Nineteen games into the season, American University women’s basketball remains one of the five winless teams in NCAA Division One Women’s Basketball. Although some games have been close, many escaped the Eagles’ control. Last season’s 10-20 record was disappointing, but may prove to be significantly better than this one.
Obviously, the team results are lacking, but so are the individual ones. Statistically, the Eagles’ best player, freshman Cecilia Kay, averages just 10.9 points per game. Besides Kay, junior Laura Nogues has been the team’s best three-point shooter, shooting a solid 37.3 percent and graduate student Ivy Bales has been racking up the most assists on the team, with a measly 2.8 per game.
I have become even less confident in this team after their recent losses at Colgate, Lehigh and Loyola Maryland. Going into the game at Loyola Maryland, the Greyhounds were tied with American for last place in the Patriot League. AU traveled to Baltimore and got obliterated, losing 77-38, the worst loss of the season and their second by over 30 points. The team shot a remarkably low 7.1 percent from beyond the arc and just 26.4 percent from the field. This was overall the Eagles’ worst game of the season; it placed them alone in last, and the matchups ahead don’t get easier from here.
I, along with much of the fanbase, have completely lost interest in this group. If the team wants to regain the support that they had not too long ago when they were competing with their Patriot League opponents, they need to change the way they approach games.
This all starts with the head coach, Tiffany Coll, who is in her third year as head coach of the Eagles. After her first two seasons, her teams finished with a combined record of 19-42. This is a .311 winning percentage, which will go down even more if the team continues on their current track this season. These kinds of results should be unacceptable for Coll, as well as the athletic department who chose her to lead this group of student athletes.
"While we are certainly not meeting our expectations for the season, I am proud of the women on our team fighting in practice and in games to turn this season around,” athletic director JM Caparro said in a statement to The Eagle. “We will continue to support the program with the goal of providing the best possible experience for the student-athletes."
To be more specific with my disappointment, one area where the Eagles have struggled this season is in the fourth quarter. On several occasions this season American has been tied or has had a lead around halfway through the fourth quarter, but all ended in losses. The team can’t seem to finish games, which has been a repetitive theme all season. Now, I do not know what is going on inside the locker room, but one would imagine that this string of losses has had a detrimental impact on the players this season. Many times they’ve come close to their first win but haven’t been able to finish the job, and it’s clearly impacting the players the rest of the way.
Going forward, the Eagles need to find a leader. They need to figure out who is going to be the person who recognizes what is going wrong and can take the steps to try and dig the team out of the immensely deep hole they have dug themselves. If this fails, it may require the athletic department to find ways to improve leadership in the coaching staff.
This article was edited by Jack Stashower, Penelope Jennings and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Nicole Kariuki.
