Maria Marchesano
Photo by: Josh Gales
The Story of #GrowDons
6/28/2022 1:01:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Mastodon Women's Basketball Under First Year Head Coach Maria Marchesano
It has been just over a year since Maria Marchesano was named the head coach of the Purdue Fort Wayne women's basketball team.
She had a plan in place from day one, with a message to go along with it.
"We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're going to try and have some fun along the way. We're behind where we need to be," Marchesano said.
She had done the rebuilding thing before. Several times in fact.
Marchesano's first head coaching position was at a two-year-old Urbana program that she took over in the middle of the season. Walsh was 8-18 the year before she took over. Mount St. Mary's was under .500 when she named head coach.
Yet, the Fort Wayne native thrust all of those programs into regional and even national relevance, with two Coach of the Year awards to back it up.
Of course, those are the long-term goals for Marchesano at Purdue Fort Wayne. Short term… different story.
"We can't put our focus on wins and losses," she told her team. "Let's put that focus on just getting better every day."
Against Division I foes, that was probably as true a statement as she could have told her team. Blunt, but accurate. There was still a plan in place to be successful though.
"We have some pieces here that if we can grow a little bit every day, we can compete in some games and we can win some games."
The 2021-22 Mastodons returned some key pieces from 2020-21; Shayla Sellers, Riley Ott and Aubrey Stupp all started a majority of the Mastodons' games. With the addition of some new faces, there were some things to work with.
In the current era, every team needs the hashtag to go with its mindset. So, that was the order of the day.
The team got some ideas together, but appropriately, the head coach knew what she wanted her culture to be, so she suggested one that the team got behind.
#GrowDons
The journey to a championship isn't a single season. It takes years. Marchesano make it clear that 2021-22 was about growth.
That was Marchesano's message and the team bought in.
When the calendar flipped to November, the Purdue Fort Wayne women's basketball team was reminded of the challenges associated with playing sports in 2021. Multiple coaches had COVID-19 tests come back positive just days before the season was set to open against Manchester.
By the way, one was the head coach who was yet to coach her first game in her hometown.
Assistant coaches Steven Asher and Lauren Macer were tasked with leading the team on their own.
"That was my first real nerves watching the game from my recliner," Marchesano said. "I was obviously upset that I couldn't be there for my first game back in Fort Wayne, back in the Coliseum. I was so nervous for Asher and Lauren because I know they didn't want to mess up."
They didn't mess it up. In fact, the first game of the Marchesano era was a blowout. The Mastodons did exactly what they set out to do against Division III Manchester. The way the 'Dons won game one was what was surprising. It was a 67-point win, the largest margin of victory in nearly 30 years, in which Purdue Fort Wayne buried 16 3-pointers, the third-most in program history. It helps, too, that they shot 55 percent from beyond the arc. The year before, the team shot a season-long 25 percent.
"I'm not superstitious, but I'm particular about shooting and routines, so there's no way that I thought we would break a 3-point shooting record on a court that we never practice on with a team that hadn't shown that ability yet."
"It was fun to watch. It seemed like the girls were having fun."
The first box was checked. Win number one. Unfortunately, the next game did not have such luck. Another positive COVID-19 test put the Mastodons' game at Ball State in the "canceled" category.
But that didn't mean things were shut down entirely.
Masked and distanced, the work continued. Asher and Macer completed one-on-one workouts with the players that had not tested positive.
While isolating, Marchesano was still doing her best to lead the team, too. While Zoom has its benefits, the Mastodon program learned first-hand that it is not ideal for film sessions.
But they stayed positive, tested negative, then had one day of full practice before their first Horizon League game of the season.
UIC, which was 3-16 the year before, was not welcomed kindly into the Gates Sports Center.
"The girls were so happy," Marchesano said. "The joy on their faces… you could tell right then, they weren't used to this."
Nine days into the season, the Mastodons had met their league win total from a year ago and surpassed their overall win total.
The new Sellers had arrived. After flirting with a triple-double in 22 minutes against Manchester, the junior tabbed career-highs with 23 points and 11 rebounds against UIC.
"We had seen flashes from her in the summer and even in the preseason, but what we had not seen yet was her willingness to step up and say this is my team and I am the best player on this team," Marchesano said. "She was just trying to play her role, which is good, she's a team player, very unselfish.
