{"id":166,"date":"2018-02-09T22:52:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-10T03:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/?p=166"},"modified":"2018-02-12T16:36:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T21:36:41","slug":"womens-basketball-finding-ways-to-succeed-amidst-adversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/2018\/02\/09\/womens-basketball-finding-ways-to-succeed-amidst-adversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s basketball finding ways to succeed amidst adversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winners in seven of their last 11 games, the Seton Hall women\u2019s basketball team has found ways around adversity since starting the conference season off\u00a00-3.\u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Super Bowl\u00a0Sunday. For Pirates\u2019 head coach Tony\u00a0Bozzella, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing is that we have been able to practice,\u201d\u00a0Bozzella\u00a0said. \u201cNow that we\u2019ve gotten to practice we have been playing well together. This is a brand-new group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the season is midway through, and the Hall have six returning players from last year\u2019s 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\u00a0JaQuan\u00a0Jackson, who led the team with 15.3 points and 1.4 assists per game last year.<\/p>\n

Almost half of the players on the Pirates, including\u00a0Inja Butina, are battling the gauntlet that is the Big East for the first time. The redshirt sophomore Brown, juniors Nicole Jimenez and\u00a0Butina, along with freshmen Kimi Evans and Selena Philoxy, have found confidence on the floor according to senior captain\u00a0JaQuan\u00a0Jackson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just us learning\u00a0from the mistakes that we made in the past,\u201d Jackson said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s about piecing it together, trusting everyone and having confidence and coming out with energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo via Seton Hall Athletics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has gotten back to the mindset that she was in last year,\u201d assistant coach Lauren\u00a0DeFalco\u00a0said before a recent game. \u201cShe didn\u2019t mind taking a backseat to\u00a0Donnaizha\u00a0[Fountain]. She didn\u2019t mind doing whatever it took to help the team win whether that was 2 points or 12 points.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Hall now on the back end of the round-robin conference season,\u00a0the 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\u00a0faced in Walsh Gymnasium on Jan. 12. The Pirates led by\u00a0nine at halftime, but were outscored\u00a029-17 over the final 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

The previous meeting between the Pirates and Wildcats was just a part of the ups and downs of conference season, and it\u2019s in these ups and downs that younger players have the difficult task of trying to not get too high or too low, according to\u00a0Bozzella.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach day the\u00a0younger kids are learning and getting better. Kimi [Evans] is struggling right now but Selena [Philoxy] picked her up,\u201d\u00a0Bozzella\u00a0said. \u201cBut it\u2019s the other 10 kids on the team that are really\u00a0supporting those two freshmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really need to defend in these next few games,\u201d\u00a0Bozzella\u00a0said. \u201cWe\u2019re not good enough offensively individually. We have to score some points off of our defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

With defense in mind,\u00a0Bozzella\u00a0admires the way his team has come together over these last 10 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a true team,\u201d\u00a0Bozzella\u00a0said. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the kids for really getting together and making this a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Huebler can be reached at kevin.heubler@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @Hueblerkevin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winners in seven of their last 11 games, the Seton Hall women\u2019s basketball team has found ways around adversity since starting the conference season off\u00a00-3.\u00a0The 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3935,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,13,15,14],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hall-sports","tag-big-east","tag-seton-hall-pirates","tag-tony-bozzella","tag-walsh-gym"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3935"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}