ByGeorge! Online

March 18, 2003

Foggy Bottom Turns into Title Town

Colonials Women’s Team Defeats Rhode Island to Win the Atlantic 10 Championship and Earn a Bid to the NCAA Tournament

By Thomas Kohout

For the first time since the 1995–96 season, The George Washington University women’s basketball team hoisted the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship trophy following a sometimes-brutal, defensive struggle against the University of Rhode Island on March 10. With the victory, the Colonials head to the NCAA Tournament for the 10th time in 13 years, by virtue of the automatic bid for conference champions.

GW relied on the broad shoulders of 6'4" center Ugo Oha’s dominating performance to win 56–49. The Rams game plan to shut down A-10 Player of the Year Cathy Joens and the team’s perimeter game nearly worked. An aggressive Rams defense held the Colonials to just 35.4 percent shooting. It was an uncharacteristic game for GW which averaged more than 73 points-per-game during the season and hit 48 percent of its attempts from the field. Instead, GW focused the size mismatch in the low post position, funneling the ball inside to Oha. The tactic resulted in career-highs in points (26) and blocks (8) for the junior from Houston, TX. With her eight rebounds, Oha earned the Most Outstanding Player award for the tournament. She provided two key plays that broke open an otherwise tight contest.

A crushing block in the second half against Rhode Island’s leading scorer, Denise King, sent the Rams a message that GW would not be intimidated.

“That block came from the soul,” said Oha. “I just wanted to shout ‘yeah, I can still block your shot.’ ”

In the final minutes of the game Oha dropped in a layup off of an inbounds pass from senior Erica Lawrence with a Rhode Island defender draped over her back. The resulting foul shot gave the Colonials all the lead they needed. Rhode Island was forced to foul the GW in an effort to stop the clock.

“That play really sealed the game for us,” added Oha.

“[Oha’s] not bad for a second-team All Conference selection, huh?” Head Coach Joe McKeown said sarcastically following the game. The announcement of conference honors, which came at the start of the tournament in Kingston, RI, March 6, provided extra fuel for a team looking to make up for missed opportunities last season.

“I thought that was a slap in the face to us, it showed a lack of respect,” said McKeown of Oha’s second team selection. “I think [Oha’s] one of the great college centers. People don’t understand what happens when she gets double-teamed every game. Every defense we face is geared to stop her.”

For the regular season Oha averaged more than 15 points, 6.5 rebounds-per-game, and totaled 78 blocks — surpassing the totals for all of the A-10 teams, except Duquesne and Fordham which recorded 113 each.

During the pregame shoot-around many of the nearly 1,400 fans in attendance heckled the Rhode Island players, chanting “90–38,” the score of the teams’ Feb. 2 regular season contest. In their first meeting GW quickly jumped out to a lead, broke the Rams spirit, and went on to win convincingly. The championship game was considerably different from the matchup earlier in the season, as the Rams took to the court with more confidence having beaten Xavier, 52–48, in the semifinals March 8.

“In February they gave up in the first 10 minutes,” recalled sophomore forward Anna Montañana, who added nine points and five rebounds in her 32 minutes of play. “Tonight they were more confident, more aggressive. They were everywhere. They defended really well.”

Oha added a possible explanation for the tur around in the Rams performance.

“When your life is on the line,” she said, referring to the sudden-death nature of post-season play, “you really come to play.”

The win ends a seven-season drought in the conference finals for GW. Last year the team lost in the quarterfinal round to Xavier, a defeat that eventually cost the team a bid to the NCAA tournament.

“Unfortunately, God blessed me with a very good memory,” said McKeown after the game. “It has been a while, and it’s been a monkey that you want to get rid of. ”

McKeown added that to some degree he was happier for the automatic bid to the NCAA’s that comes with being the conference champion.

“We went 15–1 [in the conference last year] and didn’t finish the job,” recalls McKeown. “[This season] I don’t think our players wanted to leave anything to chance.”

Of his team’s chances on the larger NCAA tournament stage, McKeown, the A-10’s winningest coach, expressed confidence.

“We won 21 of our last 22 games. I don’t think another team in the country can say that. We’re one of the hottest teams in the country right now. Given a good seeding and the right matchups we could do some damage in the tournament.”

 

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