Throughout a season, teams go through ups and downs; they experience highs and lows. For the Davidson women’s basketball team, their 2023-24 season featured historic highs and difficult lows. Their 12-1 start included two takedowns of power 5 programs, defeating Wake Forest at home and Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium, while their sole loss came in the final minute in Chapel Hill, NC at Carmichael Arena against North Carolina.
It was a historic start to their season but even with lots to celebrate for the Davidson Wildcats, the program faced difficulties. Before the start of official practices in the fall, redshirt-junior Sallie Schutz and junior Tomisin Adenupe each suffered season ending injuries. The team evolved and plowed forward, finding ways to incorporate those two into their day-to-day even as they stood on the sideline unable to play. “Those two did such a tremendous job of really staying engaged and motivated… when we would divide the team up in practice, it was like Team Sallie vs. Team Tomisin” head coach Gayle Fulks remarks.
In a more influential way than perhaps first understood, Adenupe and Schutz would continue to help lead their team from the sidelines. Fulks adds, “I think they [Adenupe and Schutz] just really reset the bar for what it looks like to be injured but also a contributing veteran to our program”. While these two early injuries would be a harbinger of things to come for the program, the post-injury leadership from Adenupe and Schutz would set the tone for the team’s character.
During the team’s historic hot start, injury struck on the public stage for the first time as in mid November, redshirt-senior Elle Sutphin suffered what initially appeared to be a long-term injury. Fortunately for Sutphin and the Wildcats, the injury was not as bad as initially feared but with Sutphin still out for a few weeks, Davidson was forced to adjust. 5th-year player Suzie-Rose “Rosie” Deegan stepped up large on the court by changing positions to fill Sutphin’s void and was a huge leader to the program in doing so. “She [Deegan] just has such a charisma to her, she exudes confidence constantly. And that to me really showed our younger players ‘hey this is what this needs to look like.’ Sometimes you’ve got to go do stuff you haven’t practiced a whole lot but you just have to step in and go do it. I think that really was a good example set for some of our younger players that then had to do the same thing as the season went along” says Fulks. With Deegan leading the way, Davidson continued strong through December and received reinforcement as Sutphin returned for the first game of the new year.
As Sutphin settled back in, disaster struck on Wednesday, January 10 in a game at George Mason. Freshman Sylvie Jackson and then Deegan both suffered injuries that would end up being season ending. In the blink of an eye, the Wildcats were without their leading scorer in Deegan and one of their key guards off the bench in Jackson for the rest of the season. However, following the lead set forth by Adenupe and Schutz, Jackson was able at times to mentally put aside her injury to help support her team, which impressed Fulks. “I think she did a good job of really staying positive with her other freshman teammates and encouraging them now that they were in a slightly bigger role, the role that she was stepping into too… a great presence, particularly for her younger teammates”. It takes heart to suffer a season-ending injury but still assist your teammates who are replacing you on the floor yet Jackson was of great help to the Wildcats even after her injury.
Davidson continued onwards with those younger players – Katie Donovan, Chloe Oliver and Eliza Buerk – taking on larger roles. They had prepared for any opportunity, remaining engaged even when they weren’t starting or getting solid minutes in November and December and their approach early in the season paid off. “Those guys just really bought in to doing the work throughout the year; days after games where maybe they didn’t play a whole lot, getting some extra work in trying to stay ready and because of that, they were more prepared than they would have been if they had just kind of checked out”, Fulks states. The three of them would go on to play in massive situations throughout the rest of the season.
Things changed again for the Wildcats prior to their game on January 24 against Massachusetts. Elle Sutphin was out with an injury again and Davidson was down to just eight healthy bodies. They persevered onwards through that game and three games later, Sutphin returned to action against Loyola Chicago. In total, Sutphin played the first six games of the year, missed the next six, played in the following six, and was out the next four, before the Loyola Chicago game was the first of her final three straight on the floor this season. Having such inconsistencies throughout the season is not an easy thing physically or mentally Fulks points out but Sutphin stayed strong. “For her, I think it was the mental toughness of ‘I didn’t get to do my routine for the last six weeks every single day. I’ve had to do less because I’m not able to right now, my body’s saying no’ ”. Fulks added that Sutphin would think along the lines of “ ‘How can I go out there and perform when I haven’t necessarily done everything that I would’ve liked to have done to be prepared to go perform’ and for her, I think that she showed a lot of toughness in that Loyola Chicago game.”
Davidson’s good fortune surrounding Sutphin’s return did not last long. Four minutes and sixteen seconds into the game against Loyola Chicago, sophomore Charlise Dunn went down with an injury and would also not return to action the rest of the season. At this point, the Wildcats had seen the seasons of Schutz, Adenupe, Jackson, Deegan, and now Dunn come to an abrupt end. This tally excluded the less major injuries that Sutphin had been dealing with as well.
