As most Jumbos turned in papers, packed their bags, and checked out for the holidays, the women's basketball team had one thing left to do on Tuesday afternoon. Before heading home for the Thanksgiving holiday, the team traveled to Rhode Island to take on Johnson & Wales, and with an 82-25 victory over the Wildcats, the Jumbos more than earned their Thanksgiving break.
Tufts was led by sophomore Laura Jasinski, who netted 12 points and added five rebounds and two steals. Junior Jessica Powers and freshman Khalilah Ummah also contributed 12 points each to the Jumbos' offense.
The Wildcats turned the ball over on their first three possessions, and steals by Powers and senior co-captain Allison Love got the Jumbos going on their way to a 15-0 lead only five minutes into the game.
The Tufts defense continued to be suffocating throughout, forcing 36 turnovers and holding the Wildcats to a dismal 15.7 percent shooting from the floor. Points off turnovers contributed to nearly half of the Jumbos' total, as the team netted 40 points off its 29 steals. Sophomore Valerie Krah nabbed six steals to go with Powers' five, and the Jumbos once again demonstrated the defensive intensity that coach Carla Berube stressed during preseason.
"Definitely one of our strengths is our in-their-face defense," said Love, who picked off four steals and pulled down two rebounds for the Jumbos. "Coach preaches defense all the time, and it was really the key to our offense [on Tuesday]. We got a lot of steals and some quick points."
Every Jumbo made an entrance on the court and in the scorebook as the team got 40 points from their bench, including 10 from Krah and the 12 from Ummah.
"The younger players are really stepping up and getting some playing time," senior co-captain Erin Connolly said. "It looks positive, and I think we're extremely deep this year."
The Jumbos have scored an average of 81.3 points in their first three games this season while allowing only 34.3 from their opponents. The lackluster competition thus far, while producing impressive statistics, does make it difficult to judge the strength of this year's squad. Some big non-league games in early January against Southern Maine and Emmanuel will be better measuring sticks as the team ventures into NESCAC territory in mid-January.
In the meantime, the Jumbos will continue to work on their game and stay in top form over the holidays.
"We still need to work on our transition defense and our motion offense," Connolly said. "But I think that as long as we hustle to every loose ball and continue to play as a team, we're going to be successful."
The Jumbos will suit up again tomorrow when they take on non-conference Babson in the second leg of their five-game stint on the road. Tufts has not lost to Babson under Berube's direction, and last year came away with a decisive 79-57 victory. The Beavers opened their season last weekend against two NESCAC teams in the Babson Invitational, where they pulled out a close win over Middlebury before falling to Williams in the final.
