The season is over for the NDSU women’s hoop team and it’s time to look for a new coach – but not without a couple comments from Saturday’s first round loss to IUPUI.
It actually was a pretty impressive defeat, if that makes sense. The Bison were down 18 at halftime (it reached 20 early in the second half) playing for a coach who had already resigned. A lot of players would have sat in the locker room at halftime and proverbially mailed the season in. So what happened?
They played as hard as ever, and afterward saying they did it for their head coach, cutting the deficit to five points on a couple of occasions with chances to cut it further. It was quite remarkable if you think about it, to have motivated players who could have quit on the team. It was also impressive in how Carolyn DeHoff handled herself in the post-game press conference, taking responsibility for the lack of victories not working out. There was no blaming the BSA, the tough prospect of following a legendary coach or whatever else, just matter of fact “it didn’t work.”
She was right. Carolyn is a good person, a nice person who had the attention of her players – that was obvious in the second half Saturday. It just didn’t work out and that’s life, time to move on. This isn’t a third world country, she’ll end up on her feet and thriving somewhere else.
The great Patrick Reusse taught us scribes long ago to adhere to a journalism cred: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Well, the former head coach has been afflicted enough. The next chapter in Bison women’s basketball starts today.
