The Tufts women's basketball team faces a must-win situation this weekend, beginning with a game against the Wesleyan Cardinals tonight at Cousens. Next, the Jumbos take on winless Connecticut College on Saturday, hoping for a weekend sweep to secure a spot in the inaugural NESCAC Tournament.
Wesleyan leads the Jumbos by a half a game in the NESCAC standings; the Cardinals (3-5 NESCAC) defeated Williams on Tuesday to pass the 3-6 Ephs in the standings by half a game. Tufts trails Williams by percentage points, but a win over Wesleyan and a win over last place Conn. College would cement the playoff spot for Tufts.
Wesleyan is a team of snipers. While their overall field goal percentage is second to last in the conference, their three-point field goal percentage is tops in the NESCAC. Their leading shooter from downtown, senior Ashley Elia, is shooting 47.7 percent from behind the arc this season. Leading scorer Shaleen Bowman is seventh in the NESCAC in three-point percentage.
A matchup to watch will be Jumbo sophomore Emily Goodman against Cardinal sophomore Kamica Lewis. These two are their team's leading rebounders (Goodman 8.4 per game, Lewis 9.1 per game) and both score a high percentage of their team's points (Goodman leads the Jumbos, Lewis is second on the Cardinals).
It will be the Jumbos' first game since a heartbreaking loss to Middlebury, in which the team blew a ten-point lead with just over ten minutes left in the game and barely missed playing in overtime. The loss dropped the team to 2-5 in the NESCAC and 12-8 overall. Presently, Tufts is tied for eighth in the NESCAC and must climb to seventh to keep its postseason hopes alive.
While the Jumbos look to bounce back, the Cardinals did just that in their win over Williams last weekend. Williams entered that contest having lost three consecutive games - all to NESCAC foes, falling to Trinity, Amherst, and Middlebury - before getting back on the winning track. But a strong start for Tufts could possibly cause seemingly exorcised doubts to creep back into the Wesleyan players' minds, especially in front of a hostile crowd.
If Tufts finds a way to win, the Jumbos could definitely be confident going into Saturday's game against Conn College. The Camels are 6-15 overall and a miserable 0-7 in the NESCAC. What's more, most of those seven losses were not even close, with the average margin of defeat at just under 20 points.
If there's one thing better than facing a bad team, however, it's facing a bad team that is also tired. That could also be an issue as the Camels will be playing an afternoon game in Medford after spending Friday night in Maine against Bates. All in all, if things break right and Tufts can avoid overconfidence, Saturday would be a golden opportunity.
But for Saturday's game to get the Jumbos into the NESCAC Tournament, they will first need to take care of business against a tough Wesleyan team on Friday. If they can get their weekend off to a good start, the end result could be a post-season appearance.
