Hardy's Blog

University of New Haven women's basketball student-athlete Jasmine Hardy will be blogging on a monthly basis for the Chargers. Giving some insight into the UNH women's basketball team, Hardy will give a first-hand view of what it is truely like to be a UNH women's basketball player. For previous blogs, click on the link located on the left side of the page.

Sunday, October 25, 2009: Basketball season is here!

So much has happened since last time I wrote. Pre-season ended well for us and we all got a nice break over Columbus Day weekend. Many of us went home and it was very nice to get away for a few days and relax before the start of regular season.

Midnight Madness was great fun. Both the women's and men's teams were announced, there were games and competitions for the crowd, both teams played a short scrimmage, and we all got to start the season off on a fun note. There were a few technical difficulties which inhibited our dance performance a bit, but other than that the night went quite well and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Practices have started off well. We are all glad to be back in practice mode as opposed to straight conditioning. We are continuing with our lifting two or three times a week before or after practice, but overall the schedule has been less hectic thus far than that of pre-season. Practices are very intense and we have been doing not only a lot of learning but also a lot of scrimmaging, trying to get a feel of playing with each other.

With five new freshmen on the team there are quite a few people for the returners to get to know on the court and every day our chemistry is getting better. We are focused on defense for the upcoming season and therefore have been doing a lot of defensive breakdown drills. The returners have been helping us freshman out consistently, talking us through drills, telling us where to go within the offenses and defenses, and generally encouraging us. This has been highly appreciated because we are all trying to learn and remember all the drills, offenses, defenses, and concepts as quickly as possible, all the while trying to catch up to the speed of the game.

We have put in some of our offenses and defenses and are working on them so that our understanding of them and fluidity within them can improve. We had our first scrimmage today against Columbia! It went pretty well overall and was a good start given it was our first time playing anyone other than ourselves. It was a controlled scrimmage and it really showed us what some of the things we need to work on are. We come away from it with a much better understanding as to what our strengths and weaknesses are and where we are at after the first week and a half of practice. We now get to reassess and come back into practices focused and prepared to work on our weaknesses.

We are very excited as a group to get further into the season and to keep working hard every day in practices. We also all have individual work to do in our own time to get ourselves where we need to be so that we may best help the team. We have our second scrimmage on Saturday at Quinnipiac and have a lot of work to do in the upcoming week of practice! We are less than a month away from our first game and we are all eager to improve as much as possible before then!

We have two more scrimmages and then regular season games begin! The beginning of the season has been good so far and we are hoping to continue this positive energy and head into the season ready to go!!

Until next time - Jasmine