3 hours Ago By By Peter Gobis For The Sun Chronicle
With six straight wins — including two in overtime, an unblemished road record and having 13 players in their first or second seasons of playing collegiate women’s basketball under her, Missy Traversi would like fans of the Army West Point women’s basketball team to believe that more magic will be forthcoming for the Black Knights this season. “We’re a team that that plays both sides of the ball as efficiently as possible and I haven’t really had that,” the Attleboro native and Bishop Feehan High graduate said of her roster. “We’re efficient with how we execute,” Traversi added.
“We’re not playing fast, we’re playing a little bit slower and we’re executing at a pretty high level right now.” The Black Knights have been getting it done in dramatic fashion since a season-opening loss at home to Cornell. “When they get the opportunity to go out there and play basketball, play the game that they love — they’re taking advantage of every opportunity,” Traversi said.
The Black Knights only have one senior on their roster, representing a dozen states as Traversi is nurturing a team with seven sophomores and six freshmen. “We’re a young team, we did play a lot of our sophomores last year as freshmen,” Traversi said. “They were forced into the fire early on, but they’re battle-tested.
” Now in her fourth season with the Black Knights, Traversi has the Black Knight off to a 6-1 start as they look to finish with a .500 record or better in the Patriot League once again under Traversi after going 10-8 in the league in her West Point bench debut (’21-’22), 10-8 in her second campaign and 9-9 last season. “We’re able to play with some of these non-conference opponents at a high level — we’re not turning the ball over, we’re not fouling,” said Traversi, whose Black Knights have won 41 games under her.
“If you turn the ball over and foul a lot, that takes you out of a lot of games. This is the first team that I’ve had (at West Point) where we’re very disciplined in those areas.” Recruiting, teaching the fundamental skills of the game, strategizing, enhancing the skills of each player into a cohesive and consistent team is a herculean task at any level of coaching basketball.
“We have talent, but we have an opportunity to showcase our hard work,” Traversi said. “Being at the U.S.
Military Academy, these women go through a lot every day. It’s a different culture — the right uniform, the right time, the right place. It’s completely different than most schools.
” The Black Knights forced 21 turnovers in an overtime win over Air Force, holding the Falcons to two points in overtime while having a 37-33 rebounding edge hit seven 3-pointers. In beating New Jersey Tech in overtime as well, the Black Knights scored 52 points in the paint and shot 5-for-10 in the extra session. The Black Knights shot 7-for-13 from the floor in the second quarter of their latest win over UMass Amherst to take the lead then hit six of eight free throws in the fourth quarter.
Starting the streak was a 10-point win over Siena, a game in which the Black Knights hit 19 of 23 free throws and hit five 3-pointers. “We started off strong and we’re pretty proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish thus far,” Traversi said. Last season, Traversi led the Black Knights to a third consecutive Patriot League tournament appearance and defeated Navy in both matchups.
In her first season with the Black Knights, Traversi guided West Point to a 16-13 mark overall, its first winning record since the 2017-18. “This is the hardest job I’ve ever had,” Traversi admitted of gaining prep school and high school players attention as to the benefits of a military academy. “They have to have the right academics, they have to be physically fit, medically they have to be qualified and they have to want to sacrifice for five more years and sign up for that type of commitment.
Not many 18 or 19-year olds have that perspective. “It’s incredibly hard to find the right fit,” she added. “When you do, it’s magical.
You find that special sauce and we’ve done a really good job recruiting, especially the sophomore class. I’m proud of the work that we’ve done as a staff, bringing in the freshmen that we have. “We have so many restrictions here and red tape, as we should — we’re trying to find the best of the best.
We just can’t recruit anybody. We have to be careful with our selections.” Prior to arriving in upstate New York, Traversi had coached Adelphi (2016-21) to a 27-5 record in 2016-17, earning the Panthers their second Northeast 10 Conference Tournament title and an NCAA Division II Tournament selection.
Previous to Adelphi, she spent two seasons as head coach at Wheelock College (2014-16) in Boston. Traversi guided Wheelock to its most wins (18-7) in a single season for the team’s first winning season in 2015-16. It all began for Traversi as girls basketball coach at Attleboro High (2011-14), following one year as an assistant coach at Harvard University (2010-11), and two years as the girls basketball coach at Dover-Sherborn High (2008-10).
As a player, Traversi helped the University of Maine women’s team to three consecutive America East Conference regular season titles, to 86 regular season wins (.711), to 58 America East (.853) wins, scoring 1,130 points and being an All America East three-peat selection.
She continued her playing career overseas, where she averaged 23.5 points per game for Brahe Basket in Sweden during the 2005-06 season, before returning to the country as a player and assistant coach for Jamtland Basket in 2007-08. Attracting student-athletes to West Point is a task unlike coaching at any other NCAA Division I, II or III program, be it a private institution of higher learning or a publicly-financed college.
“There’s no one on our roster that is questioning their commitment to serving in the U.S. military,” Traversi said.
“They all want to be officers and that’s half the battle.” The Black Knights were tabbed for fourth place in the preseason Patriot League poll by coaches and Traversi believes that, pending injury, success is always 40 minutes away. “If we can keep taking care of the ball and not fouling, we’re going to be able to stay in some of these games against older and more experienced teams,” Traversi said.
“The Patriot League is a great league, but it’s also hard to win at the academy level. It’s taken me four years to figure out West Point and I’m still learning. it’s really hard and it should be because we are Army.
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