Cara Consuegra had time to prepare to play this season without Aryelle Stevens and JJ Barnes, both of whom suffered year-ending injuries in the preseason.
The Marquette women’s basketball head coach did not have that same luxury for Abbey Cracknell, who went down with an ankle injury just one minute into their season-opener against Winthrop on Nov. 3. Over a month later, the graduate student forward still attends games in a t-shirt and sweatpants rather than a uniform, an outfit she will continue to wear until after Christmas, Consuegra said.
“Obviously we’ve known JJ and Aryelle out; Abbey was unexpected. Even Kennedi Perkins, she’s just getting back to herself after her (neck) injury against Wisconsin, and Jaidynn Mason has been banged up with her knee a little bit,” she said.
“We’ve kind of had a lot of things that have — I don’t want to say derailed us — but kind of slowed us.”
Marquette’s depleted roster has led Consuegra to rely on a tight rotation. She has run the same starting lineup every game — Skylar Forbes, Halle Vice, Olivia Porter, Lee Volker and Jaidynn Mason — all of whom play an average of over 24 minutes. Behind them is transfer guard Jordan Meulemans with 21 minutes, followed by a drop off to Perkins with 13.7.
It’s been well-documented the Golden Eagles are the only Division I team to return everyone from last year, what was less known was how vital that chemistry would be for the blue & gold in light of their injuries.
“It’s really an advantage for us to have everybody come back, to have those five starters, who have started every game again this year, that chemistry and build on that,” Consuegra said. “So I think it’s just really built well over the first 10 games.”
Four core members of Consuegra’s tight rotation — Forbes, Mason, Vice and Volker — lead the team in scoring with an average of double-digit scoring and have at least one 20-point performance this season.
The shorter bench has come with its ups-and-downs. The Golden Eagles suffered a blowout loss to Minnesota and went 0-2 in the Coconut Hoops tournament with defeats to Iowa State and Gonzaga. But, without Barnes, Cracknell and Stevens, they are 7-3 overall and 2-0 in Big East play.
Despite the positive record, Consuegra is still tweaking the lineup in different ways each game, looking for the best way to utilize the players she has in her arsenal. The latest example of this came in Marquette’s 89-42 win over Le Moyne on Sunday.
“Today, we played Halle at the three a little bit, which we also did against DePaul,” she said. “We’ve looked at playing a little bit of a bigger lineup; sometimes we’ve played Lee at the four.”
Following a commanding victory over the Dolphins, the Golden Eagles only have one non-conference game remaining — Truman State comes to the Al McGuire Center on Dec. 20 — before diving into Big East play for the rest of the season. Consuegra called the feeling entering conference play without having a set lineup “interesting.”
“I would say we’re probably not quite there yet, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it’s a very positive thing, because we do have a lot of great pieces, and we have kids that are still getting better,” she said. “We’re going to get Abbey back, and we’ll see how she fits into that rotation, and we’ll go from there.”
While Consuegra continues to tweak her core lineup against buy game opponents like Le Moyne, she’s also preparing for a major conference road test in Marquette’s next match at No. 1 UConn on Wednesday.
Even though her rotations have changed this year, her message to the team has stayed the same: beat the Huskies and win the Big East, with or without a fully healthy roster.
“That’s our mindset, and so we’re going there to compete,” she said. “We’re built for this; we want to play against the best in the country, and that’s what we’re about to go do.
Volker shared her coach’s sentiment about the Golden Eagles’ upcoming matchup with the Huskies.
“I’m excited,” she said. “You come to school like Marquette to play the best teams, so the opportunity is coming.”
This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at mia.thurow@marquette.edu.