[LetsGoLadyBears]

Welcome to the Cardboard Letsgo!

Yes, I noticed that odd way that Michelle Smith described your won/loss record.  She made it seem as if you finished the season 1/7 when you started your season 1/7.  Hopefully I got it right in my preview.   But any way you look at it, your team is very impressive to have improved so much since the early season.  It reminds me a little of our team last year, that had a very rough start before going on to a good season.

What do you attribute the turnaround to?  Did you just install a new system that took a while to master?  Or some new players?  Going 1/7 and then following up by going 22-2 is a phenomenal change.

Great question, but I can speculate. First, the team is extremely young and we had several close/OT losses to start the season as you would expect with a young team (@Wichita, @Mizzou, vs. Gonzaga, vs. South Dakota). For whatever reason, after we hung with Gonzaga until the final horn, coach said she saw a light bulb come on with the team and they figured out how to play with confidence and how to close out games.

Second, our team leader and lone senior, Danielle Gitzen, emerged to lead the team, both on and off the court. The chemistry was almost instant. As the wins kept piling up to close the OOC season, including winning an exempt tourney on a neutral court, and the conference win streak kept going, confidence just kept building. A mid-winter road sweep of Drake (which snapped a 47-game MVC streak for them) and Northern Iowa had the team feeling that it could compete with anyone, and that confidence has translated into the postseason as well.

The competition has escalated from beating Drake in the MVC finals, to DePaul in the first round, to Iowa State in the second round. We realize Stanford will present the biggest challenge we've faced all year. So far this team has risen to every challenge in the post-season, but it's clear you all will present much different stylistic and matchup challenges for us. I'm excited to see how we game plan for you.

[LetsGoLadyBears]

Welcome to the Cardboard Letsgo!

Yes, I noticed that odd way that Michelle Smith described your won/loss record.  She made it seem as if you finished the season 1/7 when you started your season 1/7.  Hopefully I got it right in my preview.   But any way you look at it, your team is very impressive to have improved so much since the early season.  It reminds me a little of our team last year, that had a very rough start before going on to a good season.

What do you attribute the turnaround to?  Did you just install a new system that took a while to master?  Or some new players?  Going 1/7 and then following up by going 22-2 is a phenomenal change.

Great question, but I can speculate. First, the team is extremely young and we had several close/OT losses to start the season as you would expect with a young team (@Wichita, @Mizzou, vs. Gonzaga, vs. South Dakota). For whatever reason, after we hung with Gonzaga until the final horn, coach said she saw a light bulb come on with the team and they figured out how to play with confidence and how to close out games.

Second, our team leader and lone senior, Danielle Gitzen, emerged to lead the team, both on and off the court. The chemistry was almost instant. As the wins kept piling up to close the OOC season, including winning an exempt tourney on a neutral court, and the conference win streak kept going, confidence just kept building. A mid-winter road sweep of Drake (which snapped a 47-game MVC streak for them) and Northern Iowa had the team feeling that it could compete with anyone, and that confidence has translated into the postseason as well.

The competition has escalated from beating Drake in the MVC finals, to DePaul in the first round, to Iowa State in the second round. We realize Stanford will present the biggest challenge we've faced all year. So far this team has risen to every challenge in the post-season, but it's clear you all will present much different stylistic and matchup challenges for us. I'm excited to see how we game plan for you.