By Austin Turner — Columnist
About three-fourths through the season, there shouldn’t be anyone questioning if San Jose State’s women’s basketball team is legit.
It is.
At 15-6, the Spartans are in the midst of one of the best seasons in program history. A win at Wyoming Saturday would put SJSU over the 15-win threshold for the first time since the 2004-05 season. Yes, you read that correctly.
So it’s established that the Spartans are good — scratch that — great. But how did the Spartans build this program up?
Head coach Jamie Craighead says the building blocks were set long ago.
“I’m not going to say that they turned it around,” she said, referring to Ayzhiana Basallo and Tyra Whitehead after Wednesday’s win. “There’s a lot of kids that were here that were working … We were the youngest team in the country two years ago.”
She’s right. Look at the teams that have success in the women’s game. You’ll see a common thread.
Last year’s national champion Baylor Lady Bears had four upperclassmen in their starting five. In fact, only five underclassmen started a majority of games for any of the 2018-19 Final Four teams, including just one freshman.
Just five of the Spartans’ 14 players this season are lowerclassmen. Of that group, sophomore guards Raziya Potter and Basallo are the only members that play meaningful minutes.
This squad is simply the perfect recipe for a basketball team in 2020.
As said before, two key newcomers elevated the Spartans to a whole new level.
There’s the electric score-from-anywhere Basallo, 10th in the nation in scoring as of this writing with 21 points per game.
Junior forward Tyra Whitehead has been absolutely instrumental to the success. At 14 points per game and 10 rebounds, she’s a walking double-double. Defensively, she takes away the paint, daring the opposition to score from deep.
But to Craighead’s point, the blueprint for a contender was there when the team was struggling in years past. The roster isn’t much different than last season’s 6-24 result.
Danae Marquez is in her third year at SJSU, so she’s seen the lows. She’s a pass-first point guard with an insatiable drive and high basketball IQ.
To win in today’s game, you need threes. They got threes. Megan Anderson leads the way in that respect. The Spartans make eight of them per game.
On the defensive end, Fieme’a Hafoka is dominating in her senior season. She’ll lock down any perimeter shooter she comes across.
The expectations weren’t high for this team, to say the least. The Spartans were picked to finish last in Mountain West preseason poll.
A certain San Jose State student sports publication publicly debated whether they would finish with 10 or more wins, cough cough.
The players noticed.
“Y’all were our motivators,” Whitehead said. “Our own school slept on us. So why not wake y’all up?”
Suffice to say, they did. The Spartans are in prime position down the stretch to challenge for the MW regular-season title.
But knowing this team, that’s not enough. They’ll find something else that drives them. They won’t settle.
So if you still have to question what makes this team great, just know that you are one of the reasons why.
Follow Austin on Twitter @AustinTurner_