The heart of NESCAC play awaits the women's basketball team as it enters the final month of the regular season.
In a rematch of last year's NESCAC semifinals, nationally ranked No. 16 Tufts will begin the weekend with a highly anticipated clash against Wesleyan at Cousens Gym tonight. Then tomorrow afternoon, the Jumbos will take on Conn. College as they look to keep pace with the rest of the league. Entering tonight's game, the Jumbos sit tied for second place in the conference at 3-1 and 13-2 overall.
The weekend's matchups follow a split decision for Tufts that came last weekend in Maine as the squad took its second loss of the season -- a 58-55 decision against Colby -- before rebounding with a victory at Bowdoin. But as disappointing as the loss was, Tufts hopes some good comes from it.
"I thought the way we came back on Saturday from a tough loss on Friday showed a lot of character," coach Carla Berube said. "I also thought that Friday's game was a wake-up call for us, which I kind of figured was going to happen at some point. I'm glad it happened at this point in the season and not at the very end of the season, so hopefully we can keep that ball rolling."
In the conference standings, Tufts is tied with Bates and trails only national No. 4 Amherst, which sports an 18-0 record this season. The NESCAC's lone ranked teams are set for a showdown Feb. 7 in Amherst, Mass., but until then, Tufts is focusing on the task at hand.
"We're looking one game at a time, and if you keep that focus, good things will happen," Berube said. "We're looking towards this weekend, and we take it like we need to win every game; we need to have a great effort in every single game. If we play our basketball and we play with this kind of intensity and passion and effort that we did this past Saturday, wins will take care of themselves."
Wesleyan comes to Tufts looking to avenge a pair of losses to the Jumbos last season. When the two teams met in the regular season last year in Middletown, Conn., the Jumbos dealt the Cardinals -- the only undefeated team in the NESCAC at the time -- a 66-52 loss. Wesleyan received a chance for revenge a month later in the conference semifinals, but Tufts once again ran away with a double-digit win, ending the Cardinals' season.
With a 1-3 record in conference play thus far, the Cardinals are looking for a big win to launch themselves into the hunt.
"We've seen some Wesleyan scores where they've looked really, really good and then some scores where you're wondering, 'What happened in that game?'" Berube said. "We're expecting them to come in here running on all cylinders and playing their best basketball."
Tufts' defense will have its hands full with Wesleyan's scoring duo of senior guard Ali Fourney, whose 19.2 points per game lead the conference, and graduate co-captain Lucy Sprung, coming off of a 35-point effort against Montclair State on Jan. 20.
"I think our defense has been, in the past anyway, the key to our success, and that's something that we've not shown as much consistency as we would like," sophomore point guard Colleen Hart said. "I think last weekend on Saturday we showed a great defensive effort, and we're hoping to continue that throughout this weekend."
Following Friday's game, Conn. College will come to Cousens looking for its first NESCAC win of the season. The Camels have won just two of their last 16 NESCAC games dating back to the 2006-07 season. Still, the Jumbos won't be taking them lightly.
"A winless team in the NESCAC does not mean that they are not a good team," Berube said. "A winless team in the NESCAC still means they are a high-quality team, and that's what we've seen from them. They're young, and they're going to be tough; they have some great backcourt players.
"We're going to have to have a great Jumbo basketball effort on both ends of the floor," she continued. "We're always looking toward 'what kind of intensity are we going to bring to the defensive end', 'what kind of energy are we going to bring on both days.' So it's a big weekend. We're looking to go 2-0 and that's our goal."
