PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The 2023-2024 season is turning into one to remember for Saint Joseph’s University women’s basketball team.
After a 73-47 win over Dayton on Wednesday night at Hagan Arena, the Hawks have won 10 straight games and sit at 23-2 for the campaign. That is the best 25-game start in program history.
A big reason why the Hawks are rolling is their defense. St. Joe’s holds opponents to just 53.2 points per game and 38% shooting from the field.
“What we've done a really good job of is buy into the scouting report,” said St. Joe’s head coach Cindy Griffin about her squad’s defense. “But even before that, is just having a base of good fundamentals defensively and keeping people in front and trying to push the offense to their weakness. And sometimes there isn’t a weakness. Sometimes you're playing really good teams, and you've got to be able to play team defensive basketball. And I think that's the concept that our team has bought into.”
Defense travels, as they say, and the Hawks are examples of that as they are undefeated on the road this season at 12-0.
When it comes to offense, the Hawks have four players averaging double figures with junior forward Talya Brugler leading the way at 16.8 points per game. Sophomore forward Laura Ziegler isn’t far behind, chipping in nearly 15 points a night.
When you have success like this, you get the opponent’s best every night. Something Griffin and her squad are very aware of.
“I think you earn that respect to be the team that's being targeted. And, you know, I don't want to lose sight of that either because there's a lot of work that went into that part of it.”
She says the next step of the “big growth mindset” is to bring it every night because they have a target on their back — “everybody's gonna bring their best basketball to play against Saint Joe's.”
“And so how are we gonna answer to that? Are we bringing our best? Because, you know, on paper, we're the better team sometimes, right? If you look at statistics, but, you know, hard work beats talent when talent isn't working hard. So, we keep that in mind, we keep ourselves grounded.”
The Hawks will look for an 11th-straight win and to remain undefeated on the road Sunday when they visit city rival La Salle. Tip off is 2 p.m. at Gola Arena.