It was enough to affect any team’s morale so the Davidson coaching staff changed things up the day following the Loyola Chicago game. The message to the team from Fulks and the staff was, “We’re playing George Mason on Wednesday, we’ve already played them before, let’s just go get ice cream… let’s just regroup a little bit”.
A team ice cream outing certainly helps morale and Davidson received another boost when they added two players to their roster in the following days. KP Peterson and Mallory Justis “came highly recommended from our team so they obviously had good relationships with them [our players]” according to Fulks who promptly worked to get them added to the roster. While those two weren’t as experienced on the court, their fresh perspective as new collegiate athletes proved quite beneficial to the whole team. “It was just great to have two new people join things for a short period of time that just gave us a breath of fresh air; people that were excited to be doing college basketball. There was this infusement of excitement and through it all, another positive presence” comments Fulks.
But what did not help the team’s morale was the loss of Issy Morgan in the final few minutes of the team’s next game, a rematch against George Mason. “When Issy went down… she was pretty much around the clock trying to figure out how to get back. It was a pretty significant injury and she came back in about half the amount of time that a lot of people would and it was because she really wanted to get back out there with people she really cared about… the toughness that she has, is very similar to what all of them had to do, just in different circumstances” said Fulks.
The junior point guard did not play in the following game on February 17 and due to the rash of injured players, Davidson canceled their two upcoming games. To this point, the team had spent a couple of months watching teammate after teammate get hurt. And while the program needed to get at least a little healthier to be able to keep their remaining healthy players safe, there was also the mental and emotional toll to show up every day even with so many injuries. “For us, every single injury in itself was just hard” comments Fulks.
The Wildcats would return to game action on February 28 for their Senior Night and their scheduled penultimate game of the regular season. Of Schutz, Deegan, Sutphin, and Maddie Plank, the four players honored during the pregame senior night festivities, only Plank was still healthy and she had been a huge contributor for the team throughout the season. Not only did she play in a variety of positions throughout the year as needed, it was Plank’s character that played an even larger role. Her leadership and her joy was palpable during every game and in a season as trying as this one, that type of person is vital. Fulks says, “Her presence was something that was undeniable very early on. Her smile, her joy, she just loves basketball”.
Devastatingly, the injury bug struck once more as Plank would go down with a bad-looking knee injury late in the third quarter. To those watching the team throughout the season, it had never been clearer just how much the people in the program had been through this season. Immediately, Plank’s teammates put their hands on their head in stunned disbelief. Others covered their mouths in horror while more buried their faces in their fingers. A few, overcome with emotion, doubled over in tears.
Plank’s injury was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Davidson program had bounced back from every prior injury throughout the season but at this point, it was all too much.
In the ensuing days, Davidson would announce the cancellation of their final regular season game as well as their conference tournament and a national postseason tournament to conclude their 2023-24 campaign with an overall record of 18-8 and a conference record of 8-7. With Plank’s season ending with an injury, Mallorie Haines and Millie Prior were the only two players to play in all 26 games and make it through without a bad injury. Dependability from players is always valuable but in a season as difficult as this one, the consistent effort and on-the-floor presence that Haines and Prior provided meant so much. “College basketball is hard. Some games you play well, some games you don’t play well and then add on the layers of ‘Hey, I have these other people that I feel really badly for that are injured or that can’t play with me’ and to bring your best every single day was something the two of them really did” Fulks says.
Not only did the players battle through these difficult tribulations, the coaching staff faced a whole different challenge than coaches typically face: How do you keep a team moving forward and staying positive while so many players are facing major injuries that impact not only basketball but their daily life as well? Oftentimes, coaches are expected to have all the answers but for Davidson’s coaching staff this season, it was hard to have the answers when you don’t even have the players to put forth a healthy team. Fulks’s mindset for her and her staff was that, “We needed to keep pouring into the individuals and… be there for them as best we can”. That they did and it contributed to the incredible perseverance that the players featured throughout the season. The character of the people in the program was showcased all season long throughout the tribulations. Fulks stated, “I think that was the key to this year’s team; they really did care about the “we”. There was nobody that was just “me” focused and they really wanted to do it for each other”.
Featured Image: Davidson Athletics
*Special thanks to Dajah Mincey, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications at Davidson College
Jacob Munch is an alum of the University of Massachusetts. The 2023-24 season marks his 2nd season at A10Talk, where he is a proud contributor for Women’s Basketball content. This season is Jacob’s first following Davidson Women’s Basketball and his fifth following UMass Women’s Basketball, two years of which he was a radio broadcaster for the UMass Women’s Basketball team. You can follow Jacob on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JacobMunch1.