high, or you may be really nervous, but once you get going up and down, it’s about being able to recover, and she’s shown she can do a pretty good job of that.”
Drake and the rest of the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team are set to tip-off against UAlbany on Nov. 22 at 1 p.m. in the RC.
