Here's an inside look at the only undefeated team in U Sports women’s basketball. The No. 3 Queen’s Gaels are 16-0 heading into their final stretch of OUA regular season play.

ROSTER DEPTH

The Gaels biggest asset this season has been their depth throughout their lineup at all positions. Being able to challenge opposing coaches with different players and combinations of lineups or offensive and defensive strategies allows head coach Dave Wilson to act as a Grandmaster in chess, consistently keeping his opponents guessing on how to prepare for the Gaels. His advantage, though, is he is playing with more chess pieces than his opponents.

“I’ve never had anything like this in 36 years of coaching here to have that kind of depth,” he says. “For us it allows us to look at games a whole lot of ways, whether it be different matchups, lineups or ways or scoring or defending depending on what our opposition is capable of doing. One of the biggest things it does is make us really difficult to scout and to be prepared to play us because what do you try to stop or what do you try to expose?

“There are lots of things that opponents will prepare for us, and we don't use that in that game.

“Secondarily to the depth is the number of players we’ve been able to keep here in the summer and what that’s allowed us to do is build our repertoire of weapons that we have in terms of tactics both offensively, defensively and in transition. So that we have more things that we can go to but from game to game we might change which set of offences or defences we may use which makes it difficult to scout us.’

This season the scoring load has been shared throughout the team. The proof comes as seven different Gaels have led the team in scoring during conference play this season. That doesn’t include Emily Hazlett who has facilitated the offence, dishing out five or more assists nine times this season.

“When you look at the top scorers for all of our games, there have been so many different top scorers, and you can’t say that for many other teams who usually have one or two,” Hazlett says. “We have so many different pieces to the puzzle teams are stuck with the question of ‘who are they going to stop that game?’ Anyone who steps onto the court knows they have the confidence to be our top scorer or pick up the slack if someone is struggling.”

VETERAN EXPERIENCE

Over the course of the past five years, the Gaels have pushed to become an elite player in U Sports finding success with a pair of trips to the national championship, experiences that several of the Gaels veterans have drawn from.

“It’s been a big change this year, Emily Hazlett our point guard is in her fifth year and has been through all of these things before and Robyn Pearson much the same,” says coach Wilson. “One thing that we dealt with at the beginning of the season is trying to learn how to play with a target on our back. In other words, we are the team that is expected to win. It’s a lot easier to get motivated and up for a game against somebody who is better that you. It’s a whole different game when everybody is shooting to take you down.

“We’ve also taken the concept of we can learn from winning. Everyone always talks about how there are so many lessons you can learn from losing and our preference is to learn from winning. I think with Hazlett and Pearson in particular with the experiences they’ve had over their five-year careers they are able to translate that now. In tight games we may have been a bit more scattered in the past. Now we go in, and are pretty calm, pretty relaxed going through it and, honestly, have the belief that any close game we are going to win.”

DEFENCE

Defensively the Gaels have been able to frustrate teams and the stats are there to prove it. Queen’s ranks first in the OUA in rebound margin per game at 12.0, steals per game at 11.9, field goal percentage at 40.8%  and opponent three-point percentage at 22.3%. The Gaels are also fourth in points allowed per game at 56.9.

“For the first time, since I’ve been back coaching in U Sports we are one of the very first teams that can guard the ball with multiple positions,” said Gaels assistant coach James Bambury, who previously coached in England. “So we have an opportunity to use upwards of five to six people to guard the other team’s point guard which makes a really big difference as we can be more aggressive everywhere else on the floor. There are opportunities for people to guard as a collective and guard as a group where it’s your turn, your turn, my turn versus ok you have to guard this one person the whole game.”

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE

The Gaels are 12-0 heading into the weekend and sit in first place atop the OUA East. With big road wins over McMaster, Windsor and Ryerson the Gaels are also in first place in the entire OUA in the playoff RPI (Rating Percentage Index) at a 0.6171 which determines playoff seeding. Having home court advantage throughout the entire OUA playoffs and the possibility to host the Final Four is something that is not lost on the Gaels.

“I think home court advantage (in the playoffs) is a huge gain, especially at the end of the season,” Wilson says. “Travel gets to be a fair amount of wear and tear. The more you have to go on the road during the playoffs at the end of a long season just the more it takes a toll on the playoffs. Plus, to be in our gym with our fans, who have been incredibly supportive over the season, I think it’s a huge boost to our players.”

