With ‘a snowball of momentum,’ Monmouth women are primed for postseason
After last season’s run through the CAA tournament, the streaking Hawks are the No. 2 seed this time around.
WEST LONG BRANCH – When Monmouth steamrolled its way through the CAA women’s basketball tournament this time last year, it was one of the more stunning results of the month of March.
The Hawks – newcomers to the league and picked T-10th in the preseason coaches’ poll – received the No. 7 seed and arrived at host school Towson with a 14-15 overall record. After a 15-point win over 10th-seeded Charleston, they toppled each of the top three seeds, culminating with a 80-55 romp over No. 1 Towson for the title and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
That laid the foundation for coach Ginny Boggess, star player Ariana Vanderhoop and company to build on in 2023-24. Monmouth, which won its final seven regular-season games to earn the No. 2 CAA seed, won’t sneak up on anyone this time.
Taking a seven-game winning streak into March implies a team is playing its best basketball at the right time. But as Boggess will point out, there’s a difference between being pleased and being satisfied.
“Have you met many head coaches? We’re never happy, right?” Boggess told me Saturday. “We’re never satisfied, so you can quote me on that. I’m really thrilled with the outcomes that we’ve been getting. I do think there is still a tremendous amount of room for growth, but I think that’s an exciting thing. … We certainly had not yet peaked last year when we left for the tournament, and I think there’s better basketball in us.”
We spoke after the Hawks had beaten UNC Wilmington 65-53 on their Senior Day, when holding the visitors to 36.2 percent shooting and winning the rebound battle by 18 was enough to overcome 24 turnovers.
Defense and rebounding are central to Monmouth’s success – the Hawks rank top-30 in Division I in field goal percentage allowed (36.9%) and top-20 in rebound margin (8.1), per the NCAA. But so is their depth. No player, not even Vanderhoop, plays more than 28 minutes per game, but 10 women average at least 10.5. That’s partly a function of who the Hawks have on the roster and partly Boggess’ preferred methods.
“If I ran every single play for Ari Vanderhoop, we’d be really easy to guard,” she said.
Boggess arrived at Monmouth in 2021 after two seasons as an assistant at Penn State. She inherited a team that went 2-16 in the COVID-19-impacted season of 2020-21. In just two seasons, the program was able to reach its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1982-83.
Vanderhoop was a freshman on that 2-16 team, but the guard from Boston stuck with it and was a key building block for the rebuild. She has averaged 8.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists throughout her Monmouth career, scoring 10.6 per game this season.
“(Senior Day) meant a lot to me for sure, because I’ve been here since the beginning,” Vanderhoop said. “We won two games in the first season. So just building every year, it means a lot, for sure.”
As important to Boggess as Vanderhoop’s playmaking ability is her passion and leadership by example.
“She’s in the gym, she’s watching games on her phone, she’s on FloSports scouting the other teams,” Boggess said. “She knows everything that’s going on in the league, she knows every player in the league. There is a contagiousness to it. These young kids look up to her. She’s an incredible player, an incredible talent and we want her to be confident and aggressive going down there (to Washington).”
When Boggess moved east from Penn State, Kaci Donovan came with her. The shooting guard blossomed into Monmouth’s top scorer this season, averaging 12.2 ppg on 34.4% 3-point shooting, but her status for the CAA tournament and beyond is up in the air as she works through a back injury suffered March 3.
“She’s day by day right now, so we’ll see,” Boggess said. “Obviously her health and safety are the most important thing, and when she’s ready she’ll let us know and we’ll go from there.”
This is where that depth comes in handy. Jania Hall, on her Senior Day, made her first start in two seasons; she is Monmouth’s third-leading scorer but fills the role of the backup point guard. Jaye Haynes, Sandrine Clesca and sharpshooting freshman Rosalie Mercille (who made three 3-pointers against UNCW) are all candidates for more work.
The Monmouth frontcourt belongs to two more seniors: “Big” Belle Kranbuhl, who averages 7.6 rebounds and a league-high 2.6 blocks per game, and Pitt transfer Taisha Exanor, who collected a career-high 18 rebounds with a team-high 12 points, three steals and two blocks against UNCW.
Exanor said she’s had an up-and-down season, but the team’s togetherness has been a throughline.
“I feel like us staying together and playing for each other and having all the energy that we’ve been providing for each other, that’s been the main thing,” Exanor said. “Even when we’re down, we’re our biggest fans.”
Boggess said there wasn’t one key moment or pivot point that got this year’s team to this point.
“I think they each independently had a day where the lightbulb came on, or they really pushed through that wall and got to the other side and then they were like, ‘OK, I can do this, or OK, I get it,’” the coach said. “Collectively, it was almost like a snowball of momentum.”
There are few comparisons one can draw to last year’s run. The key players who joined Vanderhoop in leading the charge in 2023, Bri Tinsley and Lucy Thomas, have graduated. And while last year the Hawks were the seventh seed, they only need to win three games in three days as the No. 2 seed – but teams will be gunning for them.
What doesn’t change for Boggess and her program is their preparation and game-by-game mindset.
“Our assistant coaches and staff do an amazing job of making sure our team’s prepared,” Boggess said. “I think that was big, our execution down the stretch those last four games last year, a big credit to our coaching staff for making sure everybody’s ready. But we’ll be as ready as we can possibly be again, and then we’ve got to go put the ball in the hole.”
That first game Friday afternoon will come against the winner between No. 7 seed Drexel and No. 10 Delaware. Then, the Hawks could face No. 3 Charleston, whom they swept in the regular season.
“I think we’re confident but we’re taking it game by game, because anyone can win this conference,” Vanderhoop said.
This Monmouth program knows that better than anyone.
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Thanks for stopping by! I never made any kind of official announcement about this, but all editions of Guarden State, Tuesdays included, will be free to read for the remainder of this season. I’ll be back here Friday morning following the Seton Hall and Rider-Saint Peter’s conference tournament games.
Let’s quickly clean the glass, sticking with women’s hoops to start:
Teneisia Brown went off for the FDU women’s team Monday night. The center, one of the best players in the Northeast Conference, shot 13-of-20 for a career-high 30 points and added 10 rebounds in third-seeded FDU’s 71-59 win over Long Island in the NEC quarterfinals. FDU is two wins away from going dancing; if the Knights win at No. 2 Le Moyne on Thursday, they’ll play for the title Sunday against either Sacred Heart or Merrimack.
Postseason award news: Saint Peter’s Latrell Reid won MAAC Defensive Player of the Year, but Quinnipiac’s Matt Balanc edged out Rider’s Mervin James for MAAC Player of the Year. (James and the Peacocks’ Corey Washington were both first-team All-MAAC selections.) Seton Hall watchers were shocked that Dre Davis wasn’t named the Big East’s Most Improved Player – Xavier’s Desmond Claude took the award – but Kadary Richmond was named first-team All-Big East, which should have been unanimous but apparently wasn’t.
Over in the Ivy League, Princeton swept Player of the Week honors (Caden Pierce, Kaitlyn Chen). Last year, the league announced its postseason awards the Tuesday after the conclusion of the regular season, so you might be seeing those come out shortly after this newsletter publishes. I’d bet on Xaivian Lee to win Player of the Year on the men’s side (and Pierce to be a first-team All-Ivy pick), but Columbia’s Abbey Hsu to beat out Chen on the women’s side.