The women's basketball team takes its show on the road this weekend with two games in Connecticut against Wesleyan and Conn. College on Friday and Saturday respectively. These games have the potential to be the final act in what has been an up and down season for the Jumbos or it could serve as a springboard into the NESCAC tournament. Going into this weekend's games, Tufts currently resides in ninth place in the NESCAC with a 1-6 record. The top seven teams in the conference qualify for tournament play.
"This is kind of do or die," junior co-captain Hillary Dunn said. "Our season has basically come down to two games. If we can win these two games, we should make the NESCAC Tournament and if we make that than anything can happen."
Despite a rough two-week period since its last win, which has included four straight losses all against NESCAC opponents, Tufts has been able to take a couple positives from the losses. The Jumbos last win came on Jan. 29 in a non-conference matchup with Gordon.
"The two losses to Colby and Bowdoin were two close games," Dunn said. "And losing to Bowdoin by two points was encouraging. I think that we have to forget about the last two weeks and really realize that these two games are our season."
On Saturday Feb. 2, one night after nearly toppling Colby, the Jumbos just missed pulling off the biggest NESCAC upset of the season as they dominated top ranked Bowdoin for most of the afternoon before losing by two points. Tufts led for the majority of the game before Bowdoin's Lora Trenkle connected on two free throws with ten seconds left. Tufts had one more shot to tie or win the game but senior co-captain Jayme Busnengo's shot from behind the foul line fell short.
While picking up back to back wins might appear to be a daunting task, a closer look shows that if a NESCAC team needed to pick up consecutive wins, Wesleyan and Conn. College are the squads which would be the most desirable to face. Conn. College has yet to win in the NESCAC (0-7) and sports an overall record of 1-18 on the season. Not surprisingly, the Camels are the cellar dwellers of the NESCAC. Wesleyan is also fairly weak this season and is currently tied with Amherst (2-5) for seventh in the NESCAC.
"We can't look past the games this weekend and into the tournament," Dunn said. "But if we play well we should have a good shot at winning both of the games. But we have to focus on the games."
Forgive the Jumbos if they do not appear to be overcome by nervousness. However, facing a do or die situation to make the NESCAC tournament is old hat to Tufts as they were in the same position last year, except for the fact that the final four games were at home while these are on the road.
Almost exactly one year ago on Feb. 16 2001, Tufts hosted Wesleyan with a NESCAC Tournament birth on the line and Emily Goodman scored 35 points in a 65-61 come from behind victory, assuring one of the seven seeds in the tournament.
"We were in this exact same position last year, having to beat Wesleyan," Goodman said. "It was a close game, and I'm sure this is going to be another close game. I think we are going to be pretty prepared."
After defeating Wesleyan last year and knocking them out of postseason contention, the Jumbos expect the Cardinals to come out fired up this evening. "Wesleyan is going to be pretty hungry because they lost their spot to us last year," Goodman said. "I think it is anyone's game. Whoever wants it badly enough will win."
Although Tufts did look fairly good in its two losses two weeks ago, last weekend the team did not play as well as it may have liked in consecutive defeats at the hands of Williams and Middlebury. In those two contests the Jumbos lost by 29 and 14 points respectively.
"Everyone was disappointed with last weekends performance so I think that everyone will be on the same page in terms of proving that last weekend was not us," Goodman said. "I think that is what will be motivating us. We have been inconsistent this season. It could go either way each game day. It can't be like that. It's a little late to realize that so we just want to go out on a positive note."
In order to ensure that their season continues past Sunday's regular season finale the Jumbos have been working on a number of defenses such as the triangle and two, man to man and a 3-2 zone especially to combat Wesleyan's freshman point guard.
"Wesleyan has a freshman point guard that we think we can rattle so we have been going over a lot of defenses," Dunn said. "We are going to switch off the D's and try and rattle her."
Tip off tonight is at 7:30 p.m. at Wesleyan and tomorrow at 3 p.m. at Conn. College.
