Erin Buescher's Diary

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Dec. 1, 1999

Back on the road. We are headed to Tucson, Arizona to play the University of Arizona tomorrow night. The NIT ended on a sour note, losing by 20 points to Georgia. It was an embarrassing experience for us, and we are looking forward to getting back on the winning track.

With a few days off from school for the Thanksgiving holiday, we were able to concentrate more on basketball. We had Thursday completely off and I went over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner and had a fantastic time. Saturday we had a late practice, which consisted of turning in our hoop shoes for track shoes. We ran, and ran, and ran some more. Then the coaches got tired of telling us to run, so they brought the basketballs out.

The travel has been difficult so far this season. We have never had a schedule with so much travel in such a short period of time in my three years at UCSB. First going to Illinois for five days and now we go to Arizona and straight to Kansas for a tournament this weekend. It is hard being away from school for so long, especially after a holiday. A positive of this, however, is that we are really able to bond as a team. It has been great traveling with the freshman, because they are a lot of fun and good sports for getting razzed so much by the upperclassmen. For instance, Jess Hansen left her shoes going to practice in Illinois and we have stolen her stuffed animal (a green cucumber named Larry) more than once.

I am looking forward to the Arizona game because they beat us two years in a row, and we are ready to win. We can use the Georgia loss as motivation to be ready for top-ranked opponents, and Arizona is definitely one of the best teams we will play all year. Playing on the road is good for us because it prepares us for postseason. Playing against good teams in front of a lot of fans, like Illinois last week, will help us to be ready come March.

I don't know much about Kansas yet, but I was teammates with Lynn Pride two summers ago when I played with the U.S. Jones Cup team in Beijing, China and Taipei, Taiwan. She is a very skilled player, one of the top players in the country, and it should be fun to play against her, rather than with her.

All the best,

Erin