"What we saw that game was her competitiveness and her unwillingness to lose. We hadn't seen her step into that leadership role yet, but what we saw right away was her competitive fire."
The problem with a young team with a lack of winning experience, though… winning tendencies aren't a habit yet.
The Mastodons lost their next 10 on-court contests. Their head coach had never lost 10 in a row in her 13-year coaching career.
"When we put the pieces together, got some shots to fall and played good defense, we could beat some teams," Marchesano said. "We just kept having games where we were good at one thing and not good at another."
There were two players in particular on the roster that had been through skids like this and were sick and tired of it.
"The driving force to get us out of the rut and stay out of the rut was Shayla and Riley because they would say 'we're not doing this again, we're not going through this again.'"
Sellers and Ott had instilled that attitude through the locker room.
"We're not doing this again."
After a 3-point loss to Oakland, which Marchesano considers the low point of the season, the streak of L's finally came to an end.
But it wasn't the pair of juniors that made the difference, it was a freshman backup point guard: Audra Emmerson. The attitude of the leaders on the team had trickled down to the newest Mastodons.
Before the game against Detroit Mercy on January 8, Emmerson had not reached double-figures against a Division I opponent. She blitzed the Titans for 17.
"They could've just continued to pout, but they got refocused," Marchesano said. "We have a very unselfish team but you could tell everyone just trying to feed her. They were just doing whatever it took to get the dub. The confidence that everyone saw actually produced the results in that game."
As injuries started to accumulate and the season continued to bring more losses by way of Purdue Fort Wayne, the confidence dipped again. But when the end of January hit, two wins came in big ways.
The Mastodons beat UIC and Wright State by a combined 52 points in seven days. It was the first time in over a decade that two league foes had lost to the 'Dons by 25 or more in a season.
Like a pendulum, the team's confidence had swung back to the other side.
"That was another point when you could see how excited they were about the progress we were making," Marchesano said. "The UIC game was their first road win in a long time and the first time we were in control the entire time."
#GrowDons was in full force.
"We're not in a place where we go in saying we should win every game, but there's more of an expectation that we're going to be in all of these games and we're going to compete," Marchesano said. "You could just tell in that point in the season by the looks on their faces, the questions they were asking, it changed from, 'can we win this game… to HOW are we going to win this game?' It was the mentality of 'we can compete today and we can compete tomorrow'"
One of the biggest pieces in the successes they had was one of Marchesano's two recruits: Sylare Starks, who ended up being the team's leading scorer.
A Fort Wayne native, just like her coach, decided to come home after spending two seasons at Detroit Mercy.
As luck would have it, Purdue Fort Wayne headed to Detroit in the middle of February for a game against Starks' former team.
"She definitely had that game circled on her calendar."
Yup. And anyone with eyes could tell.
Starks came off the bench and entirely buried the Titans, pouring in 33 points in a master class of offense.
"The rest of the team played pretty well that day, she just got hot. With the unselfish nature of our team, they just decided to start running plays for her."
But the youth and inexperience came back to bite again. The Mastodons lost their final three regular season games before the Horizon League Championship.
On March 1, 2022, Purdue Fort Wayne played in its second postseason since joining the Horizon League in 2020. The Mastodons went to Robert Morris, where the season ended.
The 'Dons went 15-of-16 from the free throw line, capping off the best free throw shooting season in program history.
Of course, free throws don't always win games, and Robert Morris won 70-56.
End of season talks are never easy.
"We talked about how far we came this year, how unfortunate the injuries were, but that we had people step up that might not have stepped up and had some growth that we might not have had otherwise."
"We told them to not be complacent. We're not where we want to be."
Purdue Fort Wayne got nine wins with seven in league, counting two forfeits. This was the most overall wins and most league wins since 2013-14.
It's still not where the expectation is. But growth is happening in Fort Wayne.
The tournament game against the Colonials was on the Monday that started spring break for Purdue Fort Wayne.
Marchesano had one last message for her team after the season ended.
"Enjoy your spring break. You're never going to get one again."
She had a plan in place from day one, with a message to go along with it.
"We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're going to try and have some fun along the way. We're behind where we need to be," Marchesano said.
She had done the rebuilding thing before. Several times in fact.
Marchesano's first head coaching position was at a two-year-old Urbana program that she took over in the middle of the season. Walsh was 8-18 the year before she took over. Mount St. Mary's was under .500 when she named head coach.
