University of Richmond Athletics
A Players' Perspective
04/05/2004 | Women's Basketball
April 5, 2004
How do the Spiders prepare to build upon last year's success? Araceli's weekly diary will provide some answers as she takes us to the weight room, the track, the dining hall, the campus, and finally - the court - with several other stops along the way.
Week 17... On Selection Sunday, the whole team, coaches, some administrators, all gathered the lounge of our team locker room. Preceding the selection show, everyone was pumped and we talked about where we each wanted to play the first couple rounds of the NCAA tournament. At some point during the show, it became apparent that we didn't get the at-large bid. The room became extremely silent, and everyone wore a face of disappointment. When the show finally finished Coach Boyle told us to take the next day off and think about making a statement in the NIT tournament. At that point, I wasn't even thinking about the NIT tournament. We made it last year and did well in it, but this season, as a team, we set a goal to make it to the NCAA tournament, and we had just seen that we had no chance of achieving that goal. After hanging out with some friends that night, and hearing that the men's basketball team did make the tournament, I remembered how much fun we had in the NIT tournament last year, and started focusing my attention on winning the NIT tournament. It's Monday, April 05, 2004, and nine days ago we played in our last game of the season against Creighton from Omaha, NE. We were excited to host the first two rounds of the tournament against South Florida and Florida State. Our Florida State game was definitely exciting. In that first half of that game we played great, fun-to-watch basketball, and went into halftime with about a 20 point lead. We lost most of that lead in the second half when they brought the game down to a three-point game, but we held on for the victory. That night we found out we had to travel to play at the University of Western Michigan. Coaches also told us that we would most likely play our next two games on the road. We packed expecting to be gone for a week in hopes that we would keep on winning games. Our first stop was Kalamazoo, MI, and yes this place does exist. We played a tough team with absolutely great fan support. In our two NIT home games this year we probably had about 400 people in the stands, at UWM they had about 1600 fans in attendance. It definitely made it difficult for us to hear most things that Coach Boyle and Saona were saying, but it was also exciting to be playing in such a great basketball atmosphere. We were experiencing Midwest basketball. After defeating UWM, we traveled to Omaha, NE for our next game against Creighton University. I'd never been to Omaha, NE, and that's one place where I don't intend to return to either. When we got there, the sky was overcast, it was warm and a bit humid. At breakfast, the employee who was making me an omelet asked me how the weather was outside, and I replied, "It's a little muggy, and the sun doesn't look like it's coming out, but not too bad." He then said, "Oh so it's still nice out; this is really paradise for us out here." Sure I've grown up in Santa Barbara, near the beach, where we normally don't reach extremes of weather, never too hot, never too cold, so sure, I may be a little spoiled, but overcast skies and humidity should never be described as paradise! At that point I smiled, walked away, and reminded myself that we were here to play basketball. The next day, we played Creighton University. A tough, solid, well rounded team who can shoot lights out from three-point range, but also has great finishers. We came out in that game playing pretty good defense, not letting them get what they wanted, but things changed a little as the game progressed. We started to take away what they like to do, so they went to their counters and scored there. Then we had to try to take away their counters, and they went back to their first option and burying three pointers. They were all good players. Not only that, but like UWM, they had about 2000 loud fans at the game. Every time we would start making a run and cut their lead down to about 8, they would stop our run by hitting a three-pointer which would get their crowd going out of control, and just like that, they'd get themselves a double-digit lead. I give them a lot of credit for being such a well-coached and disciplined team. Although it was sad that our season had come to an end in the NIT Final Four game, it was somewhat comforting knowing that a team not that we lost to, but a team who beat us, would be going on to win the NIT championship game. Again, looking back at our season, we can point out the fact that we weren't A-10 Champions, and we didn't make it into the NCAA tournament, but I'd like to think that like last year, we took another major step in this program. Not only that, but we had a great time making our run in the NIT tournament. Now, we thank our seniors, Amber Goppert and Melissa Dymek, for their dedication to this program, we look within ourselves to improve in the off-season because next year we want to learn from this season and take a much bigger step. Our schedule in the off-season is a little less demanding then during season. We are going to start individual workouts with the coaches once again, and that will be twice a week. We'll be lifting weights with our favorite Strength and Conditioning Coach, Tank, and we'll be playing pick-up basketball on our own three times a week. We'll only be doing this for about the next three weeks, because we'll be taking our final exams the last week of April and first week of May. For me, it will be back to Santa Barbara for a couple of weeks while most of the other girls will also be going home, before returning for summer school on campus. |
