Tony Bozzella, the Encore
Dec 29 2015
by Zack Cziryak
Trove sports correspondent
The Seton Hall women’s basketball team capped another successful non-conference season with a 10-point road win against Providence on Tuesday. The victory over the Friars comes on the heels of a 10-1 finish to the non-conference schedule and sets the tone for a Pirate team that will play five of its first seven conference games on the road.
“I actually like it to be honest,” Bozzella said of the road-heavy start to Big East play. “It’s going to be hard, but during winter break you wouldn’t get much of a crowd here… we come back and our break is over. I think it’s good and at the end of January and February without a doubt we’re going to benefit from this.”
The Pirates’ start to conference play echoes a non-conference schedule that promoted games away from Walsh Gymnasium’s friendly confines.
Included in Seton Hall’s 10-1 non-conference record were a stretch of five straight games away from South Orange, which included wins over North Carolina State and Northern Iowa en route to the Rivera Division title at the Cancun Challenge, as well as an 18 point defeat at Georgia, a team that continued a nation-best 53 game home non-conference winning streak with the victory.
Despite the loss in Athens, Bozzella was very happy with the slew of tough road games that took the Pirates away from home for a couple of weeks.
Tony Bozzella at Walsh Gymnasium
“I think it taught us to be tougher. We needed to play some of the teams we did, like an NC State, because it’s hard to get a game with them.
We owed Georgia a game on their court and fans might not know they have the longest non-conference winning streak in the country. They just played better than us that day.”
The trips outside of New Jersey also served as bonding time for a team that is bringing together several players onto the court in game action for the first time while also working around season-ending injuries to prominent role players Kat Egan and Tara Inman.
While the Pirates more than held serve on the road to start the season, the team’s hot non-conference start also included home victories over in-state rivals Rutgers, a perennial regional power that ended the Pirates’ season the last two years, and Princeton, which snapped a 30-game non-conference win streak for the Tigers.
Bozzella gives credit for those wins to both his team's play as well as to the fans that filled the stands.
“These are people that show up. It’s a quaint building; it’s loud. We clearly would not have beaten Rutgers and Princeton without our crowd. Our fans changed the course of those games. We played Fordham on a Wednesday and still had over 1,000 people. It’s been very exciting to play at home and start this new tradition.”
Any wins over local teams are huge for a Seton Hall program battling for supremacy in the New York metropolitan area, and the coaches hear about it when the team notches those wins.
“We get a lot of feedback. When I took over this job we played St. John’s at Seton Hall and there were more St. John’s fans in attendance than Pirate fans that first year. We have to be successful and beat the local teams,” Bozzella said, noting the team defeated St. John’s twice a season ago, including a game in the Big East Tournament.
“Those contests as well as this years games against Rutgers and Princeton are all very important wins. It was great the way we beat Rutgers and Princeton - both exciting games; one in dominating fashion (Rutgers) and one in a competitive game (Princeton), on national TV.”
The Pirates’ successful start has seen major contributions from a brand new starting backcourt in fifth-year seniors and transfers Aleesha Powell and Shakena Richardson.
Replacing a first team all-Big East backcourt from a year ago in Ka-Deidre Simmons and Daisha Simmons seemed a tall order, however both Powell and Richardson have filled that void admirably, ranking second and third on the team in scoring average while combining for 96 assists in 12 games.
The magnitude of play from Powell, who competed for two seasons under Bozzella at Iona before sitting out last year as a transfer has been a pleasant and welcome surprise.
“Honestly, no,” Bozzella said when asked if he thought Powell’s play would reach this level. “I knew that she would compete on this level as she never takes a play off, but we're getting even more from her than I expected. She got a lot better playing against DiDi and Daisha last year in practice. She takes criticism and coaching very well. She was accepted into an Ivy League school so she’s extremely bright. I knew she would do everything she could do to be as good a player as possible and she has.”
Richardson meanwhile has taken over primary ballhandling responsibilities for the team and has assisted baskets to the tune of 5.75 per game over the first 12 games of the season. A graduate senior from Florida State that began her career at Rutgers, the Neptune, N.J. native has added a level of passing to Bozzella’s team that he hasn’t seen before in his coaching career.
“You’re probably never going to get the tandem of DiDi and Daisha again, but you’re going to get some players that can be just as good. Shakena is clearly the best passer I’ve coached in 23 years. And she’s worked very hard on her game. She’s shooting the ball much better and understanding where people are. She’s a great student of the game as well as a great teammate.”
Bozzella noted that Richardson has also formed strong chemistry with Tabatha Richardson-Smith, the team’s top player and scorer.
Smith and Richardson-Smith sharing congratulations
Named to the Early Season Watch List for the Women’s Naismith Trophy earlier this month, Richardson-Smith has held the mantle of Seton Hall’s top scorer at just under 16 points per game, despite a slow (for her) start to the season as she adjusts to being the primary focus of opposing teams’ scouting reports.