Yet, the Fort Wayne native thrust all of those programs into regional and even national relevance, with two Coach of the Year awards to back it up.
Of course, those are the long-term goals for Marchesano at Purdue Fort Wayne. Short term… different story.
"We can't put our focus on wins and losses," she told her team. "Let's put that focus on just getting better every day."
Against Division I foes, that was probably as true a statement as she could have told her team. Blunt, but accurate. There was still a plan in place to be successful though.
"We have some pieces here that if we can grow a little bit every day, we can compete in some games and we can win some games."
The 2021-22 Mastodons returned some key pieces from 2020-21; Shayla Sellers, Riley Ott and Aubrey Stupp all started a majority of the Mastodons' games. With the addition of some new faces, there were some things to work with.
In the current era, every team needs the hashtag to go with its mindset. So, that was the order of the day.
The team got some ideas together, but appropriately, the head coach knew what she wanted her culture to be, so she suggested one that the team got behind.
#GrowDons
The journey to a championship isn't a single season. It takes years. Marchesano make it clear that 2021-22 was about growth.
That was Marchesano's message and the team bought in.
When the calendar flipped to November, the Purdue Fort Wayne women's basketball team was reminded of the challenges associated with playing sports in 2021. Multiple coaches had COVID-19 tests come back positive just days before the season was set to open against Manchester.
By the way, one was the head coach who was yet to coach her first game in her hometown.
Assistant coaches Steven Asher and Lauren Macer were tasked with leading the team on their own.
"That was my first real nerves watching the game from my recliner," Marchesano said. "I was obviously upset that I couldn't be there for my first game back in Fort Wayne, back in the Coliseum. I was so nervous for Asher and Lauren because I know they didn't want to mess up."
They didn't mess it up. In fact, the first game of the Marchesano era was a blowout. The Mastodons did exactly what they set out to do against Division III Manchester. The way the 'Dons won game one was what was surprising. It was a 67-point win, the largest margin of victory in nearly 30 years, in which Purdue Fort Wayne buried 16 3-pointers, the third-most in program history. It helps, too, that they shot 55 percent from beyond the arc. The year before, the team shot a season-long 25 percent.
"I'm not superstitious, but I'm particular about shooting and routines, so there's no way that I thought we would break a 3-point shooting record on a court that we never practice on with a team that hadn't shown that ability yet."
"It was fun to watch. It seemed like the girls were having fun."
FINAL! 'Dons win!
— Purdue Fort Wayne WBB (@MastodonWBB) November 9, 2021
'Dons defeat Manchester in the season opener.
It is the most points for the 'Dons since 2013!#HLWBB #FeelTheRumble pic.twitter.com/6uwhQcF2XL
The first box was checked. Win number one. Unfortunately, the next game did not have such luck. Another positive COVID-19 test put the Mastodons' game at Ball State in the "canceled" category.
But that didn't mean things were shut down entirely.
Masked and distanced, the work continued. Asher and Macer completed one-on-one workouts with the players that had not tested positive.
While isolating, Marchesano was still doing her best to lead the team, too. While Zoom has its benefits, the Mastodon program learned first-hand that it is not ideal for film sessions.
But they stayed positive, tested negative, then had one day of full practice before their first Horizon League game of the season.
UIC, which was 3-16 the year before, was not welcomed kindly into the Gates Sports Center.
"The girls were so happy," Marchesano said. "The joy on their faces… you could tell right then, they weren't used to this."
Nine days into the season, the Mastodons had met their league win total from a year ago and surpassed their overall win total.
The new Sellers had arrived. After flirting with a triple-double in 22 minutes against Manchester, the junior tabbed career-highs with 23 points and 11 rebounds against UIC.
Shayla Sellers loves the Gates Center and the Gates Center loves her!#HLWBB #FeelTheRumble pic.twitter.com/zWxNwcqT4e
— Purdue Fort Wayne WBB (@MastodonWBB) November 19, 2021
"We had seen flashes from her in the summer and even in the preseason, but what we had not seen yet was her willingness to step up and say this is my team and I am the best player on this team," Marchesano said. "She was just trying to play her role, which is good, she's a team player, very unselfish.
"What we saw that game was her competitiveness and her unwillingness to lose. We hadn't seen her step into that leadership role yet, but what we saw right away was her competitive fire."
The problem with a young team with a lack of winning experience, though… winning tendencies aren't a habit yet.
