Pacific Index

Pacific Women’s Basketball team seeks to end the season on a positive note

   Sure, every team’s goal at the beginning of the season is to win a championship. It’s easy to play for a goal when you know it’s possible and you know there’s a chance. The question is what do you do when the season doesn’t go as planned? What do you do when you hit obstacles and have to adjust? What are you as a team going to do to make sure you still go to every workout, practice, and game, with that same ambition, even if you don’t reach your initial goal? Those are a couple of questions the Pacific’s women’s basketball team has had to answer for themselves as they are currently 8-11(4-6 in conference) and with just over a handful of games left.

   “I feel that the overall season is going okay,” says junior Shaade Williams. “We have our up and down moments, but we are staying positive and working hard for the second half of the conference schedule. We are not exactly in the position we want to be but there is still time to flip it around, so we just have to continue to work hard and get some more wins and stay in a positive mindset.” 

   Over the Boxer’s last six conference games, the team has split 3-3, and there’s been a constant pattern in their performances that has determined both their successes and shortcomings. With their three losses to Whitman, Pacific Lutheran, and Linfield, the Pacific women’s team has shot a lacking average of 32.6 percent from the field, and a poor 27.4 percent from the three-point line. Assists and points in the paint also have fallen short, with the Boxer’s opponents exhibiting more assists at a rate of 38-24, and outscoring 110-64 points in the paint. These details in the women’s games have hindered their performances in conference play. 

   When asked what challenges the team ran into and how they plan to overcome them, Williams responded, “The biggest challenges we faced is just overall being a whole new team and being young and having to adapt in being in new positions some have never been before.” The team graduated the bulk of its started after last season. Williams continued, “We work on overcoming this by just practicing hard, asking questions, and getting in the gym extra to try and be the best version of ourselves. We also just try to have trust in one another as, yes we are a new and young team who are still learning, but we are still a very talented and skillful team who is really good at the game of basketball.” 

   On the other side of the equation, there have been promising successes in the women’s basketball three-game split.  In their wins against Whitworth, Willamette, and Lewis & Clark the stat that stands out the most is their rebounding. In all three wins, the Boxers averaged 45 rebounds, being able to secure the ball after shots. The Boxers also have forced turn-overs from their opponents in steals 31-23. In these three games, the Boxer’s bench really has shown up and showed out, outscoring their opponents 69-41 points. This was on display in their latest win where the Boxer’s bench outscored Lewis & Clark 28-3. 

   “Our philosophy and culture right now is just to be the best version of ourselves and be consistent with every time we practice and play,” Williams openly shared. “We have a saying, ‘being dawgs with class,’ meaning that every time we play we come out hard and ready to play with aggression, but still at the same time be respectful to other teams.” 

   This is a great attitude to have as a young basketball team considering that they lost nine seniors last season, and are requiring others in the program step up. Through the ups and downs of the season, the Boxers still have four more games to play to see how much they can live up to their expectations. “The message to the team has been that we are a good team, with many skillful players who need to be confident in their game and believe that we are good,” Williams says, affirming the beliefs she wishes the rest of the team to maintain. “How we need to show that is by being consistent every day. We are aiming to make it into the post-season playoffs and if we want to do this we have to play the second round of the conference to our best abilities and just leave everything we have on the court for us to reach our goal.”