Happy Holidays from Women's Basketball!!

Hello Falcon Fans!

I apologize for the delay in recent postings, but sometimes you get so wrapped up in the season...the next scout, the travel, practices...that you tend to forget that there actually is life outside of basketball! :)

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season...and enjoying the 7 game winning streak that we are on! After a rough start to the season, our young team is growing up and coming together. We had a long 7 day road trip over Thanksgiving break (lovingly nicknamed the Griswold Family Thanksgiving Bus Trip!!). On that trip there was some good team bonding and 3 road wins. We are now in the midst of a 4-game homestand. We just defeated a very good St. Bonaventure team on Sunday. This Sunday, we take on the Hartford Hawks. They are known as one of the best mid-major teams on the east coast, so it should be a good game and a tough matchup for us! I hope everyone can get away from the chaos of last minute Christmas shopping and head over to Anderson for the game at 2 pm on Sunday!

I was going to ask a player to do this week's blog, but they are all brain-fried from exams, so I thought I would give them a break from any additional "homework" these days! Christmas break is a great time of year for our team. First, the team gets a few days off to spend with their families...a much needed break for players and staff alike. When we return on the night of the 26th to practice, it starts three weeks where the players have nothing to do but play basketball and hang out with each other. It's a good time to come together and continue to get better before heading into MAC play in January.

When we return, we also have our annual Team Christmas Party!! :) This is a much anticipated event for the team. First, we start by drawing Secret Santa names in early December. You are supposed to leave little gifts and notes for your secret santa throughout the month. Some are definitely better than others at this. For example, my lovely secret santa has left me cute coffee mugs with hot chocolate, candy, gum, etc. Coach Roos's secret santa however, left her a handful of M&M's on her desk. Kelly's secret santa dumped a whole bucket of double bubble gum in her locker. I actually thought that was quite funny. :) Anyway, so the party is always hosted by some of our most favorite people, Diane Tymiak and Eileen Weithman. They graciously open up their home and basement for our gathering. We have a good meal...and then the games begin. We start by opening our secret santa gifts to each other. As many of you know, our team and coaching staff are ultra-competitive, so no doubt the Christmas games get pretty intense. We start with the numbers game where the highest number picks a gift out of the middle first. Then the next person can either steal that gift or take a chance and open another one. And so on and so on. The good gifts (sweatshirts, shorts, under armor shirts) get stolen most often. Then we play the dice game...this is when it helps to be a post player with long arms and dirty elbows!! It begins with everyone in a big circle. There is a pile of gifts in the middle. There are 6 sets of dice that get passed around the circle for a set amount of time. Every time you roll a double, you get to grab a gift out of the middle and roll again. Then you pass the dice. When the gifts run out, you can steal from people until time runs out. You gotta watch out for Coach Miller in this game, because he likes to hide his gifts so people can't steal them! This game gets pretty physical! :) It's funny because when the game ends and everyone opens the loot that they ended up with...well, let's just say that there are some good gifts and some not so good gifts that people were fighting over!! It's pretty entertaining. Then it ends with the coaching staff giving a special gift to the team. Needless to say, it's a fun night away from basketball for the team.

I will have one of the players post about the party before the new year, so everyone can hear how it goes!!

I wish everyone a safe and happy Holiday Season!! Take a break and come to Anderson for our game on Sunday at 2 pm and then the men play at Anderson on Monday at 7 pm. Enjoy two nights of BG basketball before the holiday!!

Take care and Go Falcons!!!
Coach Poole :)