Coco Davis Stepped Up Against Air Force With A Career-High 10 Assists
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Good basketball teams all have star players. Championship basketball teams all have something more important. Call them under-appreciated. Call them unsung. Or even the dreaded “role players.”
Just make sure that when you call them, they’re there.
The San Diego State women’s basketball team has a couple of very good ones, whatever you want to call them. Against Air Force here Wednesday night, power forward Jessika Bradley dominated on the inside with 13 points, five rebounds, two blocked shots and two steals, while off-guard Coco Davis set a career-high with 10 assists to go along with six rebounds. Together they helped to keep the Aztecs together in a 68-48 victory which closed out the first half of Mountain West Conference play.
SDSU (14-6, 6-2) sits atop the conference standings along with TCU (also 6-2 MWC). Both BYU and New Mexico are 5-3 and just one game back. The Aztecs will host New Mexico Saturday afternoon (12:30 p.m.) at Viejas Arena.
“For us to continue to be successful and to get the job done in the second half of the conference season, we’re going to need contributions from a lot of different players,” said SDSU Coach Beth Burns. “It was nice in this game to see everybody step up.”
The Aztecs, of course, are led by preseason conference Player of the Year Jene Morris and fellow first-team all-MWC center Paris Johnson. Senior point guard Quenese Davis, second-team all-conference a year ago and the school’s all-time assists leader, completes the triumvirate. Those three are the cover girls on the SDSU Media Guide, but Bradley and Davis — who’s Quenese’s younger sister — are equally important to SDSU’s success.
Bradley, a junior transfer from Baylor, leads the Aztecs in rebounding this season, averaging nearly eight boards a game and contributing the same number of points. When she’s helping to control the paint, as she did Wednesday, things open up even more for Johnson, who scored 17 points to lead SDSU against the Falcons.
Meanwhile, Coco Davis normally plays somewhat in the shadow of her big sister. But against Air Force (3-18, 0-8) she stepped center stage and allowed SDSU to pick apart the Falcons’ matchup zone defense with her pinpoint passing to the interior. SDSU scored 48 points in the paint, jumping to an early lead and leading by double-digits throughout the contest. Coco averages five points, four assists and four rebounds per game — numbers that don’t make headlines but are nonetheless essential.
Beyond the starting five, Burns is still looking to get increased productivity from her bench, which was weakened considerably by season-ending knee injuries to young guards Gabrielle Clark and Kiyana Stamps in November. When junior guard Jerica Williams left the team in early December, the forces were depleted even more. As a result, Quenese Davis was forced to carry the team through the rest of December, and did, averaging nearly 20 points per game. Morris picked up the slack once conference play started, averaging 19.3 points through the first seven MWC games — best in the league.
Nevertheless, the stars can’t always shine — both starting guards scored just nine against Air Force — and when they don’t, others must be ready to step in. Allison Duffy, an honorable mention all-conference forward two seasons ago as a freshman before sitting out nearly all of last season, has gotten back into the groove coming off the bench the last couple of weeks, and now has been joined by her younger sister Ashley, a freshman guard, who has set new career-high point totals in each of her last two games.
Against the Falcons, the Duffy duo — both from Lakeside’s El Capitan High School — combined for 11 points, eight rebounds and three steals.
The added depth will be crucial as the season rolls on. Six of the conference’s nine teams are at .500 or better and within two games of the front-running Aztecs and Lady Frogs. Other than the Air Force breather, there are no gimmies on the schedule the rest of the way.
“In a lot of ways, this conference will be decided by which teams can maintain their energy as we go down the stretch,” Burns said. “The more players you have contributing, the better chance you have of surviving.”
– Ello –
