University of Massachusets Athletics
UMass Women's Basketball Preseason Diary Entry 3: Whitney McDonald
November 02, 2005 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 2, 2005
With only three days left to prepare for our first exhibition game against Simon Fraser, practices have become more and more intense each day. So far, we've scrimmaged against our practice team three times already, and we've made progress both offensively and defensively. Though our zone defense is tough, once perfected its truly going to be even harder for our opponents this year! We just put in two new offenses, another out-of -bounds play and worked on our full court press. Everybody is working together and playing hard. This year we're concentrating on not noticing just team progress but individual strides to improvement. Each week somebody new will be recognized for her hard work and will receive the "Minute woman of the week" award. It is evident that this will create more focus, enhance our competitiveness and determination, which will only build our program to higher esteems. It seems like everybody is on the same wavelength this season- we all want it! Judging from our practices, weight lifting and scrimmages you can see an unrelenting attitude on and off the court.
NOTE: This is the second in a series of diary entries leading up to the start of the regular season Nov. 18. For the next few weeks, a different player will submit an entry every couple of days talking about what the team is doing to prepare for the start of the season.