A Dream Deferred

A dream deferred is a tale the Southern University’s women’s basketball program should be familiar with. It perfectly describes the obstacles the Lady Jags had to endure all season to finally prove to the world that they deserved to play the Sacred Heart University Lady Pioneers for the 16th seed of the NCAA tournament. Even though they failed to continue in the tournament, this game not only showed the world who the Lady Jags were but that SWAC schools were able to keep up with the level of play Big 10, SEC, and the other PWI conferences exhibit.
The game started with the Lady Jags stunning the Lady Pioneers with the way they commanded the court. #44 Sr. Forward Raven White was able to take charge of the paint and consistently put in goals to bring the Jags to a 10-point lead. White’s dominance, mixed with the fast-paced offense Head Coach Funchess undoubtedly stressed during practice, was able to put the Lady Jags in contingency to move on to the next bracket. However, not all underdog stories go according to plan. The biggest factor in the Jags’ quest for success was a 5 ‘3 freshman, who once found her confidence, was unstoppable the rest of the night. First-Year guard Ny Ceara Pryor got her first layup; it was seemingly over for the Lady Jags. The score at halftime stood at 33-20 with the Lady Jags down. Not to mention simple mistakes throughout the entire game are the reason why the Lady Pioneers consistently outscored and put up almost a 20-point lead in the middle of the 3rd quarter.
To start it off, the Lady Jaguars were consistently out of position. Due to the Lady Pioneers having an advantage in size and speed, they were able to see this disconnect and force turnover after turnover. Each turnover for the Lady Jags resulted in a field goal for the Lady Pioneers. In addition, the guards were not taking care of the ball enough to set up plays for their bigs like White. They did not utilize her enough in the later quarters of the game, only setting up plays for their guards to take charge of the shooting attempts. Only for this to be combated by Pryor and senior Guard Olivia Tucker, both offensively and defensively. Then in the 4th quarter, the momentum of the Lady Jaguars started up again mainly due to #25 Sr. Guard Genovea Johnson but it was just too late of a surge. By then, the Lady Jags only had less than 2 min on the clock to close the now 13 pt and closing lead. If this newfound drive would start coming out of halftime, then probably would have all been changing our makeshift brackets for the tournament. All in all, the game came to an end, with the Sacred Heart Lady Pioneers obtaining the 16th seed with the final score of 57-47.
Carlos Funchess shared his thoughts on the game, “We took some quick shots. Some of them were questionable shots. Some of them we could have made, but we didn’t. Once they got the ball, it was like a snowball going downhill.” Furthermore, senior guard Genovea Johnson offered her words, “We got out of character late in the first quarter. They forced a lot of turnovers as a team. We didn’t move the ball as well as we usually do.”
This NCAA appearance marks the 6th in program history and 2nd under Funchess since 2019. With hopes to make a noise in the 2023-2024 season by returning to the SWAC as the reigning champions, the Lady Jaguars will undoubtedly be in a rebuilding year with 7 of their players currently in their senior year. With the season’s chapter now on its last sentence, this will not be the last time we see or hear from the Lady Jags; Simply, just a dream deferred.