Ruben Palacios/staff writer
The regular season is in the rear view mirror and the Sun Belt Conference Champions have been crowned. The women’s basketball team fell to eventual champions Middle Tennessee State University in the semi-finals and now all they can do is wait for a potential bid to play in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. The Panthers finished the season with a 19-12 (12-8 SBC) record.
Prior to the first tip-off of the year, the Panthers were picked to finish second in the East division of their conference behind only MT. The coaches in the conference recognized the amount of talent the Panthers could put out on the floor.
More importantly, they recognized Jerica Coley, the reigning conference Player of the Year, was returning for her junior campaign in the FIU navy and blue and voted her the Preseason Player of the Year.
Coley did not falter in the limelight.
The 2012 Associated Press All-American dominated the conference, along with any other team put on the floor with her, on her way to a second consecutive Player of the Year award. Coley, who is the lone Panther to ever snag a POTY award, became the first in FIU history to repeat as the top player in the conference.As of March 6, Coley continues to lead the nation in scoring with an FIU single-season record average of 26.1 points per game.
Head Coach Cindy Russo almost has a regular catch phrase when she sums up the stellar play of her All-American during postgame news conferences: “Thank God for Jerica Coley!”
Coley might have been the lone steady factor in a season otherwise full of peaks and valleys. According to Russo, there were many lows her team endured throughout the year, none worse than the 25-point loss in the second game of the year against Florida Gulf Coast University. Russo noted that a visit to FGCU so early in the season was a difficult situation to come out with a victory from.
The biggest valley this team had to overcome, though, did not come against any particular team; it emerged when the team reluctantly had to deal with injuries. During a difficult mid-season stretch the squad suffered injuries to sophomore Kamika Idom and seniors Diamond Ashomore and Finda Mansare. At the time of their injuries, Idom and Mansare were part of a strong starting unit and Ashmore was the defensive anchor to a thin second unit.
“I’m not completely happy. I think we dropped some games we shouldn’t have,” Russo said. “That stretch without some of our key players hurt us because we really had some great momentum going at that point.”
Despite dealing with the injuries, Russo was extremely proud of the performance her team put up in the games played while dealing with a short rotation. Her squad won three of the five games without Mansare and Ashmore.
Russo, who has been coaching at FIU for 37 years, cited a game against Iowa the day before Thanksgiving as one she will remember for some time to come. The matchup would have been tagged a David versus Goliath, but Russo noted the FIU women’s program is no David. The Hawkeyes entered the game as heavy favorites and were coming off a season where they earned a No. 9 seed to the NCAA Tournament.
Iowa led throughout the contest and went into the halftime break with a 34-25 deficit. The Panthers fell behind by as many as 13 in the second stanza, as Iowa went ahead 43-30 at one point. The Panthers went on a 14-0 run, capped off by a three-pointer from Coley, to take their first lead of the contest at 44-43. The two teams would exchange leads for the rest of the game until Iowa held a one-point lead with 18 seconds to play. Iowa gained possession and the Panthers were forced to foul and put the Hawkeyes on the free throw line.
What came next was a direct result of the heroics of Coley.
A pair of missed Hawkeye free throws ensued, and Coley went coast-to-coast for a layup as the clock expired, giving FIU a 66-65 victory.
“That was my happiest moment,” Russo said as she recalled the upset.
Close games were the Achilles’ heel of this year’s team. Half of their 12 losses were by single digits. If the Panthers would have pulled off victories in those six games, the season would be looking much different at this point. Their record could easily be 25-6 and their destiny could have been decided already instead of having to sit anxiously for the WNIT committee.
