This year is the first year for Mount St. Mary’s sports in the Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), and that includes the women’s basketball team. After a solid 16-13 season last year (11-7 in NEC conference play) that included a Northeast Conference Tournament championship, and a birth into the March Madness Basketball Tournament.
With all that in mind, a new challenge awaits as the MAAC presents both new teams and old rivals for this season. The team also faces a new look with just a few returners and many first-year students and transfers. Here is what to expect from this season.
The MAAC pre-season poll has the Mount predicted to finish in 8th place in league play. They received just 43 votes to finish in first place, whereas the top predicted team; Quinnipiac received 117 votes to finish number one.
The cause of Mount St. Mary’s being predicted so low was also the big team turnover, as well as being the new kids on the block. No one in this conference yet knows what MSMU can do on the court.
Their season started on Nov. 7, on the ACC Network against pre-season ranked number 13 Virginia Tech. It did not get much easier as they then played Richmond, and then pre-season ranked number 10 NC State.
Finally, they played their first home game against Navy on Nov. 19, before they headed back on the road and played Cornell which was broadcast on ESPN + on Nov. 21.
On Dec. 3, the Catholic Clash took place at home against Loyola. Although MSMU lost last year by a single point, they do hold the overall record of 14-13 in their favor. They had also won the past three meetings before that. They continued their home stand through the following week as they played Pitt-Johnstown, then UMBC.
They opened up conference play against Manhattan on the road, and then came home to play Sienna in New York. They, then, played their last non-conference opponent East Tennessee State in North Carolina. On Dec. 29, the Women’s team comes home to play Fairfield and then finishes the year off against Quinnipiac in Connecticut.
To start off the new year, they played Rider at home on Jan. 7. After that, they went to New Rochelle, N.Y. to play Iona, before a two-game home stand against Canisius and Marist. Then, they went on to play on the road against St. Peters In Jersey City, and then Fairfield, Conn. again.
The Mountaineers played Niagara at home on Jan. 28, before going back through the conference for the second time around (Fairfield excluded). They were in New York for their next two games as they played Marist and Siena before coming home to play three in a row, against the likes of St. Peters, Quinnipiac and Iona.
Subsequently, they went on to play Rider, N.J. before coming back to Emmitsburg for their last home game, where they played Manhattan. The Mountaineers went back north to New York to play their final two regular season game against Canisius and Niagara. After all the fun of the regular season, MAAC women’s basketball tournament action started March 7, and will go through March 11.