Coach’s Favorite Christmas Presents

Christmas was wonderful! Family time, good meals and lots of laughter all come together at this joyous time of the year.

But my favorite Christmas presents came late and never made it under the tree. They arrived on Dec 29 during our Blue Sky Basketball Classic. I was minding my own business at the press table watching Vermont beat Dayton, when I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around and there was a tanned, fit, smiling Koren Schram’09! What a treat! Koren was home for the holidays from Iceland, where she is having a blast playing on a professional basketball team. It was so much fun to spend time with her, but I had to cut the conversation short ... we had a game to be played.

So I assumed my pre-game position on the bench waiting for the URI game to begin. Much to my surprise out of the stands comes Derrick Harrison ’07! Derrick was our team manager and my good friend. Derrick is teaching math in a middle school in the Bronx and he just completed his masters program. He had his delightful girlfriend Amber with him.

I can’t tell you what a joy it was to see Koren and Derrick. I think Christmas came twice to me this year!!

- Coach Wielgus

Back for the Blue Sky

In my world, the holidays arrive and leave faster than Santa’s sled. One minute we are in sunny southern California playing in the Galen Center. Next minute, we are diving for presents under a Christmas tree and eating the best food ever. Within a blink of the eye, we are back in Leede Arena practicing on the newly varnished floor. The holidays and travel a blur.

It is always hard to leave your family and friends, but I have to confess I was excited see the kids back in Hanover. Post Christmas at Dartmouth means ... tournament time!!!

The Blue Sky Basketball Classic Tournament is a wonderful event made possible by the generosity of Blue Sky owner Marc Milowsky and the professionalism of our staff here at Dartmouth. Dartmouth and Marc know how to run an event. The Tournament was started back in 1978 by me and Sally Estes our administrative assistant at the time. It has been going on ever since. So many great teams have played here: Rutgers, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Marquette, Arkansas and Duke to name a few.

This year is not different. We welcome back an old friend and former assistant Coach Sharon Dawley now at Vermont, Cathy Inglese brings her Rhode Island Rams and Jim Jabor’s top-25 Dayton Flyers round out the field.

This tournament is a treat to us and our gift to the Upper Valley community — good basketball over the holidays played in front of our friends and family. It doesn’t get much better than that.

We tip-off against Rhode Island on Tuesday (12/29) at 7 PM but be sure to check out an exciting match-up between Dayton and Vermont at 5 PM. It's a classic format this year so we'll take on Dayton at 7 PM on Wednesday with Vermont-URI playing at 5 PM.

- Coach Wielgus

Happy Holidays

All of us from Dartmouth Women's Hoops are scattered around the country this week, spending this holiday with our families and friends!

It's a brief break before reporting back on the 26th but I think everyone is used to taking full advantage of the time off. We're back at it soon after the holiday and looking forward to hosting the Blue Sky Classic - our 33rd annual tournament.

This holiday season we are so grateful to all of our loyal readers and fans. You make this program so special and we appreciate your support through all the ups and downs of the season. Hopefully you're enjoying this extra look into all that goes on behind the scenes and we look forward to defending our Ivy League title in 2010.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year to All!

- Dartmouth Women's Hoops

California Dreamin

... Something we may all be doing by tomorrow night! Except for Kelsey Byrd, since she's our resident California girl!

The weather here continued to be beautiful, though we weren't basking in the sunshine quite as much the past two days, since we had games and tried to stick to our routine.

We lost to an impressive USC team on Saturday. They got some hot hands after the first 10 minutes and nailed some real back-breaking threes to pull ahead before halftime. Betsy Williams had another good game off the bench, leading us with 12 points while Sasha Dosenko hauled in a game-high 13 rebounds. Brittney Smith had nine points and eight boards.

Today (Sunday) we beat Delaware State in the consolation game, 49-38. While we are certainly working on more consistent offense, we were definitely pleased with the defensive effort to hold DSU to 27 percent shooting. Brittney had a big night on both ends of the court with 10 points, 15 rebounds and six blocked shots. Sasha added 13 points and eight boards while Faziah Steen scored 12 points. We took the lead early in this one and never really looked back.

It's 10 p.m. in California and everyone is winding down for a long day of travel in the morning. We will all be going our separate ways for the holidays and the first flights are at about 7 am so the first airport shuttle leaves at 4:30 am. Players report back to campus in Dec. 26, which makes for a short break, but is actually more time than a lot of teams get. We are also always excited to get back to host our own Blue Sky Classic Tournament on Dec. 29-30.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support and to all those who came out to watch us on the west coast! There were several families and friends in attendance and it was great to see familiar faces in the stands.

- Dara

Greetings from the Golden State

Hi All!

As you probably know, we've been in SUNNY California since Wednesday evening. We flew in a day early for our tournament at the University of Southern California this Saturday and Sunday. The weather has been amazing here in Los Angeles - low to mid 70's and plenty of sunshine.

