The UMass women’s basketball team opened its first Mid-American Conference (MAC) game with a dominant 73-40 win over Western Michigan on Wednesday.
Chineye Odenigbo led the way for the Minutewomen against the Broncos, tallying a career-high 14 points in the New Year’s Eve showdown, with 12 of her points coming in the first half, on an efficient 6-of-7 from the field.
The junior used her size to get position down low on the offensive end, finishing shots at the rim over defenders with good touch. Getting the ball to Odenigbo at the low block was a point of emphasis for UMass early on, feeding the hot hand as much as possible.
“[Head coach Mike Leflar has] always wanted me to be more assertive, on the offensive side of things,” Odenigbo said. “Put the ball in the hoop and like, show off, my post moves. And [Wednesday], I think I was able to do that a little bit. I think I was a little bit lucky during the first half. I’ve never seen the ball going in that much.”
“I don’t think [Odenigbo] was lucky,” Leflar said. “I talked with [Odenigbo]. She and I had a conversation about just changing that mentality a little bit and being someone [who] thinks ‘score’ when she catches the ball. She did that [Wednesday].”
Despite cooling off and only seeing eight minutes of playing time in the second half, Odenigbo continued to impact the game defensively. Using her length, the junior blocked passing lanes and helped generate easy points for her teammates on the other end.
The Minutewomen played with an aggressive mindset on defense all game long, full-court pressing for a large majority of the contest. The pressure made things hard on Western Michigan ball-handlers, with UMass forcing 24 turnovers on the day.
“I think the turnovers just came to us,” Lilly Ferguson said. “That’s not something that we don’t want to do every game. We’re always focused on defending and playing super hard and executing on the defensive end, because that leads to offense.”
Defense wasn’t as prominent early on for the Minutewomen during Wednesday’s contest, with the Broncos getting out to a lead through the first five minutes of the first quarter.
UMass got on track quickly, locking down and keeping Western Michigan’s scoring to a minimum. After 11 points scored at the 3:48 mark of the first quarter, the Broncos only scored 29 more throughout the rest of the game.
“[Western Michigan] got a couple of easy scores against our press,” Leflar said. “We just were able to tighten some things up. There was no panic… There [are] ebbs and flows of games. We responded really well. And for the last 15 minutes of the first half, we really went on a nice run.
“We have a veteran group, so if someone scores early, gets out to an early lead,” Leflar continued. “You keep plugging away, you understand what’s important, and our team did that.”
Megan Olbrys scored 12 points on the night, with all of them coming in the first half. Allie Palmieri was the only other Minutewoman in double figures, tallying 11 points along with three steals. Lilly Ferguson had seven points, going along with a game-high 10 rebounds.
UMass showed off its depth on Wednesday, with 12 different players seeing the floor. Freshman Eva Hannon scored her first collegiate points against the Broncos.
“Each player on our team brings a little bit of something different,” Leflar said. “I just hope we can remind them of their strengths, highlight their strengths, and our depth… There’s not a lot of drop off, which is nice.”
With the win, the Minutewomen improve to 9-2 overall, with a 1-0 record in the MAC. They’ll be back in action on Saturday, January 3, taking on Kent State on the road. Tipoff from Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center is set for 3:30 p.m.
“MAC play starting, it’s just a good opportunity to refocus on what, who we want to be, what’s important to us,” Leflar said. “We know we’ll face challenges… There’ll be plenty of big games, but it starts with how we prepare each and every single day of practice.”