A team that starts three freshmen in every game would love some time to develop those players, wouldn't it? That's the idea, usually. But the 2021-22 Portland State women's basketball team never got that luxury.
Eight postponements and one cancellation meant the Vikings played a compact Big Sky Conference schedule that forced the Vikings to move from one game to another with no time for development. The Vikings only once had more than two days off between games from Jan. 15 – the day the Vikings returned from a 27-day hiatus following their first four postponements – to the end of the season. Another 10-day hiatus between Feb. 7 and 17 meant the Vikings closed the season with nine games in 19 days between Feb. 17 and March 7.
So, it's no wonder where the Vikings' focus will be this off-season, following a 5-24 overall record and 0-20 Big Sky Conference mark: development.
"We don't want to be that team with excuses. That's not the mindset we're trying to build, the foundation that we have laid here is not that of a victim mentality. We want to face those challenges head-on. But there are realities that come with playing that many games in a tight window. Whether it's the lack of practice time because we're scouting, or the injuries that come with that many games," Portland State head coach Chelsey Gregg said of the Vikings' compact schedule.
"I think the biggest thing was the mental drain, especially for a young team that hadn't ever experienced a college season."
The youth was the known commodity for the Vikings heading into the season. Nine of the Vikings' 14 players were freshmen or sophomores, and only one of the team's upperclassmen – Jada Lewis – had starting experience. The Vikings also started three freshmen in every game this season between some combination of Alaya Fitzgerald, Esmeralda Morales, Rhema Ogele and Mia 'Uhila.
"We were young, not just with our freshmen, but even our sophomores hadn't had a traditional college year [due to the COVID-19 pandemic]. Our juniors had some sort of normalcy their first year and then not last year, and then Sav [Savannah Dhaliwal] hadn't played for two years. So, the reality is that when we look at our team as a whole, they hadn't had the experience of what a normal Big Sky season looks like and what that grind is," Gregg said of the team's youth.
"We continued to show up every day for each other, but it was Monday-Thursday-Saturday for an extended period of time which I think did take a toll mentally on our team and the ability to lock in and give that extra effort when it mattered. In saying that, I was super proud of our effort and how we showed up."
Not only have the Vikings not had a traditional college season in quite some time, they haven't had a traditional spring developmental period in even longer. Gregg estimates that the Vikings haven't had a traditional spring since 2018 due to various reasons. In 2019, the Vikings had only six healthy players come back from their 2019 tournament title-winning team, meaning they could hardly go 5-on-5 in spring practices. In 2020, the pandemic was just starting, leaving no chance for developmental work. In 2021, the Vikings had just gone through a grueling season of isolation during the height of the pandemic, so coaches opted to send the players back home rather than have them endure another eight weeks of separation from their families.
"It's exciting. We haven't had a spring in a long time," Gregg said. "Now that they know the standard of basketball that is played in the Big Sky and what a complete season feels like, we can start to fill those gaps. I don't know if we ever got our legs back, to be honest. Specifically, after the first shutdown when we were just entering conference play, just because we had time off and then you're trying to get back into shape and there was just no room to do so.
"I think the spring is an opportunity for us to get back in the classroom and figure out what that needs to look like and make sure things are right there and just enjoy each other. I feel like we were moving from one thing to the next and just didn't have time to breathe. So, I think that's what spring looks like."
Gregg said the team plans eight weeks of weight training in the spring, which will run alongside seven weeks of practices starting on April 11th. The summer offers another chance for development, either in the form of a six- or eight-week schedule (Gregg will decide that later).
So, the Vikings will quickly turn the page on a season that showed flashes, but never enough to pull out a win against a Big Sky opponent.
The Vikings still saw some development during this past season, despite their tough record. Gregg noted the team's resiliency, which was more than needed given the team's compact schedule.
"Even towards the end, it would have been easy for our girls to give up. Specifically, that Weber State-Idaho State trip [on Feb. 23 and 26, respectively]. To be able to compete and be right there at the end in a game that we probably should have had [against Idaho State], I think says a lot about the progress we made from early December when that was a 40-point game," Gregg said.
Most importantly, the team stayed together throughout the year, which should make the team's spring work run smoother.
"We didn't get the on-the-court results that we would have liked to, but they still are fun to be around and enjoy each other off the floor," Gregg said. "I think that speaks volumes to the job our staff is doing and the girls' buy-in, ultimately."
The on-the-court highlights still came in patches throughout the season.
Morales opened the season with a record-breaking performance against Warner Pacific on Nov. 9. Morales tied a program record that was originally set in 1991 with eight made three-pointers in the game, and set five different freshman records as well between the records for points (32), points in a debut (32), field goals made (11), three-point field goals made (8) and three-point field goal percentage (.727). Morales would break the record for three-point field goal percentage later in the season when she went 5-of-6 (.833) from deep in the Vikings' win over Pepperdine on Dec. 10.
For the season, Morales led the Vikings in points, assists and steals while ranking in the top 15 of the Big Sky in six different statistical categories. Morales finished the season ranked 11th in the Big Sky in points per game (12.5), sixth in assists per game (3.66), fourth in steals per game (1.9), ninth in three-pointers made per game (1.62), 10th in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.28) and second in minutes played per game (35.3).
Morales also set the single-season program record for free throw percentage at .913, having gone 63-of-69 from the line while finishing the year with 15 straight makes.
"Esme is a warrior, man. She's so special. I think everybody felt that since day one when she walked on the floor. Something's different about Esme," Gregg said of Morales. "Super loyal, a competitor but with a great tone. Is a leader, but didn't need that title to feel like she could be that, and I think as a point guard, you have to have those characteristics. Super humble. One of our harder workers, and you have to have that, too.
