One year after nearly everything went right, a few too many things went wrong for the women's basketball team.
In the encore to their historic 2007-08 campaign -- one that featured a program-record 26 wins, an appearance in the conference championship game and a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament -- the Jumbos once again made a run at the record books. They posted the second-most wins by any squad in program history, appeared in March Madness for just the second time ever and won a game at Bowdoin for the first time since 1991.
Still, Tufts could not fully recreate the magic of its greatest season ever, finishing four wins shy of its predecessor's mark and suffering second-round exits from both the NESCAC and NCAA Tournaments. Those setbacks left the Jumbos feeling that they didn't completely match the sky-high expectations they set for themselves after last season's success.
"It was definitely new for us to have the bull's-eye on our back for the whole season," coach Carla Berube said. "It was a positive that there are high expectations for the program now for us to meet day-in and day-out and that we're not going to settle for anything less than playing at a certain level -- that's the way it should be. But it also makes it harder when you don't meet your expectations; you feel like you've failed a bit."
As it turned out, there was a very fine line between Tufts achieving its goals and falling just short of them. In five losses this season, the Jumbos' largest margin of defeat was six points. Tufts coughed up double-digit second-half leads in two of its setbacks, with the latest coming in a season-ending upset loss to TCNJ in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last Saturday.
"It's difficult to put your finger on what and why we didn't quite go as far as I think this team could have gone," Berube said. "It's sort of the opposite of what happened last year, when I thought there were games that we pulled out that maybe we shouldn't have pulled out. We had a few of the intangibles that maybe were missing a little bit down the stretch this year."
But the 2008-09 season was not without its highlights. Near the top of the list was a Jan. 24 trip to Brunswick, Maine that culminated in Tufts' first win at Bowdoin in 18 years. Less than 24 hours after suffering a painful loss to Colby, the Jumbos rebounded in the most impressive of fashions, becoming the only NESCAC team this season to beat the eventual-conference champion Polar Bears despite playing without their leading scorer, junior forward Julia Baily.
The first round of the NCAA Tournament also provided another memorable moment for Tufts. Forced to travel nearly 315 miles to Bethlehem, Pa. for a matchup against regional host Moravian, the Jumbos wound up dealing the Greyhounds their first home loss of the year, running away with an 80-70 victory.
"Both the Bowdoin game and the Moravian game [were] Tufts basketball through and through: tough defense, we got the running game going, and just making plays," Berube said. "Those were two of the games this season that really stood out as the best of the year."
But Tufts could not sustain the momentum from that victory into the next night, when its season ended with a 57-55 loss to TCNJ in the round of 32. Leading by 11 with 9:22 to play, the Jumbos were outscored 24-11 the rest of the way en route to a crushing defeat.
"The TCNJ game was nothing short of heartbreaking," senior co-captain Kim Moynihan said. "We had such high expectations, and our team had so much talent and potential this year. While I think we realized a lot of our goals this year, we did want to make it further in the tournament."
The loss marked the end of a subpar postseason showing for Tufts, one which also included the team's quickest exit from the NESCAC Tournament since 2006. For the second year in a row, the Jumbos' quest for their first conference crown ended at the hands of Amherst, this time by a 49-46 score in the semifinals. For a team with preseason title aspirations, the early elimination was a disappointment.
"[A NESCAC championship] was a goal that we set at the beginning of the year," Berube said. "We've been right there the last couple years in the finals. Amherst just played better than we did in that game, especially down the stretch. It's difficult because I think we had the talent and the personnel to get it done, and it just didn't quite mesh during that game."
Among those who will be back trying to help Tufts compete for a still-elusive conference championship next season will be both of the team's all-NESCAC selections: Baily, who paced the Jumbos with 12.9 points per game in her first season starting, and point guard Colleen Hart, who just ended her sophomore season more than halfway to the program's all-time scoring mark.
Still, Tufts will have to replace the voids left by four graduating seniors. Moynihan and forward Katie Tausanovitch have been mainstays in the Jumbos' starting lineup for the past two seasons. Each player established herself as one of the team's best defenders, with Moynihan earning NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year honors this season and Tausanovitch helping anchor Tufts' post defense since transferring from Div. I William and Mary ahead of the 2007-08 campaign.
The Jumbos will also be losing two players who provided depth off the bench in forward Katie Puishys and co-captain Stacy Filocco.
Even though this season's results have been tempered with a tinge of disappointment, the seniors know the program has nonetheless come a long way in their time on the Hill. Filocco and Moynihan were part of a 10-13 NESCAC bottom-feeder their freshman year and now leave with the program looking like a burgeoning regional powerhouse and perennial national contender.
"It's been quite the ride from my own freshman year to my senior year," Moynihan said. "To see this team and program evolve and continually get better -- it's amazing. I'm incredibly proud to have been a part of this program, and I hope that the future players will understand where we have come from and really appreciate it for what it's become and not take that for granted. It's great. We've kind of become a powerhouse, and to have that respect is fabulous."
