After back-to-back games against ranked NAIA opponents, Loyola’s women’s basketball team is preparing to take on NCAA Division One opponent, the University of New Orleans.
The matchup against the UNO Privateers will be the first of two meetings this season.
Even with UNO coming into the game with a 0-7 record, women’s head coach Kellie Kennedy says her team cannot afford to lose their focus. Kennedy noted that the ‘Pack had a hard time matching the level of play they had when they defeated Lee College, who was ranked seventh at the time, when they lost to Southern Polytechnic who moved up the rankings from 21st to 13th.
“When you come off of beating a number seven (team) that’s a very high high,” Kennedy said.
Though the athletic program at UNO is currently Division One, they are going through a transition to become a Division Three. According to UNO’s Director of Media Relations Jason Plotkin, this transition process will take three to five years to complete. For the time being, UNO is currently a Division One independent. Schools that are independent are not members of a conference but are still eligible to be nationally ranked in the NCAA. Prior to this move, UNO competed in the Sun Belt Conference.
Plotkin said that the move to leave their conference and Division One athletics was dictated by school funding. “This is the unfortunate financial climate of the state of Louisiana’s higher education,” he said. “It’s causing us to make a move away from Division One.” He went on to say that the budget cuts made to Louisiana public schools forced UNO to remove its general funds support for their athletic program which was a substantial cut to their athletic department’s budget.
The impact of the budget cuts hasn’t just affected UNO’s front office, it’s also affected the team’s ability to perform on the court. Because Division Three does not offer the same level of competition and opportunities for student athletes as Division One athletics, UNO lost many of its scholarship athletes. Currently the Lady Privateers’ only scholarship athlete is sophomore guard Mirjam Sipos.
Plotkin said the only scholarships the university is allowed to offer are to those who were offered a scholarship prior and decided to stay. For those that didn’t want to stay, UNO wanted to give their athletes time to sort through their options. “The decisions to move to Division Three was made in late 2009 and a lot of our athletes were given ample time to end up at other institutions,” said Plotkin.
Kennedy is not worried about the ‘Pack taking UNO, a team that only has nine players on their roster, lightly. “I don’t know that they understand the severity of the difficult situation at UNO,” she said. “I think our team is focused enough and it’s a cross-town rival and it’s someone we haven’t played before, so I think that brings excitement to the game.”
Assistant Lindsay Werntz isn’t taking UNO’s thinned-out roster lightly either, and pointed out that the defense needs to watch out for the Privateers’ lone scholarship athlete.
“Sipos is their best player and leading scorer,” she said. “Everything kind of runs through her. So if we can contain her and not let her go off on us then we’ve got a pretty good shot of competing with them.”
Sipos is the leading scorer for her team averaging 10.4 points a game and is leading UNO in almost every major offensive and defensive category. UNO has had trouble keeping the score close this season despite Sipo’s performance. In seven games, UNO has failed to score 50 points and has lost every game by more than 30 points. As a team, UNO has shot 24 percent from the floor and 26 percent from behind the arch.
“This is going to be the toughest year UNO has,” said Kennedy. “In time they are going to have the opportunity to be good at this level, but they are going to need some time to make that jump.”
The game will take place on Dec. 11 at the Lakefront Arena at 4 p.m.
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