In some ways, it seems like just yesterday I wandered into Merner Fieldhouse to let people know that I was back for a third full year of PA work for Lady Cardinal basketball. But here we are three months later, and the season has drawn to a close.
I had high hopes for this team coming into the 2013-14 campaign since they were another year older and coming off a 13-13 campaign in which they made the CCIW Tournament for the first time since 2009. With that, plus the additions they had, I thought they'd have enough to make a little more noise in the CCIW. Sadly, that didn't really end up happening.
I opened the year with a
14-11 prediction, with an 8-6 mark in CCIW play. I thought a one-win improvement was reasonable, but unfortunately they took a step backwards, finishing 3 wins shy of my projection overall and four wins shy of CCIW expectations. Some of that can be attributed to some
unexpected developments in the CCIW. Though they nailed the top three teams and had the fourth seed of the upcoming tournament as the 5th best team, North Park was definitely underrated, and they ended up
just outside the tournament.
Back to North Central, I do think that in a lot of ways, they were better than their 11-14 record showed, but in watching as many of their games as I did, I can also understand why they didn't win more than the 11 games they did. There were, of course, the blowouts at the hands of a Top-10
Hope team the second game of the year, plus a
pair of
beatdowns at the hands of Wheaton this year, which honestly don't surprise me. The really good, fundamentally sound teams can handle that press and beat you pretty badly, especially on good nights. There were games where the intensity definitely wasn't there, like the game
at home against Millikin.
There were games where they couldn't quite keep up the pace in the second half, like the
home date with Illinois Wesleyan that really impressed me, or the games at
North Park and
Augustana that the Cardinals arguably should have won but went cold late.
And yet for all of those games, there were a ton of great moments. For the first time in seven years,
this Cardinal team beat Illinois Wesleyan, and they did it in Bloomington. The
opening game of the year, even though it nearly killed me, was one of the most fun games I've ever done. This team
went toe to toe at home against Carthage, and should have won were it not for a terrible no-call by the officials followed by poor execution on the other end.
Enough about that though; let's talk numbers. In this year's preview I talked about wanting to see some of the numbers increase. And the most important one did go up: three point shooting. Instead of the modest jump to 28 percent that I would have been comfortable with, this year's total jumped to
29.9% from deep, with the last two games of the year dragging that number down from over 30%. Sure, there were a few games where they really struggled, but there were a lot of other games where they absolutely caught fire. Almost to a man (girl), everyone individually jumped from last year to this year.
Maryssa Cladis jumped from 25.5% to 32.2%.
Kelsey Cooling jumped from 29.8% to 34.5%.
Lauren Hernandez, despite missing the final four games due to a knee injury, jumped from 28.5% to 36%. Considering the sheer volume of threes, this is really good. Kim Wilson maintained her numbers from last year, hitting 30.8% of her triples, while freshman
Anita Sterling and
Miranda Grizaffi hitting 31.4% and 31.3%, respectively. Emily Zgoda, the freshman third point guard, hit 33.3% of hers. Other players struggled a bit more, but overall it was an improvement from last season.
I also said free throws needed to be better, and they were, but not by much. A 65.7% team total in 2012-13 went up to
66.3% this year, and there are a handful of coolers (copyright Bill Simmons) on this squad. Not counting Grizaffi's 2-2 year at the stripe, Cladis led the team at 82.1%, with
Bobbi Johns (76.4%) and
Larynn Shumaker (76.3%) right behind her. I'm not counting transfer
Tess Godhardt, who played in the final four games of the season and played very well, though she shot 81.3% on freebies in those four games. Other key figures really struggled. Backup forward and transfer
Uzuri Williams only hit 50.7% of her free throws. Cooling and Wilson really struggled, hitting 51.6% and 55.2%, respectively. The one person who needs the most work on it in the offseason is
Sofia Svensson, who only hit 39.3%.
I need to talk to Clark Teuscher, NCC's SID about adding charges as an official statistic, mainly because they're so important, but also because NCC draws a ton of them. I wish I'd kept track because
Sophie Newson, a master of the art who graduated last year, did a fantastic job passing it along to this year's team. Just about every game I worked, the Cardinals drew a charge or two early and it completely changed the nature of the game in terms of opponents' shot selection. Fast break layup attempts turned into six-foot teardrops and floaters to avoid the whistle. It was incredible to watch.
It was a record setting year for this Cardinal team. They broke five
single season program records this year, and finished second in program history in three other categories. While no
individual single-season records fell, a lot of the Top 10 totals were rewritten this season; three Cardinals had Top 10 years of both made and attempted treys, while Johns had Top 10 years in assists (finishing one shy of becoming the ninth Cardinal to pick up 100 in a season) and steals. I'll save the details for November, but a few players are already in the Top 10 in program history in some of the above categories. I thought as the season went on that Shumaker had a good shot at the
1000 point club, but missing three of the final four games of the year hurt her chances, barring a monster year from her in 2014-15.
All in all, it was kind of a mixed year for the Cardinals. I definitely think they improved, but their record didn't really show it. I wanted to pull out some advanced stats, so I found Daryl Morey's formula for
Pythagorean expectation, and found that the Cardinals were expected to be about a seven-win team. Granted, this formula's intent is for professional basketball, but I also think this is badly imbalanced by the number of blowouts the Cardinals suffered (and the relative lack of teams they blew out). Advanced stats may not like this team as much, but the Eye Test is a good thing. While inconsistent, this team played a lot of very good games, including some against excellent competition.
Going forward, this team has a lot to look forward to, and in talking to Coach
Michelle Roof last week, she's excited for next year. This team only loses one to graduation (
Marion Boeck), and while I don't know if anyone would transfer out or what kind of recruiting Coach Roof will pull off, this team will have seven seniors next year, all of whom are key figures, plus a couple juniors and sophomores who will also be major rotation pieces. We also know that this team can give the Carthage's and Illinois Wesleyan's of the world fits. Going into the offseason, I don't see why this Cardinal team can't make it back to the tournament next year.
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