Christmas Break

I love my mom. It was December 23rd and we just caught a convincing “L” at the hands of the UConn Huskies. Yet as we made the 2.5 hour drive from Storrs back home to Queens the first thing out of my mother's mouth was, “There’s a lot of time in the season to improve” and “I liked your three.” Thanks Mom. You’re the best. I hope Tara sees it your way.

On that dark cold night we tried to warm the car up with chatter about all things not UConn. We discussed how my classes and final exams went, plans for Christmas, love and life, but still, every now and then, if there was a pause in the conversation, someone would lightly murmur about UConn, “gotta get back, can't let them run”… “yea… that Moore, she’s good.”

Fortunately, family, jokes, and good food will make you forget about anything you don’t want to think about. I made the most of the three days I had off for the holidays and had an amazing time with my family and friends. Hair got did, nails got hooked up. Food got buttered and baked. Presents were dressed in the finest of wrappings and laced with the shiniest of bows. The Christmas music was blasting. UConn schmuconn… it was good to be home.

…On the plane ride back the reality of things started to settle in. On one side I was pessimistic; I thought, “We blew a chance to make a big statement about our program; to garner a certain level of respect we always cry out for season after season.” On the other side I was staying positive and realistic, “We beat some very talented teams and we will learn from the UConn loss." But as a senior making her farewell tour… I knew ultimately I wanted to be greedy--I wanted it all! I wanted to win the chip -SHOOT, I wanted to go undefeated! I knew our team was good… better than good even, and I still believe we have what it takes.

The next few days of practice were hard. Really hard. We didn’t even practice offense. Many of the drills didn’t even require a ball. We worked on defense. I’m talking summer camp drill defense: pushing off the right foot and defensive slide races. We worked on taking charges and boxing out. We did a transition defense drill for about 30 minutes straight. No one dared to ask for water.

It sounds cliché… but if we won, would we have paid this much attention to areas we clearly needed more work in? Probably not. If we had won would we be moonwalking and doing the tootsie roll, feeling ourselves? Ha-ha! Maybe for a day…but not too long. All “What If’s” aside, this was a good reality check. Something that will keep a chip on our shoulder as we move further and further away from our preseason and deeper and deeper into our regular season. We know what’s coming in March… and we’ll be ready for it. See you at the tourney…

-Ros #21