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| 10-23-2003 | Previous edition: 10-22-2003 |
        
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Printer-friendly version Women's basketball team learns from past, focuses on futureBy John KraftStaff Writer Your past can haunt you. For the women’s basketball team, the past includes a 73-64 loss to Connecticut in the East regional final in last year’s NCAA tournament. It’s a game that’s still ingrained in the memory of coach Kristy Curry. "It burns every day," Curry said. "There are certain games throughout your career that the pain will never go away until you get back to that point." Adding to the pain was the way the Boilermakers lost. The difference in the team’s play between the two halves of the game was that of night and day. Purdue shot 19.4 percent from the field in the first half, creating what would turn out to be an insurmountable 41-22 halftime deficit. Senior forward Shereka Wright, one of the team’s few bright spots in the game, would rather remember the team that showed up in the second half of the game. "I think when we played that game, the first half, we just weren’t ourselves," Wright said. "At the end, (we) showed that we can play with anybody as long as we play our game and not worry about anybody else." When Purdue came out in the second half, it wasn’t the same team that the fans in the Dayton Arena saw earlier in the night. Purdue shot 42.1 percent from the field and outscored UConn by 10 points in the second half. The Boilermakers pulled within six points of the Huskies twice in the final three minutes of the game, though Connecticut’s Maria Conlon and Diana Taurasi would ensure the victory by converting seven free throws down the stretch. Despite the disappointment, Wright, who scored 25 points in the game, was still able to learn something from the end of the season. "I think that the game against Connecticut really helped us to understand who we are," Wright said. Wright isn’t the only one who was able to take something away from the game. "What we got out of it is that we need to be consistent for two full halves," said senior guard Erika Valek. Though Valek was part of the starting backcourt that finished the game 3-21 from the field, she was also one of the main reasons the team was in the regional final to begin with. In the three games before UConn, Valek averaged 22 points per game, a drastic jump from her regular season average of 14. Valek would rather forget the way her season ended. "That loss is something that we learned from, but yet it’s something that we put in the past," Valek said. Your past can haunt you, but only if you let it. Valek knows that. "We can’t expect this team to grow and improve if we’re still holding onto the past." Printer-friendly version |
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