Bulldogs to Host No. 7/14 Arizona State on Thursday
Complete
Release as PDF
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - After posting back-to-back wins
to open the 2009-10 campaign, the Yale women’s basketball
team closes out its early season home stand against its toughest
challenger thus far, No. 7/14 Arizona State. The Sun Devils (1-0)
and Bulldogs (2-0) will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday night at the
John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn. The contest will be
streamed live on the Internet via Yale All-Access with commentary
by John Song ’11 and Leroy Cole ’12 from WYBC,
Yale’s student radio station. WYBC will also broadcast the
audio portion of the live stream on its website, WYBC.com.
Last Time Out
In Tuesday evening’s win against Army, Yale opened up on a
10-2 run and led from wire-to-wire en route to downing the Black
Knights by a score of 55-42. Senior Melissa Colborne led the
Bulldogs with 14 points in the contest, and sophomore Michelle
Cashen tallied her second double-double of the young season with 12
points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
Against Ranked Teams
At No. 7 in the most recent ESPN/USA Today Coaches’
Poll and No. 14 according to the Associated Press, Arizona State is
the Bulldogs’ highest-ranked opponent since the opening
contest of the 2007-08 season against No. 7/8 Stanford. The
Cardinal, opening a season that would end with a loss in the NCAA
National Championship Game, dispatched the Bulldogs by a score of
100-44. Yale’s most recent contest against a
nationally-ranked team was the game following that Stanford game,
at Arizona State. The Sun Devils, then ranked No. 14/15 in the
nation, won that meeting, 84-38.
On Lockdown
The Bulldogs surrendered just 42 points in Tuesday’s victory
over Army, including only 15 points allowed over the first 20
minutes en route to building a 37-15 halftime lead. The Black
Knights’ offense had averaged 61 points in the squad’s
first two games this season.
Climbing the Ladder
Two-time All-Ivy honoree Melissa Colborne currently ranks eighth in
Yale history with 1,191 career points. Colborne is 71 points away
from the seventh slot on the list and 180 points shy of the
all-time top five (Lisa Brummel ’81, 1,371). In 2008-09,
Colborne eclipsed the program records for free throws made in a
game (14), a season (156), a career (413) and in a game without a
miss (12-for-12). Her career free throw percentage of .770
(415-539) is fifth-best in Yale history.
Double Double-Doubles
Sophomore Michelle Cashen (13 pts., 15 rebs.) and junior Mady
Gobrecht (12 pts., 10 rebs.) both posted double-doubles in the
Bulldogs’ season-opening victory over Holy Cross on Friday.
The last time two Yale players had double-doubles in the same game
was on Jan. 13, 2007, when Erica Davis ’07 (21 pts., 11
rebs.) and Chinenye Okafor ’07 (10 pts., 13 rebs.) each
performed the feat against Brown.
Starting Strong
Freshman Megan Vasquez led all Bulldogs with 15 points in her
collegiate debut against Holy Cross on Friday night. Vasquez, who
scored six points during a 13-0 run in the second-half that cut the
Crusaders’ lead from 17 to 4 and later iced the game with
four free throws in the final 24 seconds, shot 4-for-14 from the
field and 7-for-8 from the charity stripe in the contest. She is
the first freshman to lead Yale in scoring in her collegiate debut
since Kaitlyn Lillemoe ’09 scored a team-best 19 points
against New Hampshire to open the 2005-06 season.
Familiar Faces
The Bulldogs return four starters and eight letterwinners in total
from the 2008-09 campaign. In addition, Yale expects to return
junior Lindsey Williams, a unanimous 2007-08 All-Ivy Rookie Team
selection who missed the entirety of last season due to injury, in
time for the Ivy League slate.
Room for Six More
Yale has reloaded its lineup for 2009-10 with six freshmen expected
to make an immediate impact for the Bulldogs. Guards Allie
Messimer, Megan Vasquez and Aarica West and forwards Alicia
Seelaus, Ericka von Kaeppler and Emily Wanger comprise the
nationally-recognized Yale Class of 2013.
Scouting Arizona State
Coming off of a season that ended in the NCAA Regional Finals
(Elite Eight) at the hands of the eventual unbeaten national
champion, Connecticut, the Arizona State Sun Devils are currently
ranked No. 7/14 in the nation and were selected to finish third in
the Pac-10 Preseason Coaches’ Poll. The Sun Devils downed
South Dakota State in their season opener, 73-64, at home on Sunday
before making the cross-country trek to the Elm City. Becca Tobin
scored a game-high 18 points while Kayli Murphy and Danielle
Orsillo each chipped in a dozen points in the win over the
Jackrabbits.
