Monday Check-In

Hi All,

Just a quick Monday morning update before I carry on with what is always the busiest day of the week!

We won a marathon game in overtime yesterday at Bryant, 75-72. Click here for the game story. The game tipped at 1 p.m. and didn't end until 3:15!! It was long even before we got to overtime. The teams combined for 51 fouls (29 for Bryant, 22 for us) and 65 free throws were taken (27 for Bryant, 28 for us). Unfortunately we only shot 65.8 percent from the line - ouch - which had we improved a bit might have ended the game in regulation. However, the team really locked down in OT and hit nearly 80 percent from the line, going 11-14, including the game-sealing free throws by rookie Nicola Zimmer.

Zimmer scored a career high 18 points, Brittney Smith continued a dominant week with a 20-point, 13-rebound double-double and Cassie Cooper set a bunch of new career highs including points (15), rebounds (18), steals (3), blocks (2) and minutes (38). It was one of those games with too many whistles on the easy stuff and not enough on the hard fouls! But sometimes you just have to scrap and pull out a W, which we did.

The team has the day off today and will be back to work tomorrow to prep for Northeastern at HOME on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there!

- Dara

What I'm Thankful For ...

Good Morning!

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family, friends, fans and followers out there. As we go through the ups and downs of the season your support means so much to us and we are thankful for you. We hope that you all have a wonderful day today!

If you saw the story on last night’s game, I think you’ll see that Dartmouth women’s basketball is thankful for it’s 66-51 win over Vermont! We really needed that win and the best part about it was getting there with a combination of tough, stifling defense and balanced offense. We had four players scored in double figures and four players had at least three assists. We shot 43 percent and had assists on 15 of our 25 field goals. The players really shared the ball well and showed just how much they want to see their teammates succeed. This is a particularly unselfish group.

Obviously the team is in Hanover this Thanksgiving but we will enjoy the day together. After a midday practice, we will have dinner at a local inn at 3 and will head back to Coach Wielgus’ house for dessert and some downtime, playing games and watching football!


So in the Thanksgiving tradition, I posed a question to our team, asking them to answer “What are you thankful for this year?” Here are their responses:

Cassie Cooper ’11: I'm thankful for all the loving and supportive people I have in my life. I feel so blessed every day.

Meghan McFee ’11: I am thankful for my friends and family, especially my parents, as well as for the incredible opportunities I've had throughout my life to become the person I am today.

Brittney Smith ’11: I'm thankful that I have great teammates and coaches that I don't mind spending Thanksgiving with. I'm also thankful that we got our first win of the season!

Louise Vanden Bosch ’11: I am truly thankful for my amazing family and friends — I could not have been more blessed. I am also thankful for the opportunity to play for a team with incredible people as well as so much tradition at such a prestigious institution.

Sasha Dosenko ’12: I am thankful for being done with classes until Monday!

Kelsey Byrd ’13: I am thankful for the family and friends who have supported me through good times and bad.

Kylie Kufeld ’13: I'm thankful for my family and friends, not only at home, but also here at Dartmouth, and the experiences I've had so far.

Faziah Steen ’13: I’m thankful for my caring teammates and supportive basketball staff.

Zakia Lghzaoui ’13: I am thankful to be able to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with my Dartmouth women's basketball family. Since we can't be with our families, we always make Thanksgiving Day fun and eventful.

Arianne Hunter ’14: I'm thankful for the progress I’m making on my knee recovery and those who are helping me and for my family back home.

Eve Zelinger ’14: I am thankful for my supportive family, my crazy fun teammates and friends, and Oreo mint ice cream.

Nicola Zimmer ’14: I'm thankful for my teammates!

Head Coach Chris Wielgus: I am most grateful for my family and my family of friends who have sustained me through all the twists and turns of my life. I am also thankful for my family of friends who have spent their college Thanksgivings with me. I am so fortunate to have all these special and fun people come in and out of my life.

Asst. Coach Leah Foster: I'm very thankful for my family. They are an amazing support system and I have no idea where I would be without them.

Asst. Coach Erin Rewalt: It's hard to limit my thankfulness to a sentence or two, because I feel immensely fortunate for everything. I'm most thankful for the people in my life, including my supportive and loving family and friends. I'm also thankful to be back at Dartmouth, living in Hanover, and working with these incredible and dynamic people on the team and in the program.

Koren Schram, Dir. of Ops: After spending last year in Iceland, I’m thankful for being in America where we have Thanksgiving!

Personally, I always get a little homesick as the holidays approach, but I am thankful that my family understands the time constraints of my job. I am thankful for their love and support. I’m also so thankful for these great players and coaches who have allowed me to be part of the Dartmouth women’s basketball family for the last five years. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

- Dara

Finally Home!

