Moran and St Joeseph’s await fate

SUSAN MORAN’S Saint Joseph’s University basketball team face an anxious wait to see if they have qualified for the prestigious NCAA Championships later this month.

The Irish international from Tullamore became a star as a player at the Philadelphia University before graduating in 2002. She was the all-time leading scorer in Saint Joe’s basketball history, helping her school to two trips to the NCAAs before going on to professional basketball with the WNBA’s New York Liberty, and in Spain.

Now coming to the end of her first season as an assistant coach back at Saint Joe’s, her new-found skills as a mentor to the women’s squad have been put to the test this week, following their 53-48 defeat to Philly rivals Temple in their Atlantic 10 Conference final on Sunday.

The defeat cost them automatic qualification to the NCAAs and now they must sweat it out until this weekend’s Selection Sunday to find out if they will get their invite after all.

“It’s been pretty intense,” Moran said. “The NCAAs are the great thing to be at post-season but we really had to win last Sunday.

“Now we have to wait for Selection Sunday. We have 20 wins (and 10 defeats), a good road record but if I’m honest I’d say our chances are pretty slim. We still have the NITs (National Invitational Tournament) to go for but the NCAAs are the ones everyone strives for.”

Saint Joe’s were trailing 44-28 with a little under seven-and-a-half minutes to play. But they mounted a stirring comeback in front of 2,000 fans to pull within two points of Temple with 32 seconds to go, only to come up short, 53-48.

“That was more nerve-wracking as a coach than anything I experienced as a player,” Moran said. “We just kept telling the players that they had ‘got to believe’.

“I wore my championship ring from my first season and showed it to them and they did believe, they did fight back, but it was a little too late.

“Even though it’s disappointing, you have to look at it that at least we’ve still got a post-season with the NITs. For a lot of schools, their season is already over.”