Can Mac find magic at Mattamy?
This is the year the Marauders hope to finally get the friendly bounce and end the frustration
She was watching the Super Bowl on the weekend, which meant she saw New England coach Bill Belichick get doused with Gatorade for the sixth time. She didn’t mean to get introspective, but the moment got her thinking.
For 26 years now, Theresa Burns’ McMaster women’s basketball team has been one of the best in the country. Yet, every time it appears her shot at a national title and a sugar-water shower of her own is possible, something happens on the way to glory. An injury. An unlucky bounce. A winning shot rattling around and bouncing out. Or an opponent’s last-second shot rattling around and falling in.
She’s no complainer and clearly not a quitter. But she’s not going to lie. Sometimes it gets a little frustrating. “Yeah, once in a while you say, ‘C’mon, are you
kidding me?’” she admits.
Yet, a day after her team was ranked third in the country, she’s far from being down.
Instead, she remains as optimistic as ever that this is the year it can happen.
This is the chance. This is the group to finally do it.
The Marauders are presently sitting in their customary spot at the top of the Ontario university Western Conference standings with a 17-3 record. They haven’t finished anywhere but that spot for five years.
Last month, they swept a pair against second-place Lakehead.
Their four remaining regularseason games are against teams that are a combined 16-44, meaning Burns’ women could reasonably finish 21-3 and post their best record in more than a decade.
Only Ottawa scores more points per game than their 76.3. No team attempts more threepointers or hits them with greater efficiency. Only Brock and Nipissing have fewer turnovers. Only Lakehead has more steals. Only Laurier has more blocks. You get the point. They’re very good.
Plus, there’s momentum. In 2013 and ’14, they lost in the Ontario quarter-finals. The next three years, they lost in the semis. Last year, they fell in the championship game to the eventual national champions. They seem to be heading in the right direction.
“We just have to end it in the right direction as well,” says Erin Burns.
The guard — who is no relation to her coach — is in her fifth year. She’s felt the sting of these close calls, too. A couple years ago as she raced for a rebound to take a final shot with only seconds left on the clock, she was flattened in an accidental collision and had her collarbone broken. It wasn’t the cause of the Marauders’ loss, but it was typical of the way things have gone at times.
Hilary Hanaka is also a fifthyear guard. She says being so good every year and having such a great win-loss record doesn’t salve the burn of these close losses. That makes it worse.
“We know we’re good enough,” she says.
She’s speaking of the past but also of the present. This is a team that really seems to believe this could be the season. Burns (the player) and Hanaka both grew up in Hamilton and attended Mac games as girls. They’ve been around this program almost all their lives. This is their final chance to do what so many of their childhood heroes couldn’t, and they say they’re determined to make it happen before walking out the door.
As for the bad breaks and weird bounces that have burned the team over the years, Burns (the coach this time) says they’re just part of sports. As a two-time cancer survivor, it’s not surprising she’d have a proper perspective on all this. She just keeps digging for the positive.
“It certainly is a motivating factor to keep going,” she says.
Being the third-place ranking in the country — up from fourth a week ago — doesn’t hurt, either. If only as a pat on the back and an endorsement from those outside Burridge Gym that they’re doing well and doing things right.
But it’s all about the playoffs this year. Last year, they finished second in Ontario, went to the nationals and lost their first game there. This year the goal is to flip both those results. Then find the little extra magic that has eluded her side so many times and do something the school has never done. Three wins on the big stage. That’s all she wants.
The nationals are being played at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre this year. The place that used to be Maple Leaf Gardens. If ever there was a place that knows the frustration of dry spells, that’s it.
Yet if ever there was a poetic place to end one ...
And if that happens, would she announce her retirement on the spot? Cross the finish line and then disappear down the tunnel, knowing it could never be better? She’s clearly thought a lot about the winning part, but far less so about what comes next.
Short answer? She doesn’t know.
But she adds, she’d dearly love to find out how she’d feel in that moment. “For sure, we want a national championship; I’m not shy to say it,” Burns says. “I’m going to keep hoping this year is the year.”