The Geneseo women's basketball team is looking at the upcoming season optimistically. The bar is set high since the women had a spectacular season last year and made it to the NCAA Sweet 16. The Knights have come out this season firing on all cylinders, including a close scrimmage loss to Division II Le Moyne College.
Even though this was only a scrimmage, the Knights showed signs of life against a team that is a whole division above them. Their ability to shoot the ball from long-range—as well as the inside presence of senior forward Allison McKenna and the passing ability of senior guard Dana Cohan—will prove to be the deciding factor in the Knights’ success this year.
The Knights look to use their advantage from the outside to defeat teams within their conference. Geneseo was second in the conference a season ago with an average of 66 points per game—when you score 66 points on average, you are not going to lose many games. Geneseo was also second in three-point percentage—shooting about 32 percent per game—and was fifth in three-pointers made per game with an average of 5.5 a contest. To be able to shoot the ball as well as they did last season is the key to the Knights’ success—they will look to use the three-point shot as the main form of attack.
After losing center Katie Peterson ‘15, guard Biz Reinhardt ‘15 and forward Shannon McGinnis ‘15, the Knights will need to step it up when the rebounding the ball. Geneseo was a team that led the conference in defensive rebounds, grabbing 813 over the course of the season, which comes out to 30.1 per game. Rebounding will be the difference maker—McKenna was the team’s second leading rebounder a season ago and Geneseo will look to her to clean up the glass.
This team had success and relied on their defense to take them places last season. With the leading scoring defense in the conference, the Knights only allowed 1,449 points over the course of their season and only 54 points per game. To hold teams to 54 points in a 40-minute game is impressive in and of itself and Geneseo has shown that their defense can win championships.
Head coach Scott Hemer and his team will look to repeat as SUNYAC Champions and bring home the sixth title in program history—which would also be Hemer’s third championship since taking the job eight seasons ago.
The Knights will start the regular season at the Jim Crawley Tournament in Frostburg, Maryland from Nov. 20–21.