Year Off Slows, But Can't Stop Ishola & Statler
Duo Heats Up in Marshall's Run to MAC Tournament

3/4/2004

Mary Pat Statler (left) and Modupe Ishola have stepped up their games down the stretch for Marshall.

A year off from any pursuit, be it exercise, a job, or in this case basketball, would require a readjustment period that upon return brings with it some frustration and dissatisfaction. For two Marshall women’s basketball players, sitting out last season meant putting aside the competitive fire until their opportunity on the court presented itself to them this year.

Thundering Herd freshman Modupe Ishola and sophomore Mary Pat Statler watched keenly from the bench as their teammates raised the bar for Marshall hoops in the Mid-American Conference. Head coach Royce Chadwick used a redshirt on Ishola last season while Statler sat out the year in compliance with NCAA rules after transferring from St. John’s (N.Y.) University. During their sabbatical, players like the departed Amy Reed and Ida Dotson, along with current players like Catie Knable, Sikeetha Shepard-Hall and Amy Smith set the table for future success by achieving many firsts during the 2002-03 season, such as the highest MAC win total and their first ever conference tournament win. With the table set last season, enter Ishola and Statler who have been cooking up a grand feast.

“It was hard sitting out, we both really wanted to play,” Statler, a New Cumberland, W.Va., native said, “but it gave us a chance to learn the system. That outside perspective has really helped us.”

Ishola, the Herd’s dominant center, agrees and thinks it boosted the duo’s chance to contribute immediately. “We learned so much last year that we were able to step in right away this season,” the Washington, D.C., native said.

Success, however, did not instantly come their way in their first season in the Green & White. Even though Statler’s first game with the Herd produced leading scorer honors in a blowout of Morgan State and the same happened to Ishola three games later versus Radford, the rust of not competing for a full year was evident.

“It takes time to get all the timing back,” Chadwick said. “They had no organized basketball from March of 2001 to the fall of 2003. That’s a long time to sit out.”

Marshall’s excellent 8-2, non-conference start may have camouflaged the development of the two first-year Herd players, whose first ten games were admirably played, but not to the expected level that they can boast now. Ishola has doubled her rebound production from the first ten games to the Herd’s last nine contests, including six more minutes per game while her scoring is up from 3.3 points to 6.0 points per game. Statler’s field goal percentage, minutes, assists and scoring have all also risen in that span. Ishola is now the team leader in field goal percentage (52.8) and blocks (0.7/game, 12th in MAC) and she recorded her first career double-double with 10 points and a career-high 12 rebounds in the regular season finale versus Akron.

Statler is one of the hottest players at Chadwick’s disposal, reaching double digits in points in five of the last six games (12.8/game) to help guide the Herd to a 4-2 record in that span. Statler, along with fellow guard Shepard-Hall, dropped 18 points at Toledo to net the Herd’s first ever win over the Rockets. She was nearly perfect on the evening, going 5-for-6 from the floor (2-of-2 from downtown) and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line.

All of this production for Chadwick has come primarily from the bench, as the pair has only six starts between them.

“They’re getting comfortable with their roles and becoming more experienced,” the third-year Marshall coach said. “They are entering their comfort zones, and what’s great is that Modupe has another three years and M.P. has two.”

“My role is shooting the ball and having a scorer’s mentality that puts points on the board,” Statler, a guard, said. Ishola recognizes the quality low post presence that she brings to the hardwood, but the two are quick not to accept too much credit for the recent momentum that Marshall has been building.

“It’s not just us, everyone is contributing,” Statler said. “The playoffs are here. We just started relaxing and doing what we needed to do to perform. We didn’t realize we were rusty, but we were.”

Statler’s 40 percent success rate from the beyond the arc is the third best single-season clip in Marshall history.

Winning four out of the last six games and putting together back-to-back wins to end the regular season – MU’s first two-game win streak since early January – has the youthful duo focused on making a deep run into the MAC Tournament, which starts Saturday.

“What we want most is to win the MAC,” Ishola said. Statler added that the Herd’s regular season, which produced the highest number of MAC wins and overall wins since Marshall joined the league in 1997, has armed the team for the weekend and beyond. Facing a Buffalo team that dismantled the Herd by 19 points on Jan. 17 at Alumni Arena is just icing on the cake, Statler says, after a scheduling quirk allowed the East Division foes to play each other only once in the regular season.

“Things happen for a reason,” Statler said. “I had a feeling we’d see them (Buffalo) again.”

Although the Bulls dealt Marshall a 79-60 loss, Statler set a season-high with 19 points and established career-highs in field goals (8), field goal attempts (16) and assists (4). The rematch comes as the first MAC Tournament game to be held at the Cam Henderson Center. Tip-off between the No. 11 Bulls and No. 6 Herd is at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

As Chadwick prepares his program for its most important home game since he and his staff arrived in Huntington three seasons ago, he knows that he has two exceptional players that were the team’s biggest fans a year ago, but maybe their most significant role players today.

Story written by Brandon Parro, Marshall Sports Information.