History making regular season for Gardner-Webb women, but it’s not enough

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - What a season it has been for the Gardner-Webb women as they made history during the regular season.

A spectacular 26-4 overall record and 18-0 in Big South play. The best conference record in the history of the league and that includes both men’s and women’s teams. That is impressive.

The seeds for this history making season was planted by the so called experts before the season even began. Gardner-Webb was predicted to finish tied for the league title with High Point. Really… co-champs… oh the disrespect.

“Being preseason co-champions, I think that was a little motivational factor,” said Gardner-Webb head coach Alex Simmons. “With the team that we had, with the returners that we had, a lot of time you can get concerned with being complacent and getting comfortable with where we were, but I feel like we kept our focus from game to game. But we knew we wanted to be a little greedy and a little bit selfish this year.”

And they were quite greedy as they won the regular season title by 5 games... complete domination.

The secret to success this season-- not really much of a secret. They earned it by working hard. That preseason disrespect certainly provided the fuel.

“Last year, everybody was out as soon as practice was over,” said coach. “But this year, you had more players in the gym after practice. Multiple players in the gym on the road when we call practice. One of our players came up to me and said ‘this is the difference.”

But even with that spectacular overall record and the history making conference record, they know they have to win the conference tournament to accomplish the ultimate goal-- getting that invite to the Big Dance.

“We’re not done yet,” said coach. “At this point, we want to be the determining ones on of what our (championship) ring says and we obviously want it to say NCAA Tournament.”

Gardner-Webb will take on UNC Asheville in the quarterfinals Thursday at 11:30 A.M.

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