Posted by Graham Hays
WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -- As it makes its way home from Connecticut, Dartmouth will drive by the turnoff on I-91 in Vermont that takes travelers north and west toward Burlington. But the message the University of Hartford sent with the Big Green in Saturday's 73-40 win should make its own way up to the University of Vermont and the rest of the America East.
In its most condensed form it is this: Hartford is still here.
It will be a few months until the Hawks, the league's four-time defending champions, get a chance to take out the frustrations stemming from conference coaches picking them to finish behind the University of Vermont. But in winning their 27th consecutive game at home (and improving to 57-2 at home since the start of the 2004-05 season), the Hawks wasted little time issuing a reminder that it knows how to defend like few other teams, be it a league championship or a solitary offensive possession for an opponent.
"I feel like our defense was tremendous and really set the tone for the game," Hartford coach Jennifer Rizzotti said. "Although we need some work on our offensive execution, I'm really pleased -- I feel like at this point of the year, this is probably the best defensively we've ever been."
Betsy Williams gave Dartmouth a 2-0 lead on an uncontested shot, but that was just about the last time last season's Ivy League co-champs didn't have to pay a price for points. By the end of the first half, Hartford had a 40-14 lead; Dartmouth had 19 turnovers.
As impressive as the defense was, it's as much of a given for Rizzotti's teams as New England snow. Some years you get a little more, some years you get a little less. But if you're around in winter, you're going to need a shovel to dig yourself out at some point.
Hartford's offensive potential has me ready to offer a pre-Thanksgiving mea culpa for leaving the Hawks out of the initial mid-major top 10 rankings. As their coach suggested, execution sometimes succumbed to opening-game sloppiness, but the Hawks still scored 70 points for just the second time in an opening-game win under Rizzotti. Looking at last season's numbers, it wasn't immediately obvious how a team that lost Danielle Hood (15.7 points per game) was going to score 70 points on a perfect night.
Even without Hood, answers can still be found in the post, where Diana Delva and Erica Beverly combined for 19 points and six offensive rebounds in just 39 minutes. But it's also there on the perimeter, where the Hawks knocked down seven 3-pointers despite an 0-for-3 night behind the arc from senior MaryLynne Schaefer, the program's all-time leader in them and owner of 63 percent of the team's returning 3-pointers this season.
What began last season with point guard Lisa Etienne hitting 12 3-pointers in the team's final 12 games, after hitting just four in the first 24, continued Saturday. Three players hit multiple 3-pointers (including two from Etienne), something that happened just four times all last season. The Hawks aren't suddenly going to morph into Iowa State, but spreading the wealth outside will open up space and offensive rebounding opportunities for Beverly, Delva and others inside.
"It's really important, because we've been double-teamed and tripled-teamed the last three years in the post," Rizzotti said. "To be able to have 3-point shooting weapons from other spots is something we've never had in my nine years here. I mean, we literally have never had five or six guys that are capable of knocking down the 3."
Hartford doesn't do frills. When last season's conference championship banner was unveiled before the game, the ceremony took about 90 seconds -- considerably less time than the national anthem -- and had all the pomp of renewing a driver's license. What the Hawks do is win a heck of a lot of games. With matchups coming against Connecticut, Duke, Louisville and Ohio State, not to mention a nationally televised showdown with fellow mid-major headliner Marist, it won't always be as easy as Saturday.
But it appears rumors of Hartford's decline have been greatly exaggerated.
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