University of Maine women’s basketball coach Amy Vachon got her point across loud and clear to her team after a season-opening 70-57 loss at Quinnipiac.
Her team’s defensive performance was unacceptable.
“We talked a lot before the Quinnipiac game about defense and then we didn’t show up,” said Vachon. “But we have really responded well in that area and have taken it to heart as well as our rebounding.”
The Bobcats shot 50.9 percent from the floor and 46.2 percent beyond the 3-point arc in that game. Since then, the Black Bears have limited their last three opponents to a 31.7 percent showing from the floor and a 16.3 percent performance from long distance.
They have held all three to only 48 points in each game.
UMaine leads America East’s nine teams in rebounds per game (43.3) and in rebounding margin with an average advantage of 11 rebounds in each game over its opponents.
“We have done a nice job on defense and in rebounding,” Vachon said.
The Black Bears will take a three-game winning streak into this weekend’s Vibrant Thanksgiving Classic tournament at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. UMaine will take on Richmond on Friday at 5:30 p.m., Louisiana Tech on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and host Drake on Sunday at 3 p.m.
Drake and Richmond, like UMaine, got off to 3-1 starts and Louisiana Tech is 2-1.
Richmond and Louisiana Tech each played in the Women’s NIT a year ago and Drake earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament where it lost to Louisville 83-81.
“We’re really excited for the opportunity to play three tremendous teams,” Vachon said.
Playing three games in three days can certainly be taxing and require the coaching staff to use more players and rotate them more frequently to keep them fresh.
“We’re just going to take it one game at a time,” Vachon added.
Offensively, UMaine is near the bottom of America East. It is shooting 40 percent from the floor and 27.5 percent beyond the 3-point arc. That is seventh in both categories.
“We haven’t been amazing, offensively, but we have had some great performances. Anne [Simon] has played really well for us as has Adi [Smith]. Liv [Olivia Rockwood] and Caroline [Bornemann] have done some really nice things, too, as well as everyone else,” Vachon said.
Simon is the conference’s leading scorer, averaging 20.8 points per game, and Smith is America East’s top rebounder with 11.3 per contest. Smith is also second in assists (4.5 per game) and in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.5).
Graduate student guard Simon, the 2021-22 America East Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, is averaging two steals per game along with 7.5 rebounds and three assists.
She has already been named the conference’s player of the week twice and has averaged 24 ppg in UMaine’s last three games.
Junior forward Smith, the reigning America East Player of the Year, is averaging 10.8 points per game.
Senior forward-guard Caroline Bornemann is averaging 8.8 ppg and 6 rpg and sophomore guard Sarah Talon from Windham has produced 8.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per game.
Rockwood is averaging 3.3 points but Vachon said she is doing a lot of things well that don’t show up on a stat sheet.
“Cutting hard is never going to show up in a box score but it is huge for us because it gets other kids open,” Vachon said.
She acknowledged that she would like to see her team shoot a “little bit better” but quickly noted that they have shot better the last two games.
UMaine shot 36.4 percent from the floor and 17.6 percent beyond the 3-point arc in its first two games but has been 43.8 percent and 40 percent, respectively, over the last two games.
