One weekend. Four huge road wins

CLARA RICHARDS MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR

Washington University basketball didn’t lose a game all weekend.

As they flew to New York to take on United Athletic Association (UAA) opponent

Rochester University, both the men’s and women’s teams were ranked as underdogs. Traveling south to Emory

Big day for the underclassmen: Grudzinski and Doyle help the Bears pull out clutch points

University, the odds were against them on the road in a tough Sunday matchup. Even in the final minutes of play in

Atlanta, both teams were playing from behind. But both squads flawlessly executed threes from deep on the court with mere seconds on the clock, closing out hard-fought wins and vaulting the Bears to the top of their conference rankings.

Maya Arnott leads the team as two huge wins push WashU to the top conference spot

In the final minute of the Bears’ game against Emory, the play-by-play announcers sounded more and more anxious.

“Don’t give the ball to him.” Sophomore Hayden Doyle passed the ball to graduate student Charlie Jacob. “Or him.” Jacob shot it over to freshman Will Grudzinski. “Or him.” The ball left Grudzinski’s hands, his wrist snapping. The trey that swished through the net won the game for the Bears.

That’s the threat of the men’s basketball program: the collective damage of every single player in their lineup. The team shot an average of .450 from three this weekend, and Grudzinski individually scored eighteen points from three-pointers alone, going 6-10 from outside the arc.

On Friday, Doyle had a season-high night, scoring eighteen points. In their previous win, Jacob was the top-scoring player on the court. The time before that, it was sophomore Drake Kindsvater, with sixteen points.

“Today was a good day for [Doyle and Grudzinski], and next Friday it might be different guys,” head coach Pat Juckem said. “And that might be the strength of this team: we’re not reliant on one. We’re a collection, and we have several guys who are capable of leading us depending on where the opportunities come.”

In the team’s first game on Friday against Rochester, the Bears created a small firsthalf lead that they pushed open with a seven-point run to open the second half. Their accuracy in the net coupled with an unbreakable defensive scheme stymied by Rochester, who shot with 36.7 percent accuracy — only one out of seven three-point attempts in the second half. The final score of 63-47 was the lowest Rochester has scored all season.

Emory posed a unique challenge to the Bears at the outset. They played more zone, they mixed up their zones, and they consistently put pressure on the WashU defense. The team had a film session Saturday morning and a short practice on Saturday night, and from the beginning, it was clear that the Bears did their homework. The lead bounced back in the fourth, the Eagles never letting WashU get out of reach. With eight minutes to go, a layup gave Emory the lead until Grudzinski’s three swished through the net. Two free throws from Kindsvater put icing on the win, freezing the scoreboard at 72-69.

For Juckem, the UAA wins are so important given the quality of his opponents. Before the Bears’ first conference game against the University of Chicago, Juckem broke the team huddle with words of warning: “We’re gonna play a really good team tomorrow,” he told them. Then, he corrected himself. “Guys, I’m gonna say that for fourteen straight games, because we’re playing 14 NCAA tournament-level games.”

Now halfway through the season, Juckem said that the UAA schedule has lived up to his early-season premonition. “This is the best [Division III basketball] league in the country right now; I don’t think that’s a question.”

The women’s team has won seven out of their last eight games. They’re streaking through conference play, showing their ability to both close out tight games and take big victories against competitive opponents.

Their first game against Rochester stayed competitive through the first quarter, but the combination of junior Sammi Matoush and senior Maya Arnott gave the Bears a lead that they only built on. Rochester drew even in the fourth quarter, but by the time the buzzer sounded, the Bears had built up a comfortable eight point margin in their 75-67 victory.

Maya Arnott, the 6-0 senior who has been a weapon for the bears as a Big, hit a season-high twenty-three points in the game, going 9-10 from inside the arc. She’s averaged .646, scoring twenty points or more in three out of her past four games.

Arnott was once again the leading scorer on Sunday in a close matchup against Emory that saw eight lead changes over the course of the fortyeight minutes. The Bears dominated the turnovers, scoring eleven to

Emory’s eight. But an early deficit created by accurate shooting from beyond the three-point line put the Bears at an early deficit, and midway through the second quarter, the Bears trailed by eleven points.

After halftime, the squad slowly fought back. With the score tied and twenty seconds on the clock, a three-pointer from senior Karisa Grandison sealed the victory for the Bears.

After passing the halfway mark, the Bears have to flip around and play the exact same teams again that they faced this last weekend. They’ll play Rochester on Friday and Emory on Sunday in the fieldhouse, two teams looking for redemption on the road. The women hold a slight edge as the only team with only one conference loss. They sit 6-1 in UAA play.