This season has been full of highs and lows.
Through our first 13 games we were 11-2, and playing strong basketball. In fact, we actually matched the best 13-game start in school history.
Naturally, we were feeling good about ourselves, and were riding a wave of momentum heading into 2018.
Cue a frustrating five-game stretch where we went 1-4.
More than anything, I think we were shocked. Yes, of course we were angry and disappointed, but the word “shocked” really encapsulates the raw emotion in the locker room after each loss.
We knew we weren’t playing like ourselves. We knew we had made mistakes. But we could usually bounce back in time to change the course of the game while there was still time on the clock. Something had to give.
We’ve gone 4-3 in the seven games since that midseason skid, and we’ve worked hard for every win. We’re 16-9 on the year and we have four games left until our conference tournament.
This is the kind of season that doesn’t get a feature on SportsCenter. The hot and cold, the up and down, unpredictable team isn’t the one who gets all the buzz.
But I still believe we can end up on top.
When you play a game for over a decade (and you aren’t Maya Moore), you experience a fair share of losses. But what keeps you coming back is the idea that on any given night, anything can happen. No win is the same. No loss is the same. No outcome is guaranteed.
Our season has been unpredictable, but so is this game we all love to play. And even amidst all this unpredictability, we still continue to play because there’s the possibility that we will do something spectacular.
That’s why I think we’re a dangerous team heading into our conference tournament.
In the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), all the teams are worthy of respect, from top to bottom. It doesn’t matter what a squad’s record is going into a game, because once the ball is tipped nothing matters but what happens in the next 40 minutes.
If we can build some confidence up in the last four games of this season, regardless of wins and losses, we can do the one spectacular thing we’ve been waiting to do all season: win a CAA Championship.
Staff writer Misha Jones is a team captain for William&Mary basketball.
