This post was written by Hatchet staff writer Nora Princiotti.
It was tense down to the buzzer in the Smith Center Monday night, as both teams matched each other back and forth, shot for shot.
That, though, was the half time tater tot toss, which ended in a tie.
The Colonials’ 83-56 blowout of USC Upstate was a different story.
In a game with many contributors, one player stood out. Graduate student Danni Jackson scored her 1,000th career point after 2:31 in the first half, and then went on to put up a season-high 19.
“It means a lot, it’s a great milestone to get,” Jackson said. “It’s really nice to be up there with some of the great GW women’s basketball players, I’m just really excited, I’m more excited about the team win than anything.”
Strong defense fed the Colonials’ attack – 38 of their points came off of Spartan turnovers. GW relied more heavily on man-to-man coverage schemes on Monday, and exploited their advantages in size and speed to throw Upstate off balance.
Head coach Jonathan Tsipis said that, besides being effective, the experience playing man-to-man would be valuable for his defense in future games.
“We did not look as much at our zone tonight because we felt that it was a great opportunity to put the work we had in to use tonight. To be a good defensive team I think we are going to have to be good at several things,” Tsipis said.
Tsipis credited Jackson for her defensive play even more than her scoring.
“I was really excited to see not necessarily just how we were offensively, but I thought we set a really good tone on the defensive end and aside of Danni’s stat line I thought she started that with her defense. She was very active, she kept the ball out of the middle,” Tsipis said. “It locked the lane down for us, forced them to take some jumpers and some shots we were able to clean up and be able to attack the other way in transition.
The game showed a new-look Colonials team in more ways than one. Graduate student Megan Nipe’s 14 points gave her her fourth straight double digit game, but it wasn’t just the usual suspects stepping up for the Colonials. Sophomore Aaliyah Brown had what Tsipis called “her best overall game since she’s been at GW.” Brown scored nine total points, shooting 2-4 from the field and adding a three-point bucket.
When Jackson found Brown on the outside corner for that shot, it was the ninth time the ball had changed hands on the play. It was an excellent example of what the Colonials did all night: throw over, around and through the Spartans defense until someone had an open shot.
Every single Colonial scored in the contest. Tsipis was especially pleased with the energy he got from his bench players, who put up 31 points. The same five players have started every game so far for the Colonials, but Tsipis will need to trust others as a long season of his uptempo style of play will be unsustainable without roster depth.
“Once we subbed tonight there wasn’t any type of let down on any aspects: rebounding wise, how fast we were running the floor, the attack mode and I think that’s an attribute that I think our second group has got to have,” Tsipis said.