| This season fans will have the opportunity to see first-hand what it it’s like to be a part of the women’s basketball program at Georgia Tech in a series of online journal entries at Ramblinwreck.com written by freshman Shaday “Day-Day” Woolcock. |
Check out Day-Day’s latest entry below:
Nov. 20, 2007
Its seems like just yesterday we were waking up at six in the morning running three miles getting well-conditioned for our up coming season. Now the season was here and the first game was only one week away.
My teammates and I could tell how close the season was just by the intensity the coaches brought in practice. It seemed like so much to learn in such little time, especially since we have a good amount of freshmen who contribute tremendously. We spent many practices going over offenses and defenses and how to actually execute plays instead of just going through the motions. Coach showed us the difference between being a group of good ball players versus being a group of good ball players who play together. Once we mastered this lesson, it makes things so much easier on and off the court. This was a very crucial time to pay attention and focus in and like always, communication was key. Coach expressed the importance of limiting our social life and focusing on the more important things which are academics then basketball. And in order for us to be as successful as we plan to be, we know we have to sacrifice and cut back on things outside the classroom and the gym.
To prepare us for our first game, we competed in an exhibition game with Premier Players. Before the game coach laid out the game plan and told us exactly what we needed to do in order to win. When the time came, everyone seemed pumped and ready to go and even though I’m still not allowed to play yet, I was pumped and ready to motivate my teammates as much as I could. This was our home floor and no one was about to come in our gym and get a win on us. Plus we all felt that starting the season off with an “L” wasn’t a good sign.
Game time started and we quickly dug ourselves a whole. We had turn over after turn over and many of them were uncontested. The first half was the worst. Besides the turnovers, there was lack of energy and communication and at one point we were down by twenty points. The expressions of how we felt were all over our faces as we walked to the locker room at halftime. Coach wasn’t going to allow us to just settle though. She knows this team has a lot of pride and she does an excellent job of pulling it out of us.
Second half was so much better, fewer turnovers, more communication, more energy, and most of all, more leadership. We ran hard; pressing, making shots, and causing turnovers and changed a twenty point lead into a one point game. However, the clock ran out and there was no more time left to compete.
Losing on our home court really hurt, but this game taught us so much. First half, we were “5 fingers on a hand.” Second half, we played “as a fist.” Now we knew exactly what coach meant when she would say this. This game allowed us to realize what we needed to focus on for the next couple of practices before the first game and surely turnovers were addressed.
Five days later we were suited up and ready to play Davidson. We ended up forcing them to have thirty-one turnovers in which we scored thirty-two points from, dominating the game by nineteen points. As a team, I think our greatest lesson was, its not what happens to you, it’s how you use it to prepare for next time. And we did a wonderful job with that.
– Shaday “Day-Day” Woolcock
