Underclassmen shine in an unusual season
Over the last 20 years, the St. Joe’s women’s basketball team has been a hallmark atop the Atlantic 10 (A-10) standings. Head Coach Cindy Griffin’s teams have finished sixth or better in the conference in 14 of the last 20 seasons.
However, for the St. Joe’s women’s basketball program, the last three seasons have deviated from the sustained winning and success that the program is accustomed to.
This year marks the Hawks’ third straight season without an NCAA Tournament or Women’s National Invitational Tournament appearance, making this the longest drought since Griffin was hired in 2001.
Further, the team posted three consecutive losing records in A-10 conference play, after having losing seasons only twice in the 10 prior seasons. Road venues were unkind to the Hawks, as the team finished 1-6 away from Hagan Arena, losing by an average margin of 9.1 points per contest.
It is normal for some of college’s best basketball programs to experience a lull in their winning. For example, the University of Notre Dame’s women’s basketball program, coached by St. Joe’s alumna Muffet McGraw ’77 from 1987-2020, advanced to seven Final Fours from 2011-2019. Over the past two seasons, however, the team has finished with an overall record of 23-28. In men’s college basketball, the Indiana University Hoosiers, a program which ranks sixth in all time NCAA Tournament appearances, has not earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament since 2016.
To put it simply, winning can be cyclical. All successful programs experience seasons or eras in which it fails to live up to the high standards established by its previous success.
Still, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future based on the team’s results from this season. The Hawks improved their overall and A-10 winning percentages from the 2019-20 season by roughly 10 and 16 percentage points, respectively. A 6-3 record at Hagan Arena marks the program’s best home winning percentage since the 2014-15 season.
Sophomore guard Kaliah Henderson, the team’s leading scorer at 11.4 points per game, has three more years of NCAA eligibility remaining and forward Gabby Smalls, also a sophomore, led the team with 6.9 rebounds per game, the most by a St. Joe’s player since the 2017-18 season. Smalls also led the team in free throw percentage, shooting 34 of 48 from the stripe, good for 71% on the season. Junior guard Katie Jekot finished fifth in the A-10 with 4.1 assists per game and shot a career high 35% from the 3-point line.
It would not be a true 2020-21 college basketball season without the intervention of COVID-19. The Hawks were afflicted with several COVID-19 related pauses. As a result, the team postponed eight of their scheduled games, six of which were ultimately never played.
Under the presumption that no senior or graduate student decides to exercise their extra year of NCAA eligibility granted because of the coronavirus pandemic, the team is set to lose five seniors and graduate students: forward Alexis Santarelli, guard Lula Roig, guard and team captain Mary Sheehan, guard Alayna Gribble and forward Olivia Ramil. Sophomore forward Jaden Walker, freshman guard Olivia Mullins and freshman guard Emma Boslet will look to expand their roles as a result of the departures.
Though this season may be retroactively viewed as foundational for the Hawks’ success in future seasons, perhaps the most enduring legacy of the 2020-21 St. Joe’s women’s basketball team is its support of racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The team was the first in SJU Athletics to adopt Black Lives Matter warmup shirts, a statement that was followed by the women’s lacrosse and women’s soccer teams. Sheehan and Smalls both spoke about diversity, inclusion and equality at the Day of Dialogue. Smalls also spoke to athletes and coaches from other St. Joe’s teams about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.
As one of the most diverse teams at a predominantly white institution, the women’s basketball team’s players were leaders at the forefront of activism on campus.