“She’ll be the first person to tell you her numbers aren’t where they need to be. She really wants to win and I think it’s extremely important to Tab that we’ve won. She’s carried us in the second half of the Northern Iowa game and the first half against St. Joe’s. She attracts so much attention and opens the lanes for Aleesha and Kena and Tiffany (Jones). She is going to rebound the ball better and score the ball better. I’m excited because we’re 10 -1 and she’s nowhere near the level of where she can play.”
The burden of being a team’s top player is one Bozzella warns fans not to underestimate, and he maintains confidence that Richardson-Smith is poised for a breakout conference slate after acclimating to her new role.
“People don’t understand it’s tough to be the top banana. I equate it to being the assistant coach and then becoming the head coach. It’s a big deal. It’s been an adjustment, no doubt about it, but she’s taken it with an eagerness to learn.”
While perimeter oriented teams have become customary for the Hall in Bozzella’s tenure, perhaps the player he has been most impressed with from an improvement standpoint has been center Lubirdia Gordon, now in her second full-season on the court for the Hall after transferring from West Virginia and averaging close to 5 points and 7 boards per game.
“Lubirdia Gordon has come into her own. She’s developed really well under my staff. She’s passionate and in much better shape now having trimmed 20 pounds from her frame. Her numbers don’t do any justice to how important she is. We would not be 10-1 without Lubirdia. She’s the anchor back there.”
Gordon has gotten a lot of help from Tiffany Jones, a senior leading the team with 7.7 rebounds per game while shooting better than 43% from beyond the arc (23-53).
Bozzella’s team has also received contributions from guard Jordan Mosley as well as redshirt freshman Jordan Molyneaux, in addition to true freshman LaTecia Smith and Taylor Byrne to start the season. Minutes that will prove as invaluable experience with the start of Big East play looming.
While Bozzella lists DePaul, St. John’s, Villanova and a full-strength Creighton most likely to be the Hall’s toughest conference opponents, he added that he anticipates the conference will be much tougher top to bottom than in years past.
“It’s going to be very difficult for two teams to go 15-3 like DePaul and we did last year.”
While the team may not have the same in league record that last year produced, Bozzella and fans can point to the last few years of Seton Hall basketball as proof that the Pirates have built a strong program while playing a tough brand of basketball.
“We’re 38-7 in our past 45 games,” Bozzella said. “That says a lot about the players and our program. Our RPI is now thirteenth in the country and at one point was as high as number two. We’re playing a very good schedule. We’ve had success, but we’re still building. The future is very bright at Seton Hall but we know we still have a lot of work to do. We'll take no shortcuts but know that we will get the job done and you will all be proud of our young ladies."
Dec 29 2015
by Zack Cziryak
Trove sports correspondent
The Seton Hall women’s basketball team capped another successful non-conference season with a 10-point road win against Providence on Tuesday. The victory over the Friars comes on the heels of a 10-1 finish to the non-conference schedule and sets the tone for a Pirate team that will play five of its first seven conference games on the road.
“I actually like it to be honest,” Bozzella said of the road-heavy start to Big East play. “It’s going to be hard, but during winter break you wouldn’t get much of a crowd here… we come back and our break is over. I think it’s good and at the end of January and February without a doubt we’re going to benefit from this.”
The Pirates’ start to conference play echoes a non-conference schedule that promoted games away from Walsh Gymnasium’s friendly confines.
Included in Seton Hall’s 10-1 non-conference record were a stretch of five straight games away from South Orange, which included wins over North Carolina State and Northern Iowa en route to the Rivera Division title at the Cancun Challenge, as well as an 18 point defeat at Georgia, a team that continued a nation-best 53 game home non-conference winning streak with the victory.
Despite the loss in Athens, Bozzella was very happy with the slew of tough road games that took the Pirates away from home for a couple of weeks.
Tony Bozzella at Walsh Gymnasium
“I think it taught us to be tougher. We needed to play some of the teams we did, like an NC State, because it’s hard to get a game with them.
We owed Georgia a game on their court and fans might not know they have the longest non-conference winning streak in the country. They just played better than us that day.”
The trips outside of New Jersey also served as bonding time for a team that is bringing together several players onto the court in game action for the first time while also working around season-ending injuries to prominent role players Kat Egan and Tara Inman.
While the Pirates more than held serve on the road to start the season, the team’s hot non-conference start also included home victories over in-state rivals Rutgers, a perennial regional power that ended the Pirates’ season the last two years, and Princeton, which snapped a 30-game non-conference win streak for the Tigers.
Bozzella gives credit for those wins to both his team's play as well as to the fans that filled the stands.
“These are people that show up. It’s a quaint building; it’s loud. We clearly would not have beaten Rutgers and Princeton without our crowd. Our fans changed the course of those games. We played Fordham on a Wednesday and still had over 1,000 people. It’s been very exciting to play at home and start this new tradition.”
Any wins over local teams are huge for a Seton Hall program battling for supremacy in the New York metropolitan area, and the coaches hear about it when the team notches those wins.
