Nice article in the Boston Globe on which Mass. teams have a shot at going dancing. They talk about Coach B and her team...
Northeastern women’s basketball got hot at the right time — entering the CAA tourney
By Ethan Fuller Globe Correspondent
Coach Bridgette Mitchell got her Northeastern team to tune out distractions and stick to the game plans. NORTHEASTERN ATHLETICS.
As the Northeastern women’s basketball team struggled to stack wins together early in the season, coach Bridgette Mitchell cautioned her team to not let water in their ship — the water being outside noise from social media and other distractions.
Right now, it’s smooth sailing for the Huskies. They enter the Colonial Athletic Association tournament on an eight-game winning streak that propelled them to regular season co-champions, hunting their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1999.
“We don’t want water in our ship, right?” Mitchell said. “Water makes your ship sink. And so those distractions, we have to limit those and really focus in on each other. I think that we’ve been able to do that as of late as a team, but it took us some time, and so I’m really proud of us getting back to that as a program.”
Northeastern (18-11, 13-5) earned the third seed for the CAA tournament and will face either Stony Brook or Elon in the quarterfinals Friday. Arizona transfer guard Derin Erdogan leads the way with 14.7 points per game. Sophomore Gemima Motema (12.8) is the only other player averaging double figures, indicating the balanced scoring in the rotation.
“You think, as an opponent, you take away one of our tools — we’ve got another one coming out of the tool bag, right?” Mitchell said. “So that’s exciting to be able to do.”
Mitchell hasn’t needed to make any schematic overhauls to improve the team; she credits her squad for sticking out the process. The second-year head coach has the Huskies on a promising trajectory after a 14-18 first season.
“It feels amazing,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got three more games, one at a time. Take each one for what it is, and each possession, possession-by-possession.”