Badgers survive brutal schedule
The Brock Badgers women’s basketball team will enjoy a well-deserved rest during the Christmas break after finishing the first half of its season with a 5-4 record in Ontario University Athletics play.
After opening the season with a pair of victories over cellar-dwelling Toronto and York, the Badgers went on a stretch of seven games were they played teams with a collective winning percentage of .780, including a four-game stretch where the teams they played had a combined record of 36-4. Brock’s season has included an 81-79 overtime loss to No. 1 ranked Carleton and a 80-66 victory over fourth-ranked Queen’s.
“Based on our schedule, I think our record is better than I would have guessed or assumed,” Brock head coach Mike Rao said. “From a wins and losses perspective, you could look at it and say we are ahead of where we thought we would be but I don’t look at it that way. For me, it is all about progression and our team getting a little better. We lack in a number of areas and that’s what we have to clean up.”
He feels the team has a lot of holes in its defensive schemes and offensively the squad is not moving the way it should.
“When we do move well, we play well. If we don’t move well, we don’t. And why that’s the case I don’t know. I am trying to figure that out like everybody else. I have to get a good lineup out there and sometimes I’ve got it and sometimes I don’t. But it changes from game to game.”
Two major developments for the Badgers have been the emergence of Tito Akinnusi and Angeline Campbell to support the play of Madalyn Weinert, who leads the league in scoring with 20 points per game. Akinnusi sits third in the league in scoring at 18.3 points per game and is tied for the league lead in rebounding at 11.1 per game.
After a slow start, point guard Campbell has come on in a big way for the Badgers. She has averaged 12.7 points per game in the last seven games to push her average to 9.4 points per game.
But Rao is never satisfied.
“Yes we are getting something out of them but I don’t know how to put this. There is more there and I need to get the more there,” he said. “I need to get more than they are giving now and that’s our goal. At some point they are going to shut down Tito and she has to elevate her game. She is not going to be able to fly under the radar. And with Angeline it is the same thing.”
Rao’s goal is to get the entire team working together at one time.
“We have done it in a couple of games but overall I think we are missing things.”
It is exciting to think what the team could look like if it ever happens.
“The ceiling is high but the extraction, getting it out of them, is difficult. It is not as easy as it was in the past,” Rao said. “That is why I am a little bit perplexed.”
Crucial to the team’s success is to get more and more players contributing positive minutes and relying less on five or six players to log Nick Nurse-like minutes.
“You start with five, six or seven and then you continually put another piece in, get them into the mix and have everyone feel comfortable with that player. Then you get to eight or nine and one gives you something defensively and one gives you something on defence,” he said. “In the first half, a lot of it was smoke and mirrors. We used our bench a lot but we have to get to a point where eight, nine or 10 people can trust each other.”
Reinforcements are on the way. Third-year shooting guard Allison Addy is ready to return from a wrist injury and freshman guard Vienna Vercesi is almost back from a knee injury.
“I recruited her big and then she had the ACL within a week. It was a kick in the teeth but we have helped her through her rehab which has been a year-plus.”
At the start of the season, Rao was expecting Addy to take another step this season.
“She was until she broke her wrist. She was doing some good things.”
The Governor Simoce product brings a number of attributes to the table.
“She is good defensively and she works really well within our system. She is smart, she can shoot the ball and she has started to attack the basket more,” he said.
The Badgers return to action Jan. 5 with a home game against Toronto Metropolitan (10-0).
