ALBANY — The University at Albany women’s basketball team started the 2022-23 season with lofty goals: having the best defense in the America East, going undefeated in conference play, winning a regular-season title and going back to the NCAA Tournament as America East champions.
The Great Danes achieved most — but not all — of those objectives despite injuries to key players and lack of a true home court. They finished 22-12, lost just two America East games, split the regular-season crown with Vermont and got back to the championship game, where they lost to the Catamounts by two points.
“They could have pulled out every excuse in the book, and they just never did,” coach Colleen Mullen said of her players. “And to do all that with all the challenges and the injuries that we had all season, to get to the championship game, to be two points away from going back to the NCAA Tournament, I mean, truly when you look back at it, it’s remarkable that we won 22 games and we essentially went undefeated at (Hudson Valley Community College).”
UAlbany played home games across the river at HVCC because of ongoing renovations to SEFCU Arena and practiced wherever space could be found: the Washington Avenue Armory, Russell Sage College, HVCC or a court built over UAlbany’s drained pool.
The Great Danes returned most of the players from the 2021-22 America East championship team, and expectations were high over the summer.
“We were clicking on all cylinders, and they just were so ahead of where we were,” Mullen said.
Then the injuries started. Senior forward Helene Haegerstrand, junior guard Kayla Cooper and fifth-year forward Lucia Decortes, all starters in 2021-22, began the season on the bench, as did redshirt junior guard Morgan Haney, then the America East’s reigning Sixth Player of the Year.
They had all…
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