Hi Friends,

Well we are finally getting to host our first game at Leede Arena this season. While we certainly hoped to come home with a better record than 0-4 after the first two weeks, we know that this team has already been battle tested against some of the top athletes out there. That's especially true for our post players who have already been banging around with two of the top centers in the Big 10, Northwestern's Amy Jaeschke, and ACC, BC's Carolyn Swords. I think they have the bruises to prove it but they've stayed strong and tough.

Tonight we host Vermont at 7 p.m. in a little Thanksgiving Eve showdown. Dartmouth and Vermont were forced to renew their rivalry by the WNIT selection committee in 2008 and have since kept it up, playing each season since. This year each team is participating in the other's tournament, but won't meet again since they have been set up with predetermined opponents. It's become a good regional rivalry for both teams - in the fall of 2008, at Vermont's tournament, the game went to triple overtime before Vermont won.

My game notes/preview are available here.

The team will spend Thanksgiving together tomorrow with a morning practice and afternoon dinner out and back to Coach Wielgus' house for some relaxation, games and football on TV. We all miss our families at this time of year, but we've got something special here too and it makes up for it.

Check back tomorrow morning before your turkey for a little Thanksgiving edition of the blog!

-Dara

Previewing the TD Bank Classic

Hi All!

Checking in from the lobby at the Sheraton in Burlington where we are stationed for the next couple of days before the TD Bank Classic tournament at Vermont. Fortunately we find ourselves just down the street from Vermont's gym, making for some quick and easy trips back and forth for shootarounds and games.

The first two games were tough for us, and I think in a lot of ways we looked our age. As I've said in my game notes already, even though we have four seniors on this team, we have a lot of players that really haven't played much together. The first person you'd notice in that would of course be our freshman point guard Nicola Zimmer. She's adjusted very quickly but it certainly takes time to get to know your teammates and their tendencies. Even for returning starters, Brittney Smith (senior) and Faziah Steen (sophomore) there are adjustments as Cassie Cooper (senior) has returned to the lineup after missing all but two games last season and Meghan McFee (senior) is back in the starting five after coming off the bench for us this year.

So what I'm saying is, give us some time, we'll get there. As we watched film at pregame today, Coach Wielgus talked a lot about the maturation process and composure. We play two excellent teams this weekend - Boston College out of the ACC tonight and Marist, who has won its conference five straight times, tomorrow. We will be playing to win. But we are also playing to get better at basketball, learn more about ourselves as a team and to mature.

My notes and preview are available here. There are links to livestats and video and our radio broadcast.

Go Big Green!

- Dara

Good Read about a Good Kid

Good Morning!

It's Sunday here in Hanover but that's usually not a day of rest for most of us! The team will have practice and a film session to prep for UNH. I'll be working on game notes, game programs and all that good behind the scenes stuff! :)

Thought I'd share a link to a nice story about senior Cassie Cooper in her hometown paper.

A snippet on her role:
Cooper said her role on the team is based on doing all the little things. "It's all heart and desire," she said. "I'm not the go-to scorer or ballhandler."

And her thoughts on her Coach Wielgus:
"I love her," Cooper said of her coach. "She's made the Dartmouth experience amazing. She is a master at her craft."

Sometimes people laugh when I refer to the players as kids — since I've only got about 6-7 years on the seniors! Thinking about the seniors, I met them when they were just freshmen and they were so young to me. With the amount of growth they go through by the time they are seniors, they really aren't kids anymore — especially this group, but sometimes all I can think of is that group of four youngsters that arrived my second year at Dartmouth.

Cassie Cooper has always been someone I described as a "good kid." She works hard, she's unselfish, has a good sense of humor and she relates well to and cares about others. And she isn't a kid anymore, In four years she's matured, found herself and become a great leader.

Obviously you never want to see anyone get hurt, but last season, watching "Coop" cut down after two games was really heartbreaking. She had come back in great shape and determined after being our "sixth man" on the Ivy Championship team in 2008-09. There's no doubt her play would have dramatically changed our season on the court last year, but she still made sure her presence impacted the team. Whether it was crutching around Los Angeles when we played at USC just weeks after her surgery, helping the coaches see things from her perspective on the bench or just being a supportive teammate, Cassie was absolutely involved. So it was no surprise this weekend to watch her help a freshman teammate on crutches navigate Midway Airport and the Northwestern campus. She'd been there.

Knowing how tough it was for her to watch her team struggle while unable to play last season, it was really special to see her back on the court on Friday at Northwestern. I know she is fiercely determined and I'm looking forward to seeing what Coop will do the rest of this season.

Hope everyone has a great, restful Sunday!

- Dara

Opening Day

There is nothing like opening day. Everything is new, and crisp. The excitement is palpable as our journey together begins. But there is a reality to our journey. We do not test the waters or ease our way into season — no we dive head first into the fray.

