NEW ROLE FOR MOUNTAINEERS
Mount St. Mary’s takes Robert Morris’ place as team to beat in Northeast Conference
For the previous four years, the road to the Northeast Conference championship in women’s basketball went through Robert Morris, which had captured at least a share of the title, earned the top seed in the league tournament three times and represented the conference in the NCAA postseason twice.
But the Colonials’ decision in the offseason to move to the Horizon League created a hole at the top of the Northeast standings, and Mount St. Mary’s has happily filled the void.
The Mountaineers were voted unanimously last week by league coaches as the preseason favorite to win the crown in the 2020-21 season, the first time in 20 years that the program had been picked to finish first.
The honor won’t mean much when they open the season Wednesday at James Madison at 4 p.m., but it still resonated with players like redshirt senior guard Kendall Bresee.
“I think for me, I take it as a compliment because last year, everyone was trying to get Robert Morris just because of how good they were,” she said. “Now this year, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s us.’ It’s very exciting. We have all the people and all the pieces to live up to that standard. It’s just up to us to do it and make things happen.”
That accolade, however, also has raised expectations from the outside and within.
“We know that we have to be on our toes and play our best game every single night because teams are coming for us, for sure,” junior point guard Michaela Harrison said. “In practice, we go hard against each other every day. If we don’t, our coaches let us know. We know their expectations for us. So every day, we just try to challenge each other.”
The high regard for Mount St. Mary’s is not unwarranted. Last winter, the team went 20-11 overall, winning 20 games for the first time since the 1999-2000 squad won 20 of 29 games. The Mountaineers also compiled a 14-4 record in the Northeast, finishing second to Robert Morris in the standings and had advanced to the semifinals of the conference tournament before the coronavirus pandemic shut down all col
lege sports in March.
The program returned all but one player from last year, including all five starters. That group is led by Harrison, who scored 12.6 points per game; Bresee, who paced the team with 6.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists and added 11.3 points; and senior guard Jatarrikah Settle, who tied Harrison for the team lead with 1.9 steals and contributed 9.7 points and 5.5 rebounds.
While Harrison was the team’s most prolific scorer, Mount St. Mary’s had three more players average more than seven points last season, and coach Maria Marchesano said she appreciates the roster’s diverse production.
“It takes a special group to remain unselfish because we have probably six different players on this team that could average double digits on most other teams in our league,” she said. “But they understand that if we do have selfish players, it’s going to hurt our winning percentage. So I do think it’s a benefit to us. It makes us hard to scout, and if you do try to key on one player, that’s an opportunity for another player you weren’t even thinking of to go off for 20 points.”
The Mountaineers led the league in scoring at 66.9 points per game and field-goal percentage at .406. Harrison said the offense is eager to improve on those numbers by accelerating the on-court
tempo.
“We’re a very fast team, and we like to push the ball, and in transition, we like to shoot a lot of threes,” she said. “So everything is fast.”
The team’s defense was decent, ranking fourth in points allowed at 62.8 and field-goal percentage at .390. But Bresee said the players are fully aware how much a stout defense can aid the offense.
“We have focused on defense for the past month or two,” she said. “If we lock in on defense, I think it’s going to be hard to beat us because we can be a very good defensive team. We didn’t lose anyone, and we have a bunch of people that can score. So the offense isn’t as much of a worry. We just have to really lock in on defense.”
If there is one area that concerns Marchesano, Mount St. Mary’s surrendered an average of 17.4 turnovers, which was middle of the pack in the league.
“For me personally, turnovers are always something that scares me,” she said. “We haven’t taken care of the ball well in my entire tenure here. It got better last year, but for us to be a championship team this year, it needs to improve tremendously.”
Harrison was guilty at times of lax ball protection, committing 87 turnovers. But last winter was her first as the primary ball handler, and she said she has continued to grow in that role.
“I’m a better point guard,” she said. “Last year was my first year at the one. I see the floor a little bit better while trying to still get my scoring in.”
Harrison made enough of an impression with Northeast coaches, who placed her on the All-Conference preseason team.
Marchesano lauded Harrison as the team’s sparkplug.
“She is a scoring point guard, and once she was able to kind of handle both duties – run the offense, dish it out, and create for people but still score – it was a nice balance, and that’s when we got better as a team,” she said. “So this year, where she’s gotten better is, she’s just gotten more comfortable. She understands that she has to take shots and she has to get us points, but at the same time, she’s figuring out different ways to create for others.”
Despite Robert Morris’ departures, potential obstacles loom in the form of Sacred Heart, which boasts five Division I transfers and a 17-player roster; Saint Francis, which welcomes back its three top scorers; and Fairleigh Dickinson, which returns four of five starters from a squad that finished fourth. That’s why Marchesano is leery of putting too much emphasis on a preseason poll.
“For us to win the championship this year, even though we have all the pieces and were predicted first, a lot of things still have to go right,” she said. “Wehave to be healthy. With this crazy schedule that we have playing back-to-back games on the road against some tough opponents, we’ve got to have the ball bounce our way a couple times. I just hope that people don’t expect us to automatically win just because we were predicted No. 1. Now we’ve got to go out and we’ve got to battle, and we’ve got to win some games, and we’ve got to back it up.”