While we're here to do a job on the court - beating USC on Saturday and facing Delaware State or Cal State Bakersfield on Sunday - we want to have some fun while we're out here too. After long travel day on Wednesday we had a quiet dinner and retired early to catch up on sleep, since it felt like midnight to us at 9 p.m.

Thursday we traveled about 30 minutes to Santa Monica, which is right on the Pacific Ocean and features a huge outdoor mall and a traditional boardwalk complete with rollercoaster, ferris wheel, carousel and more. Coach Wielgus, Coach Gleason and our trainer Mike Derosier even had a battle on the bumper cars. The outdoor shopping area was great and had any store you could want - the players enjoyed the chance to do some shopping for their "Secret Santa" gift exchange. We practiced Thursday night and had dinner joined by a special guest, Angie Soriaga ’06. As loyal fans know, Angie is one of the finest ever to wear the Green and White - she holds the all-time assists (462) record, scored 1,100+ points and had 200+ steals. She's in graduate school at UCLA and it was great to see a familiar face out here.

Friday we stayed in the neighborhood by our hotel, which is in a great downtown area. The highlight was a trip to the ESPN Zone, where we played all kinds of arcade games. There were some spirited racecar, air hockey and pop-a-shot competitions.

I'm courtside at practice right now but we're wrapping things up and will have dinner and a quiet night tonight. We take on USC tomorrow at 4:30 PST/7:30 EST. Game notes, preview and all the multimedia links are here.

- Dara

Team on the beach in Santa Monica

A Special Guest at Practice

Word came down from above. Newly appointed Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim would like to attend practice. YIKES!!

I scurried to retype and actually proof my practice plan. I broke out my new Nike sneakers, the ones I had been saving for summer recruiting, grabbed a whistle without bite marks and lamented that I had not chosen a more stylish sweat suit to wear that day!

I headed down to the gym early to make sure everything was in order. After all, company was coming.

Not only was President Kim already in the gym, but I had been misinformed. He did not want to watch practice. He wanted to PRACTICE! No fancy Brooks Brothers suit with trademark green tie for the 17th president in the Wheelock succession.  No … he was in his work out clothes, his sneakers were laced, a ball in his hands. He was ready to practice.

I decided shooting drills in close to the basket would be a good group activity. It would reduce the risk of injury to the President and allow him to return unscathed to Parkhurst. I learned quickly that President Kim needed no protection from the rigors of practice. He could shoot! He was nailing his shots, high five-ing the players and full of energy ready for a workout.

At the first break in the action, the President came over to me and asked, “When do we scrimmage?” Quick thinker that I am, I said, “Now.“ We went 5-on-5 in the half court and he picked Brittney Smith to be on his team — he knows the game. He guarded rookie Kylie Kufeld, who hit a quick three. He commented, “Okay, you get respect.” She did not make another shot. He rifled no-look passes to Brittney, helped out on the drive, rebounded and of course he shot. After all he is from Iowa and they learn to shoot at a young age in Iowa. What wonderful fun we had that day!

The players are still talking about is his visit. The buzz on the team — PRESIDENT KIM HAS GAME!

- Coach Wielgus

Monday Morning Update

Hi All,

Just a quick update on things here in Hanover. We had a good game yesterday at #25 Syracuse. You can find the full recap and boxscore here. We really hung tough against the Orange, who are still undefeated at 9-0, losing 56-42. They average 79 points per game so we were very proud to hold them 23 points below that and to force them into a season-high 26 turnovers. While we would have liked to score some more, it was definitely a defensive struggle on both sides and our players continue to take a lot of pride in their defense.

Betsy Williams deserves a ton of credit for her effort off the bench, scoring 13 points in 22 minutes. Brittney Smith went the distance, playing a full 40 minutes and posting 13 points, 10 rebounds and four steals. Overall it was a team defensive effort and we gave Syracuse its second-closest game of the season (they beat Binghamton by 13, 87-74).

It's awesome to see how everyone has been coming along both individually and as a team. These trips that we take during the school break are such good times for team bonding.

That's it for now. Team will do some light work today to keep their legs. Then we're off to California for the Univ. of Southern California's tourney on Wednesday (12/16). First game in Cali is on Saturday at 4:30 PST against the Trojans. We'll be in touch before then!

- Dara

On The Road Again

Hey loyal Big Green fans!

Sorry it's been a full week since our last post, I actually didn't realize it! We've been traveling through New York this week and sometimes we don't have the most reliable internet access.

Anyhow, we picked up a big win at Stony Brook on Friday night! We came out strong, moving the ball really well and forcing the Seawolves into turnovers left and right. We went up 18-3 and eventually led by 19 in the first half. Our halftime lead was 12, 39-27, which was our high for first-half points this season.