This year it was off to the Windy City and the Big Ten’s Northwestern University. The challenge of playing in the Big Ten did not disappoint. They were big, physical and skilled. I was surprised at the quality shots we got in the early going. But many of those quality shots clanked off the rim and a deep hole formed before halftime.

We regrouped at halftime and fought our way back. Then things fell apart again. So the game was rough and score hard to swallow. But this team never gave up, forced 17 turnovers and were diving on the floor with under a minute to go.

I wanted and believed we could win that game. It did not happen. But right out of the gate, we experienced what it is like to play D1 basketball. Losing leaves a bad taste in your mouth that can only be removed by hard work, determination and a little bit of faith. We begin building those skill sets today.

P.S. Despite the outcome of the game, we did have fun. There were lots of alums and friends at the game supporting us. Wherever Dartmouth folk gather there is fun to be had.

- Coach Wielgus

Note: Read the full game recap here. We're off to New Hampshire for a game on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. - Dara

Season Opener

FINALLY! The long wait is almost over ... we open the 2010-11 season on Friday night at Northwestern. Game time is 7 p.m. here in Chicago but that's 8 p.m. in Hanover.

We flew out this morning and got to Chicago at about 12 and headed over to Northwestern's gym for a practice from 1-3. After some downtime we enjoyed a delicious family-style Italian dinner at Maggiano's!

Tomorrow will be a standard game day with shoot around and pregame, and nap time. :)

A lot of our long-distance flights involve bringing a player back to her home state. That's not the case this time but it does happen that assistant coach Leah Foster is from this area and spent a lot of her youth around Northwestern.

My game preview and notes are up online here. There are also links to livestats, radio and a pay-per-view live video stream.

Hope to have an update tomorrow!

-Dara

A Great Honor for a Great Player

Congratulations are in order for senior Brittney Smith, who has been named one of 30 national candidates for the Lowe's Senior Class Award, which celebrates excellence across the "Four C's" of Competition, Classroom, Community and Character.

The award gets a lot of submissions from across the 300+ schools that play Division I basketball and Brittney was chosen as one of 30 candidates. The list will be pared to 10 finalists in January.

Read the full release here and check out Brittney's profile here and the rest of the candidates here.

We're really proud of Brittney because she truly has been excellent in all four of these areas. We're also even more proud of the fact that she is our third candidate for this award in the last four seasons. Sydney Scott ’08 was a candidate in 2008 and Koren Schram ’09 was one of the 10 national finalists in 2009.

In my memory there have been maybe 1 or 2 other Ivy players in that timespan and I really can't imagine another mid-major (non-BCS) school that has produced the same amount as Dartmouth has. To me, it's a real testament to this program that not only are we winning on the court, but our players are excelling in the classroom, are involved and upstanding members of their community and are high-character young women.

This award is really one of the best in sports. I enjoy reading the other profiles as well because there are a lot of impressive men and women on those top-30 candidate lists.

Just six days til the season opener at Northwestern!

-Dara

Website Goodies

Hi All,

Hope you're enjoying the increased content on here as the season is fast approaching!

Check out DartmouthSports.com - click this link here - for a video interview with head coach Chris Wielgus. She talks about practice so far, players making moves and the non-conference schedule. And yes it's a photo of Meg McFee but click the play button and it's an interview with coach!

Also visit our 2010-11 Information Center which is full of info on this year's team and program history. Since the NCAA outlawed distribution of traditional, book-form media guides to recruits, the Ivy League decided that no Ivy school could produce any print guide, even just for the media. This Information Center is meant to help bridge the gap. While making the media guide used to take much of my time in the fall, I've still found myself quite busy as we do more and more video work. I enjoy design so in a way I missed doing the guide, but it was also quite a time-consuming task!

Hope you like the video! We plan to do a bunch more throughout the season with Coach and players!

- Dara

A Special Election

Tuesday was a long day with practice in the morning and an unusual amount of work and traffic coming my way. I went to work in the dark and came home in the dark. I somehow missed the sun. But I was not going to miss a chance to vote - it was election day!

So I rushed over to Hanover High School to get in line to vote. Fortunately, I cut it so close to the polls closing that there were no lines. But there was a surprise. Eve Zelinger ’14 and Nicola Zimmer ’14 were there as well. Eve from California and Nicola from Maryland had somehow found their way to Dartmouth College, to our team, and to a voting booth in New Hampshire. They were determined to cast their first ever ballot even if it was in NH!

So at the end of my long day I had to smile at how excited two rookie b-ball players from different sides of the continent were to cast their first votes. I have a great job!

- Coach Wielgus

Team Set to Host Annual Skills Clinic

The team is going to host its annual skills clinic this Sunday, Nov. 7 from 1:30-2:30 pm at Leede Arena.

The event is FREE for all local youth, eighth grade and under - just bring some sneakers/athletic shoes and we hope to see you there!

Read the full release here.