Take away every bad thing that could be blamed for Tyrone’s 11-14 season which – when contrasted with last year’s 4-20 campaign – was actually one of the more successful jaunts in the Jim Swaney Era at Tyrone.
Forget that the squad started four juniors every night. Never mind that the Lady Eagles’ bench was bolstered by underclassmen that, before this season, had played little or no varsity basketball. Don’t mention the unforgiving schedule that saw Tyrone play eight games against four teams that made at least the District 6 semifinals round.
The bottom line for Tyrone in 2004-2005 is drawn by a telling set of statistics that confronts the team with an undeniable truth that is every bit as subtle as a punch in the face: when the Lady Eagles scored points, they won; when they didn’t, they didn’t.
That much is evident from this – 13 times Tyrone failed to score 50 points. Eight times, the Lady Eagles never got out of the forties. Five times they scored in the thirties. On one occasion, they never made it past the twenties.
Each of those sub-50-point games translated into a loss, which underscores a point Swaney made when assessing the season past and looking towards next November.
“We have got to improve our offense,” said Swaney. “That is our number one weakness. There were times when we had two kids combining to score 28 or 30 points and we still struggled to get out of the 40s playing eight to 10 people. We can’t have that next year.”
But there are other reasons for Tyrone’s second consecutive losing season – a lowlight that occurred only once before during Swaney’s tenure when the team went without a winning campaign from 1997-99.
Part of it was the Lady Eagles’ difficulty winning close games. Tyrone lost six games by eight points or less and were 1-4 in games decided by four points or less.
Another part of it was Tyrone’s inability, at least early on, to win the key games Swaney had hallmarked in November as must-wins, games against teams Tyrone equaled or bettered in talent that meant the difference between being 11-14 and 16-9. Bald Eagle Area and Central Mountain, for example, were teams that combined to go 12-34, and in a three-week span from the end of December into mid-January the Lady Eagles lost to both of them in flat, uninspired performances.
During that same period, the Lady Eagles also lost to Indian Valley by four, Derry Area by three. Later in the season, after Tyrone had found its offensive touch and grown into a team that brought it’s a-game from the opening tip, the Lady Eagles lost a highly-contested game to Williamsburg by four.
The path to a 16-9 season ran through those key games, and in too many of them the Lady Eagles didn’t come ready to play.
“We probably lost four or five games we shouldn’t have,” said Swaney. “By the end of the season, we made some big steps forward, but we have to understand that 11-14 will not be acceptable next year.”
Tyrone’s turnaround by late January salvaged the season, and it driven by the emergence of a consistent supporting cast around leading scorers Hilary McNelis and Emily McKenna.
By that time, that duo was reliable for 25-35 points per game. But teams didn’t have to do anything special to offset their production, other than score 40 or more. That changed late in the season as sophomore Stefani Bryan and junior Marissa Hoover put the ball in the basket with more regularity.
In the final six games of the season, when Tyrone went 4-2, Bryan scored in double figures three times, Hoover twice, and fewer and fewer players in the line-up were leaving the game with zeroes next to their name in the scoring column.
Tiffany Bradford became more consistent with her jumper and in cleaning up for those important garbage points inside. Emily Lloyd, after missing a week with a broken nose, returned to her consistent 5-7 point range.
Combined with McNelis and McKenna’s production, it was enough to allow Tyrone to average 53 points per game over its last seven in the regular season, after spending most of the year averaging between 43 and 45.
“Over the last seven or eight games, Stefani Bryan really stepped her game up and I look for her to continue that,” Swaney said. “Marissa Hoover did the same over the same time frame and we played better because of it.
“(Junior post) Ashley Roth is someone who has to play to her enormous potential for us to be better offensively next year. Emily Lloyd and Tiffany Bradford also need to be more consistent. Losing Hilary, we’re losing a lot of points. When your number one problem is scoring and you’re losing a player who’s averaged 15 points per game over two seasons, that’s a problem.”
McNelis ended 2005 averaging 16 points per game after becoming only the third player in Lady Eagle history to record back-to-back seasons with 400 or more points. She finished less than 100 points shy of 1,000 for her career, and would have surely reached the mark had she not missed much of her sophomore season with stress fractures in her foot.
McNelis was also the team’s leading rebounder the last two seasons, as well as its top foul shooter.
“She will be hard to replace,” Swaney said. “She was a plus for the program and she did a lot of big things for us. We’re not expecting any one player to come in and score 16 points per game with her gone. We’re hoping seven or eight kids can become consistent. We don’t want anyone giving us 12 one night and two the next.”
That was rarely a problem with McNelis, nor was it an issue with McKenna, a 5-8 junior who will return for her senior season after averaging in double figures as both a sophomore and a junior. She has started since she was a freshman and will enter her senior season with 658 points and a legitimate shot at becoming the ninth player in the Swaney Era and tenth in school history to eclipse the 1000-point plateau.
McKenna averaged 12.4 points per game in 2004-2005 and by the end of the season was fitting into the mold of a prototypical Swaney point guard, a player who can handle the rock and who finds ways to get points, one way or another.
That gets Swaney excited about next season, as does the one sure thing the Lady Eagles had going for them in the season past – they will still be able to play defense as well as anyone in the Mountain Athletic Conference.
Tyrone limited its opponents to 48.9 points per game, and rebounded exceptionally well for a team that had only one player as tall as 5-10. Led by Lloyd and Emily Ingle, the Lady Eagles in 2005-2006 will be able to play shut-down defense on opponent’s top guards from game one.
That means Tyrone should theoretically be in a position to win on most nights, if the Lady Eagles can score. It always comes back to that, but Swaney said he is confident his players will put in the work to ensure they won’t lose for lack of offensive ability again.
It’s that confidence that has him aiming high for next November already.
“If we don’t say we should be a threat to win the MAC and District 6, we’re taking the wrong frame of mind,” he said. “Anything short of that is not a success, considering the amount of letter-winners we’re going to return.”
