Published: Tuesday, November 22, 2011
UW women to spend holiday on the road
SEATTLE -- Just like thousands upon thousands of college students throughout the country, the members of the University of Washington women's basketball team headed to the airport and jumped on an airplane late Tuesday afternoon.
But the Huskies won't be going home for the holidays.
UW (2-1) began its first road trip of the regular season on Tuesday, heading to Southern California for games against UC Santa Barbara tonight and San Diego State on Saturday afternoon. And even though the Huskies have a new coach and six players who weren't on the roster last season, the flights and van rides might feel eerily familiar.
Having already taken an unofficial road trip during a team trip to Scandinavia in September, the Huskies know what life on the road will be like.
"It was a good chance for us to bond," senior Regina Rogers said of the 10-day trip through Sweden, Norway and Denmark. "This trip is going to be better because we already know each other."
First-year coach Kevin McGuff, who spent the past nine seasons as head coach at Xavier University, said Tuesday that there is one major difference between the current road trip and the venture abroad that UW took at the end of the summer.
"Now, they really count," he said of the games, although UW did go 5-0 while playing Scandinavian club and college teams. "That was as much about team chemistry and bonding as it was basketball. This is about us going on the road, and anytime we go on the road, I treat it as a business trip. We've got an itinerary, we've got structure and a way of doing things."
Under former UW coach Tia Jackson, the Huskies mixed some fun into many of their road trips but also tried to stay focused to the task at hand. Her teams went 7-12 in non-conference road games, but they also gathered some memorable non-basketball moments along the way.
McGuff doesn't have any such hopes of putting any Kodak memories together in Southern California.
"I have done it in the past, and I will even in the future," he said of planning off-the-court excursions. "It just seemed like with this trip, … there just wasn't a lot of time to do anything that made sense."
The only thing the Huskies have planned outside of games, practices and study halls is a Thursday dinner at the home of team manager Amanda Johnson, a native of Manhattan Beach, Calif., who spent the past two seasons on the UW bench battling knee problems.
Rogers is among the players who don't mind the business-first approach to the trip.
"We're going down there to handle business," she said. "I like staying focused like that. You can still have fun without going and doing anything."
Of course, there are worse places to spend a holiday than a three-day trip through Santa Barbara and San Diego, so the Huskies aren't complaining about being far from home. What makes the trip difficult is a pair of opponents that are NCAA tournament contenders, so this marks the first major test of the 2011-12 season.
"We'll certainly learn something being on the road with them," McGuff said. "I'm looking forward to it. They're both very challenging games, and we'll have to be good to be successful in either one. We'll learn a little bit more."
But the Huskies won't be going home for the holidays.
UW (2-1) began its first road trip of the regular season on Tuesday, heading to Southern California for games against UC Santa Barbara tonight and San Diego State on Saturday afternoon. And even though the Huskies have a new coach and six players who weren't on the roster last season, the flights and van rides might feel eerily familiar.
Having already taken an unofficial road trip during a team trip to Scandinavia in September, the Huskies know what life on the road will be like.
"It was a good chance for us to bond," senior Regina Rogers said of the 10-day trip through Sweden, Norway and Denmark. "This trip is going to be better because we already know each other."
First-year coach Kevin McGuff, who spent the past nine seasons as head coach at Xavier University, said Tuesday that there is one major difference between the current road trip and the venture abroad that UW took at the end of the summer.
"Now, they really count," he said of the games, although UW did go 5-0 while playing Scandinavian club and college teams. "That was as much about team chemistry and bonding as it was basketball. This is about us going on the road, and anytime we go on the road, I treat it as a business trip. We've got an itinerary, we've got structure and a way of doing things."
Under former UW coach Tia Jackson, the Huskies mixed some fun into many of their road trips but also tried to stay focused to the task at hand. Her teams went 7-12 in non-conference road games, but they also gathered some memorable non-basketball moments along the way.
McGuff doesn't have any such hopes of putting any Kodak memories together in Southern California.
"I have done it in the past, and I will even in the future," he said of planning off-the-court excursions. "It just seemed like with this trip, … there just wasn't a lot of time to do anything that made sense."
The only thing the Huskies have planned outside of games, practices and study halls is a Thursday dinner at the home of team manager Amanda Johnson, a native of Manhattan Beach, Calif., who spent the past two seasons on the UW bench battling knee problems.
Rogers is among the players who don't mind the business-first approach to the trip.
"We're going down there to handle business," she said. "I like staying focused like that. You can still have fun without going and doing anything."
Of course, there are worse places to spend a holiday than a three-day trip through Santa Barbara and San Diego, so the Huskies aren't complaining about being far from home. What makes the trip difficult is a pair of opponents that are NCAA tournament contenders, so this marks the first major test of the 2011-12 season.
"We'll certainly learn something being on the road with them," McGuff said. "I'm looking forward to it. They're both very challenging games, and we'll have to be good to be successful in either one. We'll learn a little bit more."
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