By the standards of Sue Muldowney, this season is probably nothing to herald. But given how had this team was, given she had not had any hand in recruiting anyone on the current roster and the financial challenges associated with the job no one would've faulted the old champion coach for diminished expectations with this program she'd taken over almost sight unseen thanks to a few friends who told her things were changing at the branch campus by the sea.
One of the things I forgot, is that during her hiatus, I turned off conference tournaments in all but the top leagues. The idea behind that the best teams of each conference would generally be represented and putting more emphasis on the regular season since I'm not playing with fake dollars.
Unfortunately, that means TAMU-CC won't get a chance to perform the surgical upset in the post-season and instead, will have to pray for a WNIT bid.
Code:
2046 Southland Conference Standings
TEAM CW CL Pct W L Pct RPI Prestige
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Southeastern Louisiana Lady Lions 18 2 .900 22 6 .786 35 27
Lamar Lady Cardinals 15 5 .750 20 9 .690 72 32
Texas A&M-CC Islanders 14 6 .700 19 10 .655 131 10
Sam Houston State Bearkats 12 8 .600 18 11 .621 79 25
Tarleton State Texans 10 10 .500 18 11 .621 127 24
Texas-Arlington Mavericks 10 10 .500 17 12 .586 179 34
Central Arkansas Sugar Bears 10 10 .500 13 16 .448 192 29
Houston Baptist Huskies 9 11 .450 17 12 .586 175 39
Stephen F. Austin Ladyjacks 8 12 .400 9 20 .310 174 26
McNeese State Cowgirls 8 12 .400 12 17 .414 215 22
Nicholls State Colonels 7 13 .350 10 19 .345 348 26
Northwestern State Lady Demons 5 15 .250 8 21 .276 362 32
UTEP Miners 4 16 .200 7 22 .241 321 23
Still, recognize that 19 wins is just 4 wins away from the school record set back in 2003, the last time the team made the NCAAs. While that won't be repeated this year, losing three seniors and none of whom were star players (though one is a key producer) and replacing them with a solid recruiting class ought to help a lot.
Code:
TEXAS A&M-CC ISLANDERS Averages
Player Pos GP GS Min Pts Orb Reb Ast Stl Blk To Fls +/-
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Lilah Salvador PF 29 29 27.3 13.3 1.8 4.0 1.7 0.7 0.3 1.9 2.9 5.8
Thalia Rife SF 29 29 27.0 12.0 0.9 3.4 2.1 1.9 0.3 1.9 2.9 5.4
Chalina Merino SG 29 29 29.4 11.1 0.6 4.2 2.5 2.0 0.1 2.0 2.6 5.5
Aryiola Gonzalez C 29 29 23.0 8.6 1.9 5.2 0.8 0.4 0.3 1.3 2.6 7.4
Milagros Hernandez PF 29 29 26.5 6.5 1.2 5.6 1.2 0.5 0.5 1.2 2.4 4.9
Heidi Balcom PG 29 0 17.0 6.0 0.5 2.2 1.2 0.7 0.1 1.3 1.3 2.0
Rihanna Pettway PF 29 0 23.1 4.5 1.2 3.8 2.3 0.6 0.1 1.5 3.4 2.9
Samantha Kantor SF 28 0 11.3 3.8 0.6 1.4 0.8 0.5 0.1 0.8 1.3 1.7
Annika Burch SG 29 0 6.5 2.7 0.5 1.7 0.6 0.2 0.0 0.5 0.5 0.5
Aryiola Serrano C 29 0 7.0 2.1 0.7 2.5 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.8 -0.6
Brooklyn Cullen PF 29 0 4.0 1.1 0.3 0.6 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.2
Neves Saez PF 5 0 2.4 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 -1.0
Sharon Mason SF 6 0 1.2 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.3
The recruits include two 3-star players who again seem to be helped by the influence of a strong head coach. Both can score and ought to be able to step in and help Lilah Salvador impact things from Day One.
With the brackets now released, we have indeed made the WNIT, the school's first postseason appearance since 2007. A huge coup for the program and while we were apparently one of the last teams into that tournament, it's even more remarkable that it happened. The Southland had 4 teams in the WNIT field, so we entered as a 10th seed.
2046 WNIT
1st round: Xavier (18-11) L, 58-72
With that loss, the season ends at 19-11 for the Islanders. But it'd be hard to qualify this season as anything other than a huge, huge success for the coach and her squad.