Winners in seven of their last 11 games, the Seton Hall women’s basketball team has found ways around adversity since starting the conference season off 0-3. The Pirates have discovered a swagger that can be seen on and off the court; even the loss of their leading scorer, Donnaizha Fountain could not stop the positive momentum.
Now sitting at 7-7 in Big East play, the Pirates finished last weekend by pulling off an eight-point second half comeback win over Butler on Super Bowl Sunday. For Pirates’ head coach Tony Bozzella, more time for practice has meant more time to focus in on certain things. One key component that the head coach has been harping on is playing together.
“The big thing is that we have been able to practice,” Bozzella said. “Now that we’ve gotten to practice we have been playing well together. This is a brand-new group.”
Of course, the season is midway through, and the Hall have six returning players from last year’s team, plus Taylor Brown who sat out due to transfer rules. Although, the only returning starter for the Hall coming into the year was senior captain JaQuan Jackson, who led the team with 15.3 points and 1.4 assists per game last year.
Almost half of the players on the Pirates, including Inja Butina, are battling the gauntlet that is the Big East for the first time. The redshirt sophomore Brown, juniors Nicole Jimenez and Butina, along with freshmen Kimi Evans and Selena Philoxy, have found confidence on the floor according to senior captain JaQuan Jackson.
“It’s just us learning from the mistakes that we made in the past,” Jackson said. “It’s about piecing it together, trusting everyone and having confidence and coming out with energy.”
The soft-spoken Jackson also has found her touch in this recent stretch, after starting the season in the shadow of Fountain, who came to a mutual agreement with the coaching staff and left the team. Jackson has since seen an uptick in scoring, averaging 17.0 points per game over the last five games.
“She has gotten back to the mindset that she was in last year,” assistant coach Lauren DeFalco said before a recent game. “She didn’t mind taking a backseat to Donnaizha [Fountain]. She didn’t mind doing whatever it took to help the team win whether that was 2 points or 12 points.”
With the Hall now on the back end of the round-robin conference season, the team is in the middle of a three-game road trip before they round out the season at home. Next up for Seton Hall is Villanova on Sunday, Feb. 11, a team that they faced in Walsh Gymnasium on Jan. 12. The Pirates led by nine at halftime, but were outscored 29-17 over the final 10 minutes.
The previous meeting between the Pirates and Wildcats was just a part of the ups and downs of conference season, and it’s in these ups and downs that younger players have the difficult task of trying to not get too high or too low, according to Bozzella.
“Each day the younger kids are learning and getting better. Kimi [Evans] is struggling right now but Selena [Philoxy] picked her up,” Bozzella said. “But it’s the other 10 kids on the team that are really supporting those two freshmen.”
The fifth-year head coach is optimistic, but still acknowledges how his team will need to create offense from their defense to be successful in the homestretch of the season.
“We really need to defend in these next few games,” Bozzella said. “We’re not good enough offensively individually. We have to score some points off of our defense.”
With defense in mind, Bozzella admires the way his team has come together over these last 10 games.
“This is a true team,” Bozzella said. “I’m proud of the kids for really getting together and making this a team.”
Kevin Huebler can be reached at kevin.heubler@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @Hueblerkevin.