 "Photo: Onnie Koski/Targum Photography Editor")
--Women's Basketball--
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Three games in four days is what the Rutgers women's basketball team expected entering this past weekend.
Now with two of them gone by as Ws, the Scarlet Knights (5-0) will travel up the East Coast for their first Big East game of the season, at 7 tonight against Providence.
The Friars (1-6) were picked last in the Big East preseason coaches' poll, and are coming off a 64-60 loss to Fordham this weekend.
But with the way Rutgers has come off to some slow starts lately, combined with a lack of rest, the Knights aren't taking anything for granted.
"Providence will be a test like each game is a test," All-American senior Cappie Pondexter said. "It's a different game and a different challenge."
Pondexter scored a total of 48 points in this weekend's Hawkeye Challenge in Iowa, garnering Tournament MVP honors for the second weekend in a row - the other at the Bahamas' Junkanoo Jam - while leading RU to the tournament title.
The senior was key in both games of the challenge for the Knights, who found their opponents charging and giving RU short-lived scares.
That's when Pondexter turned on her game and dared anyone to stop her.
"Sometimes she walks around all oblivious, and you just have to stop her and say, 'It's time,'" head coach C. Vivian Stringer said. "The great ones do take over [the game]. You want the ball in her hands."
Pondexter picked up her team and led them past a crucial point in Sunday's championship game, in which Iowa cut RU's lead to just two at five different times during the game, running the court and picking up her jumper to keep the Knights comfortably in front.
To Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder, Pondexter was the difference-maker in Rutgers' 57-51 victory over her Hawkeyes Sunday, and will continue to be that element for Rutgers this season.
"It's Cappie Pondexter," Bluder said. "What she has that other people don't is that dribble, pullback, jumpshot. It's beautiful, it's textbook. We can't defend it."
But if you ask Pondexter, she'll tell you that the most important thing isn't what she is able to achieve personally in her final season on the Banks - in surely what is becoming a WNBA-showcase season for the All-American.
Instead, she says it's more important that the young team find ways to live up to their high rankings and accolades.
"It's really not about me," Pondexter said. "It's about the team and what we are able to do."
Even the little amount of rest hasn't seemed to faze her too much this week.
"It's a long season and that's what it's all about," she said. "Our goal is just to be there in March."
Last season, the Knights decimated Providence in a January home game by a score of 74-40, with RU scoring 20 of the game's first 24 points.
Pondexter had only eight points that day, as she fought to get back into playing shape after missing the early part of the season.
The Friars lost Jill Furstenburg to graduation. The former Friar netted a team-high 15 points against Rutgers in last season's contest.
Freshman Chelsea Marandola matched her career-high in points with 19, while connecting for six assists in the team's recent loss to Fordham.
Gayle Nwafili - Providence's 6-1 forward out of Maplewood - has put up four double-doubles on the early season and will provide a test for the RU post players.
According to Pondexter, though, everyone will be expected to show up tonight and bring in the win.
After that, the team can go home and rest up from the busy travel weekend.
"We can't let up because we know Providence is at the bottom [of the conference],
Pondexter said. "We just need to focus on another 40 minutes."
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