By Brian Batko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lisa Murphy insists there’s a reason she and her teammates might discuss random factoids about wolves in the locker room.
“We kind of joke that we’re like a little wolfpack. That’s sort of been like our metaphor for the season, if you will, in a sense that we’re all very close-knit and protect each other and we travel in a pack,” Murphy said Monday, with one of the newer members of the Carnegie Mellon women’s basketball wolfpack by her side in freshman point guard Jenn Mayberger.
“We joke a lot, like we’ll have wolf facts of the day, just fun facts and stuff like that, so that’s been kind of our fun off the court, but also relevant on the court. Like, ‘Wolves run at this average speed,’ like a motivation to run fast or something. It’s something that keeps things a little bit lighthearted, but also is sort of a way to sort of account for the team.”
These wolves are certainly off and running, with the Tartans starting the season 12-0 and rising to No. 21 in the D3Hoops.com Top 25.
Murphy, a 6-foot-1 junior forward from McLean, Va., who is a two-time All-University Athletic Association pick, leads Division III in scoring at 28 points per game. That’s five more than the next-closest player, and it comes one year after averaging 20.2 points and leading Division III with a 66.4 field-goal percentage. Mayberger, a native of Chesterfield, Mo., leads the unbeaten Tartans in minutes played and ranks seventh in Division III with 6.7 assists per game.
“She’s just fit in seamlessly. It feels like she’s been here for years,” Murphy said of Mayberger, then laughed. “I swear, it feels like she assists on every basket I score.”
Mayberger laughed, too, and responded, “You make every basket, so it’s easy,” which is only a slight exaggeration given that Murphy is shooting 80 percent, best in the NCAA at any level by a wide margin.
Fifth-year Tartans coach Jacquie Hullah believes Mayberger was an under-the-radar recruit, perhaps because her best attributes were defense and leadership and in sharp contrast to most other prospects who tried to impress college coaches with their scoring ability.
Even now, Murphy — who tied an NCAA record in a game this season by going 16 of 16 from the field en route to 37 points — calls her point guard “a beast on defense” but prods her to shoot more.
“When you have someone who averages 30 points a game, it’s easier to just pass it and let her do her thing,” said Mayberger, who averages just 3.7 points but set a school record with 12 assists in a game last month.
It’s not always Mayberger to Murphy, though. There’s junior guard Jackie Hudepohl, a transfer from Division I Colgate who is second on the team with 15.3 points per game and has done a little of everything while bouncing back from a season-ending knee injury last year. Along with Hudepohl and Murphy, seniors Lindsay Poss and Liza Otto — two more double-figure scorers — round out the captains of a team that has won all but two games by double-digits and already matched its win total from the past two seasons, when it finished 12-13.
“We’re still keeping ourselves very humbled and continuing to get better every day, but it is exciting,” said Murphy, whose team opened UAA play Saturday with an 85-61 win at Case Western and continues conference action at 6 p.m. Friday at home against Chicago. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t very exciting to be getting some national attention and also to still be undefeated, but again, taking it game by game.”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.