Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

A win over Waterloo, buzzer-beater overtime loss to the Carleton Ravens, win over McMaster and Queen’s, the Brock Badgers have had a steady climb throughout the first half of the season. Let’s analyze where the team currently stands and what they should do once the season starts again in January.

The Brock Badgers sit at 5-4, winning three of their last four games. A 80-66 win versus the Queen’s Gaels who came in to that game undefeated started off the Badgers winning streak, and they followed that up with a win against the McMaster Marauders at the Meridian Centre in downtown St. Catharines and a win in Waterloo over the Warriors. To end the first half of the season, their winning streak came to an end when Laurier powered back to win 61-60 and send the Badgers into the break.

Since the Badgers 71-48 loss to the TMU Bold in their third game of the season, the Badgers have generally been trending upwards in their play on the floor. Their defensive structure and fundamentals have improved to where they’re playing more team defence and keeping teams on the perimeter better than they were, and more shooters have started taking open shots spacing out the opponents.

A big positive for the Badgers has been the step up that Angeline Campbell has taken. Often running the point for the Badgers, Angeline has shown her ability to get the ball to players like Madalyn Weinert to play off the catch, or Noor Bazzi to shoot threes, but when Angeline hands it to Madalyn, her own catch-and-shoot abilities have been big for creating more space on defence. Having another person who will take those shots takes stress off the Badgers primary scorers, and her seemingly increasing confidence has been a massive help to the Badgers offence.

To compliment the shooting of more players in the rotation, the Badgers have gotten better defensively, but in their most recent loss to the Golden Hawks, they showed some weaknesses. Laurier is a faster paced team in terms of how they get into their sets and the overall speed of the players on their roster. Brock, put it to fatigue or an off-day or a weakness, had trouble picking up on the pace of the Golden Hawks. Brock struggled picking up in the half court defensively and they were left scrambling while Laurier moved the ball to their spots.

Over the past 3 seasons, the Badgers defence has been a big part of the identity of the team, and they are going to need that to continue as the season goes further and the top players continue to log big minutes.

Speaking of minutes, Brock’s two leading scorers, Oluwatito Akinnusi and Madalyn Weinert currently rank first and second in the OUA in minutes per game at 37.2 and 35.9. This is the first time that two players from the same team have ranked in the top three in minutes per game since 2019 when Helena Lamoureux and Kayla Deschatelets ranked second and third.

They’ve gotten great production from Tito and Madalyn so it may not be an issue, but being able to give at least one of them a bit more rest down the stretch to have them ready for a playoff push is a less-important goal this team may want to aim for through January.

The month of January for the Badgers brings opportunities to test different aspects of the roster. Opening against the TMU Bold, the adjustments the Badgers have made defensively from the first matchup, and how they share the ball will be very important to pay attention to.

Following with a stretch against Toronto, Algoma, Guelph and York, this is a series where the Badgers can work some of their depth inside the paint and see what they have to work with against the size of the Gryphons and Lions specifically. The Badgers finish January with the Ridgebacks and two against the Lakehead Thunderwolves.

The Badgers have built as the season has gone on. Defensive fundamentals, sharing the ball on offence, they’ve noticeably grown their chemistry game by game and they’re learning how to get the most out of the players on their roster.