Quinnipiac women’s basketball has a real chance this season of heading back to the NCAA Tournament.
But the trip back to March Madness starts in the MAAC Tournament, as the Bobcats head to Atlantic City, New Jersey on March 11 to take on the conference’s best.
The journey to this moment for Quinnipiac starts all the way back to last season, where the Bobcats were decimated by injuries. The biggest blow was team captain Jackie Grisdale, a three-point specialist who played in just eight games and missed the rest of the 2023-2024 season with a lower-body injury.
Those Bobcats went just 13-18, a lost year for head coach Tricia Fabbri and the rest of the staff as Quinnipiac never got to showcase its full potential.
This year couldn’t be more different.
“I’m just so happy for everyone who was here last year,” Fabbri said on Feb. 13. “Everyone that faced the adversity of replenishing a roster with youth, dealing with injuries and it just built the foundation for what they’re receiving now,”
Not only has everyone been healthy, but the team gathered reinforcements.
The additions of freshman point guard Gal Raviv and graduate student forward Caranda Perea have pushed the team to new heights.
Raviv in particular has been nothing short of remarkable, currently averaging 18 points as a rookie to go along with five rebounds and four assists.
“She’s an unbelievably skilled player,” Fabbri said on Nov. 16. “She has such a drive and a desire to become so great. Her skillset, acumen with the ball, IQ, toughness and running the team, she’s really the total package.”
But it’s not just the new recruits making an impact, the old guards have contributed to winning in a multitude of ways.
Senior forward Grace LaBarge has been a key rotational piece, especially down the stretch. The Inverness, Illinois native has scored double-digit points in five of her last 10 games, getting hot at the right time.
Protecting and scoring in the paint is sophomore center Anna Foley. Despite her numbers taking a bit of a dip in her second year, the Andover, Massachusetts native efficiency scoring with the ball has noticeably increased. She’s more than doubled her percentage from beyond the arc, going from 15.2% to 35% in just one season. By taking a decreased volume of threes and focusing more on the paint, Foley has become a much more efficient and reliable scorer.
Despite the injury that kept her out for the majority of last season, Grisdale has continued to do what she does best, catch-and-shoot from three. The Poland, Ohio native has knocked down an impressive 38.7% of her shots from beyond the arc. In the three seasons Grisdale has played more than 20 games, this is the highest three-point percentage of her career.
“She’s built up so much trust with us,” Fabbri said on Feb. 22. “We want her taking every open look, and she knows that.”
The three-guard rotation of Raviv, Grisdale and sophomore Karson Martin has provided Quinnipiac with a lot of flexibility down the stretch.
“I think we could have those three be the best guards to play here in a rotation and that’s really saying something considering who we have,” Fabbri said on Nov 19.
The Bobcats have built an impressive 24 win season as of publication, the 13th campaign under Fabbri in which Quinnipiac has surpassed 20 or more wins. The only losses as of publication were against Fairfield, an overtime loss to Mount Saint Mary’s and an overtime loss against the Miami Hurricanes.
The latter was an especially heartbreaking loss, Quinnipiac climbed all the way from a double digit deficit just to fall in overtime. The players haven’t forgotten.
“We just think about how we lost to Miami,” Perea said on Dec. 9. “It just didn’t play out for us in the end and that’s one where I’ll forever want back and I hope I see them in the tournament.”
Quinnipiac currently sits second in the MAAC only behind No. 1 Fairfield. Right now, the team looks unstoppable with the ball in its hands and the Stags are currently on a seven game win streak.
So where can the Bobcats improve just a couple of weeks before the MAAC Tournament?
“Defensively,” Martin said on Feb 22. “We’re honing on execution and getting stops on defense, and then securing the rebound and grabbing loose balls. That’s what we’re really trying to get better at … every possession matters.”
This season has already been a massive improvement for the Bobcats. But it won’t matter to the players or the coaches if they don’t come back to Hamden with a conference championship. With the stakes high and the pressure on, Quinnipiac will scratch and claw until there’s nothing left in the tank.