Over the last four seasons, the Gaels have a 28-8 record at the ARC in the regular season and are a perfect 4-0 in the playoffs on home court. The Gaels 2014 overtime win against Carleton in the East final saw nearly 1,000 fans pack the ARC. The Gaels have won five straight overtime games and not lost in overtime since November 2011.

“I know that in my second year, playing in the OUA East finals we literally packed the ARC and there is just that kind of confidence and vibe that you get when you're playing at home,” Pearson says. “I think we are a team that plays well on the road as well. I don't think that’s ever been a concern. I know that this team is confident no matter what court we step onto but hopefully that court is home.”

The chance to host a Final Four is in the back of the Gaels minds but they know that would just be another stepping stone on their journey to the national championship in Victoria.

“I think having home-court advantage, and if we were to get it for the Final Four, it would be something very huge and mean a lot because it reflects all of our hard work,” Hazlett says. “Especially for veterans like myself, Gemma (Bullard) and Robyn (Pearson), who have been here the longest, it would just show that the hard work is paying off. Being able to have your own home crowd for such big games would be huge. We’ve had such great crowds already this season, and it’s nice to have such great support.”

POSTS

The Gaels depth at the post position, in particular, has served them well mixing in a combination of different skill sets among the assortment of veterans and younger players.

“It’s always been one of my goals in coaching to have a stiff neck at the end of the season because I had to stare up at my players for the whole season and I'm pretty close to that this year,” jokes Wilson. “The interesting part with their height is that they score in different ways. Myriam Fontaine has a very soft touch around the rim and can score from three-point range but is also very strong physically. Veronika Lavergne comes in and uses her height to great advantage and is learning now to get into different positions using a little more craftiness than physicality.

“Pearson and Andrea Priamo are strength players and have similar styles of how they get open, a little bit different styles of how they finish, but it allows us to play against different teams with different sized post players and different strength post players and being able to score from the post in different positions. When we add in Katharina Holt to the mix, she is a flat out three-point shooter which just stretches the floor that much more.”

For Pearson learning how to win and deal with the high-pressure situations comes with experience and she is happy to pass that along to her younger teammates.

“We have a lot of veteran players that have that calmness and presence when we get down to the games that come down to the wire,” she says. “Playing against Ryerson a couple of weeks ago, going into overtime, we knew that we don’t lose in overtime. I haven’t lost in overtime since I've been at Queen’s. That is just a sense of the confidence that we've all built around playing in those big games.”

ROOKIES

Players such as Bridget Mulholland, Emma Ritcey and Lavergne are the next stars of Queen’s basketball but are just as important on the current team despite their youth.

“We are very fortunate that anyone who joined the team this year joined with an elevated skill set,” says Bambury. “They were able to come in and compete skill-wise right away and then what they have actually received the benefit of is veterans who have been in our system together and playing together under the same principles and guidelines.

“So they are now able to focus on what they need to learn from a strategic point of view and a game plan point of view without being so far behind from a skill set point of view. That has made their transition that much easier.”

FUN

The only thing that the team can do when they are having such success on the court is to enjoy it and have fun. That’s one of the best parts for both coaches.

“Honestly, you spend all your career so that the players have all the success they are looking for,” Wilson says. “To me, the biggest thing is they are finally getting rewarded for all the hard work they put in. It’s kind of neat to see these players get rewarded for all the work we’ve done and, hopefully, we can keep this rolling and come away with some hardware at the end of it all, which is their ultimate goal. It’d be nice to see this realized.”

“I think the most fun that we’ve had in the past few years is to just see this team come together,” says Bambury. “We have a great mix of veterans and younger players who have really bought into the idea of being a team and being successful as a group and them enjoying each other’s success at the same time as pushing one another to get better is a pretty unique thing.”

Hazlett and Pearson know the group is special and the bonds they’ve formed off the court just help with their play on the court.

“Not having lost a game is obviously pretty fun, but we have such an interesting group and close-knit group of girls,” says Pearson, the Gaels all-time rebounding leader. “Just the camaraderie and the teamwork that we’ve had here, and as our coach brags about, we have such a deep bench, but we’re able to showcase everyone on our team that works so hard in practice every day.”

“I think our group this year, everyone is just so close and you can rely on anyone whether it’s the coaches, players or trainers just to make you smile that day,” Hazlett says. “The winning is obviously fun, but it’s a really great group to do it with. That’s what I'm the happiest about.”

At the end of the day the game of basketball is meant to be fun, these Gaels are having the time of their lives.