Stony Brook came out on fire in the second half. Give them credit for responding to the deficit - they also had two starters out with foul trouble in the first - so with those players back they made a big run. We had a nine point edge midway through the second half but the Seawolves wouldn't back down. Thankfully we hit some big shots when we needed to never let them tie or take a lead. Brittney Smith took the team on her back late, scoring eight points in a four minute stretch before fouling out with 2:24 left to play. The rest of the team stepped up and made some key defensive stands for us to take the 77-72 win, iced by a pair of Meghan McFee free throws.

Brittney finished with a full statline - 17 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and two blocks. We got awesome performances from sophomore forward Sasha Dosenko, with 18 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and freshman guard Faziah Steen, who scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds in just 24 minutes.

We spent the night on Long Island on Friday before driving over to Syracuse on Saturday morning. Team had a good practice at the Carrier Dome - see pictures below - and a good dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. This morning we had shootaround, but not at the Carrier Dome, since the Syracuse men play at 1 p.m. today. Syracuse was nice enough to let us use their brand new practice facility, made possible and named after NBA star Carmelo Anthony, who led the Cuse men to the 2003 national title.

We tip-off against #25 Syracuse at 5 p.m. tonight - yup, the Orange, who are 8-0, cracked the top-25 this week. Game notes and livestat/video links are here.

We'll have some thoughts on the weekend from Coach Wielgus up tomorrow and some details on our upcoming trip to Californ-i-a this week!

-Dara

A Quiet Week in Leede Arena

Hi All

Just a quick update on the goings on, or lack thereof, for the team this week! Actually, the players have been plenty busy, but basketball has taken a bit of a backseat to academics this week. It's finals week for the fall term at Dartmouth - not fun for the students but a little break for the staff.

The team had both Monday and Tuesday off to rest their bodies after a grueling start to the season and a long trip home from Cincinnati. I think some folks hit the gym to get some shots up on Tuesday, but overall, a good chance to rest. Classes ended on Wednesday afternoon with a two-day reading period to follow. The coaches held practice on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but the team was off on Saturday and Sunday to take their finals and finish up papers. I'm always impressed by how the players work ahead and take care of their academic business in a timely manner.

Things will be back to normal for the on-court schedule soon and we hit the road on Friday for a long trip to Stony Brook (play on Dec. 11) then upstate to Syracuse for a game on Sunday (Dec. 13) evening. Then it's off to California on Dec. 16!

The coming weeks are my favorite time of the season and I know the players enjoy it too. The break between games allows the coaching staff to focus on our offense in practice and the ensuing break from school lets the players focus only on basketball and each other. We also always take some good road trips at this time of year and everyone is so much more relaxed and able to have fun.

- Dara

Some Perspective on the Schedule

I've said it before and I'll say it again: To be the best, you have to play the best.

In order to truly develop as a basketball team, players need to be tested against teams that are at a high level - be it physically, skill-wise or experience. Dartmouth has always held itself to the highest possible standard in its scheduling and this year is no exception.

If you follow college basketball, you have probably heard of the letter's RPI - Ratings Percentage Index. It's a mathematical formula, utilized heavily around NCAA Tournament time, that ranks teams based on their own record and the record of their opponents, home vs. away, etc. Another key set of letters is SOS. And not the one you might be thinking of! That stands for Strength of Schedule, which is also critical come tournament time. As of today, our Strength of Schedule ranks 11th in the nation - we have the 11th most difficult schedule out of 345 NCAA Division I teams!

While our recent losses have not been fun to endure, I think we'll take them knowing that they are making us better. The Ivy League is full of great teams and very talented basketball players. When we play teams like Temple, Hartford, Vermont and Syracuse, USC and Dayton (coming up this month), we face programs that are strong from top to bottom. Those experiences make our athletes better basketball players, test them physically, build teamwork and instill a mental toughness that will be needed down the stretch.

Three of our last four opponents have been receiving votes in the national top-25 polls and the combined record of teams that have beaten us is 18-4. Syracuse, who we play on Dec. 13, is undefeated and Dayton, who we host in the Blue Sky Classic is ranked #24th this week.

It is no secret that we have struggled early in the last several years, when we have consistently played the most challenging non-league schedule we could. Last year our SOS topped out at 4th in the nation. Since 2006, we're just 2-18 in the month of November, when we often face our strongest opponents who have often been playing together since the summer. In the last three seasons, we have then gone 47-27 after November, 33-9 in Ivy play including a combined 24-4 in the last two seasons.

Our schedule has prepared us well in the past to win four of the last five Ivy Championships including the last two. The year we did not win, 2006-07, we finished second.

While there is still no substitute for winning — those W's feel a lot better than L's — we have confidence that this is just part of the road to success for us.

- Dara