Nique's Notes - Oct. 24

Hey Husker fans,

So the season is underway and the team and I are extremely excited! We just completed our first week of practices and I am enjoying a day off. Prior to the official start of practice we went through about a month of very intense preseason conditioning and practice to help us prepare for our schedule. It was probably the hardest workouts that I have ever been through, and let's just say that I am a little glad that they are over. I am extremely proud of what we accomplished, and I think our coaches saw a lot of positives and had respect for what we were doing.

We would practice two days a week, typically a Monday and Wednesday, and conditioned four times a week. Our practice setting consisted of mainly offense while our conditioning was more defensive related.

Practice would consist of things such as properly feeding the ball to the post in double situations as well as cutting to the basket. We also worked on becoming a more efficient screening team by learning how to read screens. At the end of practice, we would spend the last 20 minutes playing against our male practice players, which I thoroughly enjoyed because coach let us play just offense. Yay!

Conditioning was tough this year! During the beginning of the school year, we conditioned for an hour, but when we began team practices coach wanted us to focus on going harder in game-like situations so conditioning was only 30 minutes. Now I know that you are probably thinking, well that should definitely be much easier. It wasn't.

To give you a prime example of what a workout consisted of, we broke up in groups of three. We sprinted down and back the length of the court, and then got into a defensive stance, which we call a denial, and slide from the block to outside the three-point line four times. After clearing the three-point line the fourth time, we had to sprint through half court.

Now, I am sure you're thinking, "that doesn't sound too bad," but when you've done it for 20 minutes straight, it affects you! There were days when I was thinking (and I am certain other girls on the team were wondering), "how the heck am I going to make it through this?"

Then there were days when it was great. I felt good about what we were doing, and I didn't experience any fatigue whatsoever. Overall, I know these were some of the hardest workouts I've been through in my life.

Practices have been a lot of fun. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an extremely competitive person, and I hate losing. We've been going about three hours every day. The first two hours of practice consist of working on fundamentals. Things like proper positioning on defense, both as a perimeter player as well as a post player. We also spend a lot of this time shooting and ball-handling. We've been learning different types of defense as well as learning some sets.

The last part of practice is my favorite. We get to scrimmage against the guys and compete, which is what I love to do. I feel like our team has improved in areas that we were fairly inconsistent last year. That is exciting for me to see. We are a better motion team. We are more efficient in our zone, and we are really working hard to get better.

Kala Kuhlman has been a lot of fun to play with. I seem to be on the same team with her a lot, and I love it because she goes hard and she gives 110 percent effort all of the time.

Layne Reeves and Harleen Sidhu are doing well also. I think they've adjusted to basketball at this level pretty well, considering the amount of time that they've been doing it. The neat thing about both of them is that they are willing and open to learning more about the game, and they are always trying to do the right thing.

Outside of basketball things have been going extremely well for me. Classes are going well. We just had Fall Break, which was kind of nice to have a few days off from class, but break flew by because we were so busy with the start of basketball practice.

Vonnie Turner recently had a birthday, and our whole team went and celebrated with her. It was a lot of fun! I am anxious to play and looking forward to meeting my new little sister, Amira. She should be joining us in this world any day now. It seems as though its taking forever, and I want to meet her. I spend most of my free time sleeping and hanging out with my roommates Vonnie and Tay Hester.

This past Wednesday, I also attended Big 12 Basketball Media Day in Oklahoma City. It was a lot of fun. It was a great experience, and I got to know players from around the league a little bit better outside of the basketball aspect of their lives.

We have an exhibition game on Oct. 31 vs. Chadron State at the Devaney Center, followed by another exhibition game vs. Nebraska-Kearney in Grand Island. We would love it if you could all make it out to the games. It should be pretty exciting, and you will have the opportunity to see our freshmen in action.

I hope to see you all at the game next Friday, and thank you for all of the support that you've shown to my teammates as well as me. We appreciate it more than you can imagine. I'll keep you up to date on what's going on in our lives. Again we look forward to seeing you all at the game next Friday. 

Go Big Red!
Nique