New year, same seed. New opponent, same challenge.
When the women's basketball team suits up on Saturday, it will find itself in familiar territory. Squeaking into the NESCAC tournament as the seventh seed, the Jumbos once again find themselves facing the league's No. 2 seed, this time a Bowdoin team whose NESCAC ranking belies a talented squad that has spent the entire season in the national top 10, mostly shuffling throughout the top five.
The nuances of the league seeding resemble last season's and highlight both the unparalleled talent in the upper ranks of the top-heavy NESCAC and the seeding anomalies that can result from one regular-season matchup.
In the 2005 NESCAC Tournament, the No. 7 Jumbos faced Bates. As a result of a regular-season loss to Bowdoin, the Bobcats were handed the No. 2 seed despite advancing steadily in the national rankings and spending the final three weeks of the regular season as the No. 1 team in the nation.
Instead of a nationally top-ranked Bates team, Tufts drew Bowdoin in the first round of this year's NESCAC tournament. While seeded second in the league because of a midseason 56-51 loss to Bates, the Polar Bears are ranked No. 6 nationally, stand at 20-2 overall and 8-1 in league play, and are looking for their sixth consecutive NESCAC title.
"Being the lower seed, being the higher seed - none of it matters," junior guard Val Krah said. "We still need to play our game."
With a top-four seed comes the privilege of a first round home game, and the Jumbos must travel to Lewiston, Maine, on Saturday for a 2 p.m. tip-off. Bowdoin's home-court advantage is a sizeable one - the Polar Bears haven't lost a game at Morrell Gymnasium in over five years (a seven-point loss to Colby in February of 2001) and averaged over 1,200 fans per game last season, or almost three-quarters of the student body.
"It's a tough place to play," coach Carla Berube said. "Both Bates and Bowdoin are very tough in their gyms."
Not that the Polar Bears need a lot of help. The team returns five of the six core starters from last year's 26-3 team that won the school's fifth straight NESCAC title and advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Div. III Tournament.
The Polar Bears' offense has dominated the conference this season, as they lead the league in every offensive category (and most defensive ones, too) and have rolled over NESCAC opponents by an average 24.4-point margin. They average a NESCAC-best 74.3 points per game (to the Jumbos' 57.1) and have multiple scoring threats, with all five starters averaging between 9.5 and 16.4 points per game.
Defense has been a centerpiece of coach Carla Berube's game strategy since she arrived at Tufts for the 2002-2003 season, and the Jumbos' defense this season has often supported a lagging offense, keeping them competitive in games despite anemic production on the other end.
"It's got to be an all-around great defensive effort by us," Berube said. "They have a very good scorer inside in Eileen Flaherty, so we need to limit her touches inside."
Bowdoin also boasts the fifth-ranked scoring defense, allowing only 49.5 points per game and holding even high-powered teams like Bates and University of Southern Maine far below their average outputs. The Jumbos, who have struggled to establish an offensive rhythm and consistency this season, will need to hold their own on the defensive end to compensate for expectations of a smaller offensive output.
"We need to limit our turnovers in halfcourt, which really hurt us last time we played them, and work on completing passes," Berube said.
If the regular-season meeting between the two teams is anything like this weekend's matchup, the Jumbos are in for a rough day. Flaherty, Bowdoin's leading scorer, dropped 24 points as the Polar Bears shot over 50 percent from the floor, cruising to a 73-56 win at Tufts on Jan. 14. Despite narrowing the lead to single digits during the second half, the Jumbos couldn't stay with the Polar Bears.
The statistic of the game was Bowdoin's 22 steals, part of 27 Tufts turnovers that translated into 31 points on the other end for the Polar Bears.
Statistically and historically, the Jumbos are the underdog in this contest. After spending the majority of the season vying for mediocre standing in the conference, the team feels that it has nothing to lose.
We have nothing to lose, we're the lower seed, and I don't think anyone is expecting us to even come close, so we're going to lay it all on the line," Berube said.
Krah echoed her coach's comments. "We have a chance to do something great," she said.