The Mastodons lost their next 10 on-court contests. Their head coach had never lost 10 in a row in her 13-year coaching career.
"When we put the pieces together, got some shots to fall and played good defense, we could beat some teams," Marchesano said. "We just kept having games where we were good at one thing and not good at another."
There were two players in particular on the roster that had been through skids like this and were sick and tired of it.
"The driving force to get us out of the rut and stay out of the rut was Shayla and Riley because they would say 'we're not doing this again, we're not going through this again.'"
Sellers and Ott had instilled that attitude through the locker room.
"We're not doing this again."
After a 3-point loss to Oakland, which Marchesano considers the low point of the season, the streak of L's finally came to an end.
But it wasn't the pair of juniors that made the difference, it was a freshman backup point guard: Audra Emmerson. The attitude of the leaders on the team had trickled down to the newest Mastodons.
Before the game against Detroit Mercy on January 8, Emmerson had not reached double-figures against a Division I opponent. She blitzed the Titans for 17.
How good was @audemmerson last weekend? Let @CoachMarchesano and @BrettRumpSports tell you about it!#FeelTheRumble #HLWBB pic.twitter.com/P6MUQU8xiW
— Purdue Fort Wayne WBB (@MastodonWBB) January 11, 2022
"They could've just continued to pout, but they got refocused," Marchesano said. "We have a very unselfish team but you could tell everyone just trying to feed her. They were just doing whatever it took to get the dub. The confidence that everyone saw actually produced the results in that game."
As injuries started to accumulate and the season continued to bring more losses by way of Purdue Fort Wayne, the confidence dipped again. But when the end of January hit, two wins came in big ways.
The Mastodons beat UIC and Wright State by a combined 52 points in seven days. It was the first time in over a decade that two league foes had lost to the 'Dons by 25 or more in a season.
Like a pendulum, the team's confidence had swung back to the other side.
"That was another point when you could see how excited they were about the progress we were making," Marchesano said. "The UIC game was their first road win in a long time and the first time we were in control the entire time."
#GrowDons was in full force.
"We're not in a place where we go in saying we should win every game, but there's more of an expectation that we're going to be in all of these games and we're going to compete," Marchesano said. "You could just tell in that point in the season by the looks on their faces, the questions they were asking, it changed from, 'can we win this game… to HOW are we going to win this game?' It was the mentality of 'we can compete today and we can compete tomorrow'"
One of the biggest pieces in the successes they had was one of Marchesano's two recruits: Sylare Starks, who ended up being the team's leading scorer.
A Fort Wayne native, just like her coach, decided to come home after spending two seasons at Detroit Mercy.
As luck would have it, Purdue Fort Wayne headed to Detroit in the middle of February for a game against Starks' former team.
"She definitely had that game circled on her calendar."
Yup. And anyone with eyes could tell.
Starks came off the bench and entirely buried the Titans, pouring in 33 points in a master class of offense.
OH MY! Sylare has THIRTY-THREE!#FeelTheRumble #HLWBB pic.twitter.com/PZhJuJT7EL
— Purdue Fort Wayne WBB (@MastodonWBB) February 18, 2022
"The rest of the team played pretty well that day, she just got hot. With the unselfish nature of our team, they just decided to start running plays for her."
But the youth and inexperience came back to bite again. The Mastodons lost their final three regular season games before the Horizon League Championship.
On March 1, 2022, Purdue Fort Wayne played in its second postseason since joining the Horizon League in 2020. The Mastodons went to Robert Morris, where the season ended.
The 'Dons went 15-of-16 from the free throw line, capping off the best free throw shooting season in program history.
Of course, free throws don't always win games, and Robert Morris won 70-56.
End of season talks are never easy.
"We talked about how far we came this year, how unfortunate the injuries were, but that we had people step up that might not have stepped up and had some growth that we might not have had otherwise."
"We told them to not be complacent. We're not where we want to be."
Purdue Fort Wayne got nine wins with seven in league, counting two forfeits. This was the most overall wins and most league wins since 2013-14.
It's still not where the expectation is. But growth is happening in Fort Wayne.
The tournament game against the Colonials was on the Monday that started spring break for Purdue Fort Wayne.
Marchesano had one last message for her team after the season ended.
"Enjoy your spring break. You're never going to get one again."
~ Feel the Rumble ~
Players Mentioned
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