Pat Higgins | Asst. Sports Editor
After dropping five of their final seven regular season games in Atlantic 10 play, the women’s basketball team (19-12) traveled to Richmond, Va. last weekend for the conference tournament.
The Red & Blue hoped to make a postseason run through the A10 for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by Sunday afternoon, but Wumi Agunbiade and company fell to Fordham 45-41 in the quarterfinals last Friday.
After beating Rhode Island on Thursday, the Dukes needed a win over the Rams, a team they beat twice in the regular season, to advance. The women’s squad trailed the Rams most of the game until a 3-pointer from senior guard Raegan Moore knotted the game at 40 with 2:10 remaining in the second half. Agunbiade chipped in 19 points and 9 rebounds to keep the Dukes alive to the bitter end, but April Robinson missed a 3-pointer that would have tied the game with 5 seconds left on the clock to all but ensure a WNIT berth.
The Dukes’ scoring woes that doomed them in the final stretch of the regular season resurfaced. They shot just under 31 percent from the field and couldn’t convert on multiple occasions in the final minute to stay alive.
After starting the A10 conference schedule on an 8-1 tear, with a seven-game winning streak that spanned January, the Dukes dropped four of six games in February and backed into the A-10 tournament.
Similar to last year’s season, the Red & Blue likely finish on the outside looking in as far as bubble teams are concerned. Seniors Agunbiade, Orsi Szecsi, Oditte Odisho and Moore will look to help finish the season on a high note in the WNIT in the coming weeks.
With four seniors graduating in May, the Dukes will look to underclassmen like April Robinson, Belma Nurkic, Olivia Bresnahan and others to step up next season.
