After graduating six seniors, the Quinnipiac women’s basketball team continues the success from previous seasons.
The Quinnipiac women’s basketball team saw significant success in the 2014-15 season. But even with an undefeated record in the MAAC, their very first conference championship title and a second NCAA Tournament appearance, the team was still graduating six seniors, including all five of their starters.
Despite losing almost 70 percent of their scoring production from last season, this year’s version of the Bobcats continued a winning tradition in the MAAC.
This season, the Bobcats earned a second consecutive regular season conference championship as well as a 19-game winning streak before falling to Iona in the conference final.
Head coach Tricia Fabbri’s squad has continued the culture of winning in Hamden.
“This program has declared themselves as a mid-major in women’s basketball and not just a one year team,” Fabbri said. “Our banners in the rafters show that we really are a mid-major power.”
The roster, full of either new faces or faces that saw little playing time last in the past, continue to bring the program success and a winning attitude. Fabbri hasn’t seen this winning tradition since the 2014-15 graduating class stepped onto the Quinnipiac campus.
“We would do our job recruiting but then (the upperclassmen) would show without words how winning is done,” Fabbri said.
Now, the old faces of Gillian Abshire, Jasmine Martin, and Samantha Guastella that shined at TD Bank Sports Center have turned into the faces of Carly Fabbri, Maria Napolitano, and Aryn McClure.
The 2015-16 team thanks the success of the past for the recent winning.
Due to the large margin of victory in games in the 2014-15 season, a lot of players played significant time.
Fabbri’s coaching style of the “Gold Rush,” in which she substitutes five players at a time, gave a chance to most of the roster to make an impact on the game.
“With our Gold Rush, we all made each other a lot better, we really pushed the starters to be better,” senior guard Napolitano said. “They were obviously the best starting five in the conference, so they helped us improve and mature throughout the season.”
The winning culture has rubbed off onto the underclassmen, as well. For Carly, a sophomore guard, the winning attitude started before Quinnipiac.
Two years ago, the Bobcats made it all the way to the MAAC Championship in their inaugural season to fall to conference power Marist.
“Even after losing that championship game, we knew that winning a conference championship was attainable. After last year, we have making the NCAA Tournament as a constant goal, but we also believe we can win a game in the tournament and make a run,” Carly said, prior to the team’s eventual loss in the MAAC final.
Coach Fabbri knew that her team had talent coming into this season, but she also knew that there was going to be a huge transition for a lot of the roster.
“We knew that we had a roster full of talent and that we had to show them their roles on the team. It just took some time,” Fabbri said. “We just have to figure it out as it comes along, and we have been doing that.”
For Fabbri and the rest of the staff, they knew they were going to have to change the coaching and playing style of the team. The young team needed to set up more plays and run them through rather than run a simple motion offense, where players have the opportunity to make their own decisions in ball movement.
“We got away from what we have done in the past and worked on what we had to do in the present,” Fabbri said.
The season started off rocky for the Bobcats. The reigning MAAC champions started off 5-7, losing their first three conference games. Both the players and coaches worried that the winning culture had left with the latest graduating class.
“Going through that bad stretch we just thought we didn’t know how to win a close game,” Napolitano said. “It has gotten us a lot more comfortable in the games under pressure.”
It took just a little more experience in those tight games for the Bobcats to find a way to win those close games. A huge reason for the success is the winning culture and “Can Do” attitude that the Bobcats preach.
“That culture of winning paid off huge dividends this year making winning routine when it was inconsistent in the beginning of the year,” Fabbri said. “We knew what our expectations were for everyone in that locker room.”
(Statistics and some information have been updated since the initial publication)
