March 13, 2008

Preparing for the NCAA Tournament

Now that the Pac 10 Tournament Tournament is over (PAC 10 CHAMPIONS!!!) you may wonder what we are doing. Like many of you who came to the games this weekend at HP and supported us so enthusiastically, our team and staff is tired. Playing (or cheering for) three games in three days is very demanding both physically, mentally and emotionally. I am extremely proud of our team for their outstanding effort this past weekend. Our players had a well deserved day off and all were busy writing papers and studying for upcoming exams. We did not practice Tuesday, but like you the coaches had work to do so we all were in the office to visit with a recruit visiting unofficially and to catch up on things.

Today we are on our regular schedule which means the coaches meet at 1pm to watch video, plan practice, go over upcoming recruiting trips and prepare for the NCAA Tournament. Our team will have a light practice today which will include going over our goal sheet (something we do after every game), watching our game Hi Lites from the Cal Championship game and talking about the beginning of the "third" and most important season!

We divide our season into 3 parts. Our preseason, conference season and post season. Our team has had both a fabulous preseason and conference season and now is the most exciting and fun part -- the NCAA Tournament. At this time of year my job is to focus on doing everything to give our team the best chance of being successful in the NCAA. The keys to our team making a long tournament run are 1) being healthy, 2) being well rested, 3) continuing to improve, 4) playing confidently, 5) preparing for all but playing one game at a time!!!

We are going to the NCAA, and our team is VERY excited about that opportunity. We will all be watching ESPN (ESPN will be here on campus showing our team's reaction!) and we can't wait to see who we will be playing.

We know three things. We are playing at Stanford, WE ARE READY and YOU will be LOUD!!!

Thank you all for your terrific support of our team and program. ENJOY

Tara Vanderveer

2 comments:

  1. Hey Tara! Great job at the Pac-10 tournament! I enjoyed every moment of it. Some day I hope to be enrolled at Stanford when my time comes. Well, hopefully I will see you all at your home court sonn. Keep up on the outstanding work and congrates on the win at HP. Everyone will do a fabulous job!!!

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  2. I watched the Pac-10 tournament and I totally loved it! It was the first Stanford game I've been to but now I've decided to go to every single game that Stanford plays at California. Stanford rules!!!!

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