RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Part of what shapes you in life is the adversity you face and how you overcome and grow from it. This season, the Manhattan women's basketball team members battled through adversity from the start of the season. They grew into a team that once again came within 40 minutes of going dancing in the NCAA Tournament.
Manhattan's season concluded in the MAAC Championship Game for the second straight year, this time being defeated by the top-seeded Gaels of Iona.
The path there was a winding road full of ups and downs with moments to grow.
Manhattan opened its season on November 7th against the Wagner Seahawks. The season started without two key pieces to the Jasper system, with
Brazil Harvey-Carr and
Petra Juric both sidelined and would remain so for various lengths. Manhattan's season opened with a grueling duel with the Seahawks that would require an extra five minutes of play to determine the winner. Wagner came away with the win
, but it was a good sign for the Jaspers to hang with them despite being shorthanded.
Two tough road non-conference tests were next on the schedule, with Stony Brook and Duquesne being next. Manhattan could not secure that first win of the 2022-2023 season but took a lot from those experiences into their next game against the Howard Bisons at home. This game also featured the return of Juric to the lineup, and she immediately made her presence felt.
Before the game,
Dee Dee Davis was honored for crossing the 1,000
-career point threshold the year prior in the MAAC Championship. That ball game came down to the final seconds, with Howard set to inbound the ball with six seconds on the clock. On the first inbounds play, Davis deflected the ball out of bounds and past the midcourt line, causing the Bison to call a timeout to advance the ball. Davis stole the inbounds pass out of the timeout to seal the win for the Green and White.
Juric made her presence felt immediately and began a span of strong play for the sophomore, registering a monster double-double with 21 points and hauling in 14 rebounds. Countrywomen
Helena Galunic recorded a career-high 14 points as well.
The Jaspers looked to carry that momentum into their Thanksgiving swing
, which had them making the trip out west to Phoenix, Arizona, to participate in the GCU Thanksgiving Classic. Manhattan would have to tackle its two games, against Lindenwood and North Dakota, with just seven available players.
The first game out there pitted the Jaspers against the Lions of Lindenwood, and Manhattan banded together and came away with a 69-53 win. This game marked another critical moment for the Jasper offense this season, the emergence of
Bella Nascimento as a scorer. Juric and Nascimento powered the offense against Lindenwood, with Nascimento smashing her previous career-high with an impressive 23 points on 10
-for
-17 from the field. Juric recorded her second consecutive 20-point double-double, following up her Howard showing with a 22-point
, 12-board performance.
Manhattan would leave the desert with a tough loss against the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, 65-59, but Juric and Nascimento continued their strong play, scoring 20-plus points, including a new career-high for Juric with 23 points and 11 rebounds. With her third straight 20-point double-double, Juric was the only player in all the land this season to record three performances like that in her first three appearances.
Manhattan would drop its next two games, including this year's installment of the Battle of the Bronx and a contest in the nation's capital at the hands of the George Washington Colonials. Manhattan would take what it learned into the conference opener, with the Jaspers welcoming the newest conference member, Mount St. Mary's, to Draddy Gym for their first-ever MAAC game.
Head coach
Heather Vulin tried something new for the first MAAC contest, a brand new set of five starters. Vulin employed a lineup of
Anne Bair, Nascimento,
Narrie Dodson,
Leyla Ozturk, and
Christina Katsamouri, and it paid off with a big conference win to open MAAC play, 64-46.
In the team's next home, the nonconference finale against the LIU Sharks, Davis turned in the first triple-double since 1994 in the team's 73-47 victory. Davis finished the game with 13 points, 13 boards, and 10 helpers.
Manhattan was out of action for a week for the holidays and returned to action with a pair of home games against the Buffalo schools, Canisius, and Niagara. The Jaspers opened the week with Canisius and battled back from a 10-point halftime deficit to take a 73-69 win behind three double-figure performances from Davis (28), Nascimento (16), and Harvey-Carr (13). Manhattan would suffer a tough loss to Niagara, 66-62
, behind 22 points from Nascimento.
Manhattan dropped the next two games to Marist and Fairfield, with the meeting with the Stags stealing the game from the Jaspers in the final seconds, priming the Jaspers for a bounce-back game.
And bounce back, they did.
The Jaspers welcomed then first-place Siena on Kids Day for an 11 a.m. matinee, and Davis put on a show. Behind 28 first-half points and a new career-high 37, Davis powered the Jaspers to a rout of the Saints, 78-53.
Manhattan traded wins and losses throughout the rest of the regular season, but some highlights include a team effort to take revenge on Fairfield at Draddy, 53-46, shot over 50-percent from deep to take down the Rider Broncs on Super Bowl Sunday, 71-56.
Manhattan took some momentum into the conference tournament, ending the season with wins over the Mount, 52-45, and Rider, 69-52.
March college basketball can only be described as special as you have reached the win-or-go-home portion of the season. Manhattan took that to heart and went into its first-round game with Saint Peter's ready to battle, and that it did. The themes that were present throughout the week for the Jaspers were toughness and emotion.
Manhattan arrived in Atlantic City with the sixth seed and drew the Saint Peter's Peacocks in the first round of the championship. Even though the Peacocks entered the tournament winless, they gave the Jaspers a good run in their regular-season meetings.
Manhattan came out the gates firing from deep, with
Brazil Harvey-Carr starting the game 4-4 from beyond the arc, forcing the Peacocks into calling a timeout with 6:14 left and Manhattan holding a 12-2 advantage. From there, the Peacocks took control of the game up until the final minutes when the Green and White came storming back.
Narrie Dodson provided 16 second-half points, including crucial buckets down the stretch. While she did not score the go-ahead bucket, Dodson made a beautiful pass to Juric who was wide open under the basket with 26 seconds left. Dodson was a catalyst to the team's survival, recording a career-high 20 points on 8-9 shooting from the field while hauling in six rebounds and recording three steals. Juric provided a double-double, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Next up for the Green and White was the team they bounced from the tournament last year, third-seeded Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac took both regular-season meetings from Manhattan. The old coach's adage that it's hard to beat a team three times in a single season rang true. The Green and White defense came to play in the second half, holding the Bobcats to a mere 17-points while Davis scored all 15 of her points in the second half, Manhattan was able to outlast Quinnipiac 50-43
In the final quarter, Quinnipiac was within one and forced the Jaspers into a shot clock violation with 58 seconds left. Even with the chance afforded to them by the defense, Manhattan responded by forcing a shot clock violation right back. Manhattan hit its free throws to put the Bobcats away and end their season.
Awaiting the Jaspers in the semifinals was the second-seeded Niagara Purple Eagles and their hurricane defensive scheme, which Manhattan got lost in during its regular
-season meetings. Niagara came into the game leading the nation in caused turnovers and steals, but Manhattan, particularly true-freshman point guard Bair, would not be fazed.
The true freshman played like a battle-tested senior, finishing with a career-high eight points, four rebounds, and seven assists, and drew eight fouls while committing none. All eight points came from the charity stripe. Bair also was the team's primary press breaker and handled that role perfectly and was unfazed by the consistent pressure that comes with the Hurricane Defense. Juric turned in 18 points and eight boards.
With their downing of the Purple Eagles, Manhattan would again find themselves under the bright lights of the championship game, this time against top-seeded Iona. Unfortunately for the Jaspers, this would be where their season would end for the second straight time, being defeated by the Gaels.
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