Series History
The Bulldogs and Sun Devils have met on the hardwood just once
before, an 84-38 win by Arizona State in Tempe, Ariz. on Nov. 19,
2007. Yale is 0-4 all-time against the Pac-10.
Branches on the Coaching Tree
Chris Gobrecht, the Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of
Women’s Basketball at Yale, will be very familiar with her
counterparts on the Sun Devils’ bench on Thursday. Charli
Turner Thorne, the head coach of Arizona State, was an assistant on
Gobrecht’s staff at the University of Washington. Prior to
the Sun Devils’ postseason matchup with Connecticut, the
New Haven Register cited that Thorne “still teaches
the defensive principles she first learned from [Gobrecht]”.
In addition, Arizona State Associate Head Coach Meg (Gallagher)
Sanders played collegiately on Gobrecht’s Cal State Fullerton
squad from 1982-85.
That’s a Lot of W’s
With 460 wins in her career entering 2009-10, Chris Gobrecht, the
Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women’s
Basketball at Yale ranks 30th among active Division I coaches in
all-time victories. Among coaches on Yale’s 2009-10 schedule,
only Bill Gibbons of Holy Cross (476 wins) has more career
victories than Gobrecht. Gobrecht and Gibbons are both topped,
however, by another coach from the Yale sidelines: Associate Head
Coach Dianne Nolan, who amassed 517 wins as head coach of St.
Francis (N.Y.) and Fairfeld.
Nice to Meet You
Non-conference games against Toledo, North Carolina A&T
(possible opponent), UC Davis and Colorado will all be first-time
meetings.
Schedule Strength
Five teams on the Bulldogs’ slate participated in the 2009
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Dartmouth, Sacred Heart
and North Carolina A&T all received automatic bids as
conference champions and lost in the first round to higher-seeded
opponents. Kansas State advanced to the second round as a No. 5
seed, and No. 6-seeded Arizona State’s season ended in the
Regional Finals (Elite Eight) at the hands of the eventual national
champion, Connecticut.
Making the Rounds
Including possible opponents, the Bulldogs’ 14 non-conference
games could feature as many as 10 different conferences (Big XII,
Big West, Colonial, Great West, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern Athletic,
Mountain West, Northeast, Pac-10, Patriot) as well a Division I
independent (Bryant).
The Bulldogs in 2008-09
Shorthanded for much of the Ivy League season, Yale went 4-10 in
Ancient Eight play in 2008-09 and 11-17 overall. Melissa Colborne
earned a spot on the All-Ivy Second Team, and Michelle Cashen
punctuated her freshman season with a selection to the All-Ivy
Rookie Team. With a healthy roster in the pre-Ivy League season of
2008-09, Yale defeated North Carolina State- the program’s
first-ever win over an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent- and was
tied with Southeastern Conference foe Kentucky with 15 seconds
remaining in the contest.
Top Dogs
Though there are 32 American universities with the
“Bulldogs” mascot, last season’s win over Bryant
marked just the second time that Yale women’s basketball had
met another team sporting the “Bulldogs” moniker. The
2003-04 Yale Bulldogs dropped a 69-48 decision to the Gonzaga
Bulldogs on Nov. 29, 2003 as a part of the Seattle Times
Classic.
Every Day is Mother’s Day
Junior forward Mady Gobrecht is the daughter of head coach Chris
Gobrecht. They are one of two active mother-daughter, coach-player
tandems in Division I women’s basketball (Southern
Mississippi: Coach Joye Lee-McNelis and Whitney McNelis). This is
the sixth time in Yale’s 156-year athletic history that a
head coach is mentoring his or her child in a varsity sport, and
the first where the combo is mother-daughter (men’s fencing:
Robert & Maurice Grasson, 1936-38; baseball: Smoky Joe &
Joseph Wood, 1939-41; men’s basketball: Howard & David
Hobson, 1952-55; men’s squash: John & Jack Skillman,
1954-55; football: Jordan & Harry Olivar, 1957-59).
Road Trip
After a seven-day hiatus from competition, the Bulldogs will be
back in action next week at the Holiday Inn and Suites Express
Midtown Thanksgiving Tournament hosted by the University of New
Mexico. Yale will first challenge Toledo in Albuquerque, N.M. on
Nov. 27, and will then play either North Carolina A&T or the
host Lobos on Nov. 28. Times and media information are still to be
announced.
Information
Yale
Women's Basketball
Arizona
State Women's Basketball
Media Links
Live
Stats
Yale All-Access
Streaming Video
WYBC
Audio
report filed by Drew M. Kingsley, Yale Sports Publicity