"Her ability to score and find the right pass on pick-and-roll situations, and she's so good on on-ball actions, which allowed us to change things up down the stretch and have some success against teams in that way. She's a fighter. Definitely with her at the helm, we're in good shape."
Morales headlined a four-member freshman class that finished the year with 86 starts between them. All four freshmen had their moments throughout the season.
Fitzgerald was the Vikings' leading scorer over the middle portion of the season between the Vikings' first and second restarts. Fitzgerald averaged a team-high 12.0 points per game between Jan. 15 and Feb. 7, including a career game against Northern Arizona on Jan. 29. Fitzgerald scored a career-high 23 points against the Lumberjacks while going 9-of-12 from the field, 3-of-4 from three-point range, and adding eight assists, five rebounds and three steals.
Ogele posted her best game in the Vikings' Big Sky first-round game against Idaho on March 7. Ogele set a career high with 23 points on 9-of-12 shooting in only 22 minutes of game time while adding nine rebounds.
'Uhila scored a career-high 15 points against Montana on Feb. 19, but her best game may have been in the Vikings' narrow, 67-64 loss at Big Sky regular-season champion Idaho State on Feb. 26. 'Uhila scored 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting overall and 2-of-4 from three-point range, but passed the ball even better as she finished with a career-high seven assists to go with four rebounds.
"They just have great energy. They work hard and I think it's only up from here for them," Gregg said of the team's freshmen. "I keep on telling them, 'if you made it through this year, you can make it through anything.' You really can because this was such a non-traditional year with maybe the roles they had, but more so the number of games in a row, the back-to-back preparation, learning how to do time management on the road when it's your first year of college, second term in and you're trying to balance it all.
"They all had some really great moments throughout the year, and so I think just consistency from them moving forward is what we're going to need."
Lewis and Savannah Dhaliwal joined the freshmen in the starting lineup as the junior and redshirt senior, respectively, started all 29 games for the Vikings this season.
Lewis finished the year with 65 made three-pointers, good enough for sixth all-time on the single-season list at Portland State. Lewis led the Big Sky Conference in three-point shooting at times throughout the season, and finished the year ranked third in three-point field goal percentage (.355) and fourth in makes per game (2.24).
Lewis had five games with at least five three-pointers during the season, including two in back-to-back games against Dixie State and Prairie View A&M on Nov. 12 and 20, respectively. Lewis opened the two-game stretch with 22 points on 6-of-9 shooting from three-point range against Dixie State, then followed with 23 points on 7-of-12 shooting from deep against Prairie View A&M.
The game against Prairie View A&M came as part of the Vikings' trip to Honolulu for the Bank of Hawai'i Classic, which was a clear off-the-court highlight for the Vikings.
Dhaliwal scored in double figures in both of the Vikings' games in Hawai'i, as she did in 13 of the Vikings' first 16 games of the season. Dhaliwal finished the year with 16 double-digit scoring games, second only to Morales on the team.
Her best stretch of the season came in back-to-back games against Southern Utah and Northern Arizona on Jan. 27 and 29, respectively, two games that the Vikings had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter. Dhaliwal opened with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting overall and 3-of-4 from three-point range in the Vikings' 64-63 loss to Southern Utah, which was leading the Big Sky at the time. She then followed with 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting overall and 2-of-3 from three-point range against Northern Arizona two days later, a game in which the Vikings led by as many as 11 points in the fourth quarter over a team in NAU that would advance to the Big Sky championship game at the end of the season.
Dhaliwal's production provided a feel-good storyline for the Vikings throughout the season. When Dhaliwal started the Vikings' season opener against Warner Pacific on Nov. 9, it marked her first counting game in a Viking uniform in 985 days. Dhaliwal suffered back-to-back ACL tears that kept her out of the Vikings' entire 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, making this season her first year back since she initially tore her ACL on Feb. 28, 2019.
The season didn't go the way Dhaliwal, or any one of the Vikings, would have wanted, but Gregg says the leadership Dhaliwal provided will be felt a few years after Dhaliwal departs the Park Blocks.
"I could always count on Sav to bring her best. However she was feeling – frustrated or otherwise, excited to be there, whatever it was – I could always count on Sav to be reliable and understand that she was going to bring her best effort," Gregg said of Dhaliwal.
"I think at times, the emotions ran high just because she knew that it was her last shot, her only time, but I'm proud of her to continue to learn and grow in her leadership role, meet players where they're at and continue to inspire. I think that's sometimes hard to do. Sometimes when you have so much passion for something that's been taken away from you, sometimes you don't understand why others don't have that same passion. But I think she did a nice job of continuing to meet players where they're at and inspire and encourage and do what she could do. Ultimately, you can't make people feel some kind of way or do anything, but I thought she did a nice job there.
"I'm so thankful she got the opportunity to play because I know how hard she's worked to come back from not one, but two ACL surgeries and injuries. Just the perseverance that that takes, in and of itself, and that she deemed it worth it to come back and play college basketball for us, is a big deal."
The fruits of Dhaliwal's leadership this season will be seen in the years ahead, starting with how the Vikings attack the spring developmental period that's ahead of them. The Vikings will still be young next season. With the COVID year offering a free year of eligibility, nobody will be a true senior next season, at least among the Vikings' current list of returners. But still, the experience of this year means the Vikings now know more of what's required of them in games and throughout the course of a year.
"I think my overall takeaway from this year is we learned what it takes to play big-girl basketball. The Big Sky Conference is no joke. And I think that understanding that now and what the expectation is, is only going to make us better. Because you can talk about it all you want, but when you have a young team that has never been there, they don't know what it takes. And now I think they do. So now our next learning thing is, we put in the work and we learn how to win," Gregg said.
That work begins this spring when the Vikings will finally be able to catch their breath.
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