“We get a lot of feedback. When I took over this job we played St. John’s at Seton Hall and there were more St. John’s fans in attendance than Pirate fans that first year. We have to be successful and beat the local teams,” Bozzella said, noting the team defeated St. John’s twice a season ago, including a game in the Big East Tournament.
“Those contests as well as this years games against Rutgers and Princeton are all very important wins. It was great the way we beat Rutgers and Princeton - both exciting games; one in dominating fashion (Rutgers) and one in a competitive game (Princeton), on national TV.”
The Pirates’ successful start has seen major contributions from a brand new starting backcourt in fifth-year seniors and transfers Aleesha Powell and Shakena Richardson.
Replacing a first team all-Big East backcourt from a year ago in Ka-Deidre Simmons and Daisha Simmons seemed a tall order, however both Powell and Richardson have filled that void admirably, ranking second and third on the team in scoring average while combining for 96 assists in 12 games.
The magnitude of play from Powell, who competed for two seasons under Bozzella at Iona before sitting out last year as a transfer has been a pleasant and welcome surprise.
“Honestly, no,” Bozzella said when asked if he thought Powell’s play would reach this level. “I knew that she would compete on this level as she never takes a play off, but we're getting even more from her than I expected. She got a lot better playing against DiDi and Daisha last year in practice. She takes criticism and coaching very well. She was accepted into an Ivy League school so she’s extremely bright. I knew she would do everything she could do to be as good a player as possible and she has.”
Richardson meanwhile has taken over primary ballhandling responsibilities for the team and has assisted baskets to the tune of 5.75 per game over the first 12 games of the season. A graduate senior from Florida State that began her career at Rutgers, the Neptune, N.J. native has added a level of passing to Bozzella’s team that he hasn’t seen before in his coaching career.
“You’re probably never going to get the tandem of DiDi and Daisha again, but you’re going to get some players that can be just as good. Shakena is clearly the best passer I’ve coached in 23 years. And she’s worked very hard on her game. She’s shooting the ball much better and understanding where people are. She’s a great student of the game as well as a great teammate.”
Bozzella noted that Richardson has also formed strong chemistry with Tabatha Richardson-Smith, the team’s top player and scorer.
Smith and Richardson-Smith sharing congratulations
Named to the Early Season Watch List for the Women’s Naismith Trophy earlier this month, Richardson-Smith has held the mantle of Seton Hall’s top scorer at just under 16 points per game, despite a slow (for her) start to the season as she adjusts to being the primary focus of opposing teams’ scouting reports.
“She’ll be the first person to tell you her numbers aren’t where they need to be. She really wants to win and I think it’s extremely important to Tab that we’ve won. She’s carried us in the second half of the Northern Iowa game and the first half against St. Joe’s. She attracts so much attention and opens the lanes for Aleesha and Kena and Tiffany (Jones). She is going to rebound the ball better and score the ball better. I’m excited because we’re 10 -1 and she’s nowhere near the level of where she can play.”
The burden of being a team’s top player is one Bozzella warns fans not to underestimate, and he maintains confidence that Richardson-Smith is poised for a breakout conference slate after acclimating to her new role.
“People don’t understand it’s tough to be the top banana. I equate it to being the assistant coach and then becoming the head coach. It’s a big deal. It’s been an adjustment, no doubt about it, but she’s taken it with an eagerness to learn.”
While perimeter oriented teams have become customary for the Hall in Bozzella’s tenure, perhaps the player he has been most impressed with from an improvement standpoint has been center Lubirdia Gordon, now in her second full-season on the court for the Hall after transferring from West Virginia and averaging close to 5 points and 7 boards per game.
“Lubirdia Gordon has come into her own. She’s developed really well under my staff. She’s passionate and in much better shape now having trimmed 20 pounds from her frame. Her numbers don’t do any justice to how important she is. We would not be 10-1 without Lubirdia. She’s the anchor back there.”
Gordon has gotten a lot of help from Tiffany Jones, a senior leading the team with 7.7 rebounds per game while shooting better than 43% from beyond the arc (23-53).
Bozzella’s team has also received contributions from guard Jordan Mosley as well as redshirt freshman Jordan Molyneaux, in addition to true freshman LaTecia Smith and Taylor Byrne to start the season. Minutes that will prove as invaluable experience with the start of Big East play looming.
While Bozzella lists DePaul, St. John’s, Villanova and a full-strength Creighton most likely to be the Hall’s toughest conference opponents, he added that he anticipates the conference will be much tougher top to bottom than in years past.
“It’s going to be very difficult for two teams to go 15-3 like DePaul and we did last year.”
While the team may not have the same in league record that last year produced, Bozzella and fans can point to the last few years of Seton Hall basketball as proof that the Pirates have built a strong program while playing a tough brand of basketball.
“We’re 38-7 in our past 45 games,” Bozzella said. “That says a lot about the players and our program. Our RPI is now thirteenth in the country and at one point was as high as number two. We’re playing a very good schedule. We’ve had success, but we’re still building. The future is very bright at Seton Hall but we know we still have a lot of work to do. We'll take no shortcuts but know that we will get the job done and you will all be proud of our young ladies."
