After a season filled with injuries, the Binghamton University women's basketball team is as healthy as it has been since January.
After a month of struggles and losses, the Bearcats have won three in a row and are playing their best basketball in a long time.
That's the good news for the Bearcats heading into this weekend's America East Conference Tournament at the University of Hartford.
Now, here's what the team's up against.
The fourth-seeded Bearcats open the tournament at 8:30 p.m. today with a quarterfinal game against fifth-seeded University of Maryland Baltimore County - a team they split with in the regular season and lost to by 26 last month.
Should BU win tonight, the Bearcats will face a likely semifinal matchup with No. 1 seed Hartford (23-3).
Then there's this: The Bearcats have never won a game in the America East Conference tournament.
"That's just something that needs to be done for the Binghamton basketball program," senior forward Rachel Laws said. "I think it's important we take the next step of really legitimizing ourselves. I think it's time for Binghamton to win one of these conference tournament games."
The Bearcats lost five of six games in February but closed the season with three consecutive victories - a home victory over UMBC and road victories at Albany and Vermont. The road victories were especially nice for BU, which lost five consecutive road games at one point this season.
Laws and Jen Haubrich, two of BU's three senior starters, have fully recovered from the sprained ankles that hampered them throughout the conference season. Laws, who missed five games, scored 21 points in BU's season-ending victory over Vermont.
"I think being healthy helps your confidence, and Rachel is a great case in point," "She came back for a few games, but wasn't 100 percent OK. She did OK, but you didn't see that bounce in her step, that aggressiveness. Now, she feels healthy and she's back to being the old Rachel. She's not thinking about her ankle, and that has elevated her play."
The late-season winning streak has given the Bearcats a much-needed shot of confidence heading into the postseason. The fact that the program hasn't won a tournament game in its previous four trips gives the team some extra motivation.
"That's not nice that everyone keeps talking that we have not won the first game," said sophomore forward Laine Kurpniece, who is the team's leading scorer (12.8 points per game) and rebounder (6.8 rebounds per game). "We need to prove that we can do it."
Advancing beyond the first round won't be easy. The Bearcats and UMBC (15-12) match up well with each other.
UMBC's 3-2 zone defense gave BU trouble both times the teams played this season on Feb. 1, the Bearcats shot a season-worst 29.2 percent in a 63-37 loss.
"They guard the outside shooters a lot," said senior guard Jen Blues. "It's a different look, but a couple other teams have played 3-2 against us."
On offense, the Retrievers run a Princeton-style offense that relies on back-door cuts and intricate sets.
"It's unorthodox for our league," Conover said. "Their offense is something that's hard to prepare for, even if you have three weeks to prepare for it."
But the Bearcats played well against UMBC at home two weeks ago, forcing 18 turnovers in the home victory.
Looming in the back of the players' minds is a potential semifinal matchup with a top-seeded Hartford team that went 15-1 in league play and is the prohibitive favorite to win the conference.
In January, the Bearcats lost to Hartford by one point at home - a game Laws missed.
But to get to the semifinals, the Bearcats have to win that first game tonight.
"We need to go and take care of business," Conover said. "I think it would be a mistake to look beyond what we have to do with UMBC." | 