The charter bus wasn?t even two miles from campus when disaster struck the Towson women?s basketball team.
“I know someone has it,” freshman guard Meredith Kennedy said of her missing cell phone. “It was on my seat, and now it isn?t there!”
A puzzled Kennedy walked around the bus before she laid in the aisle on her stomach, looking under seats, much to the delight of her giggling teammates.
Five minutes later, the phone mysteriously appeared on her seat ? courtesy of fellow freshman Jessica Haywood.
“Very, very funny,” Kennedy said sarcastically.
But a hidden cell phone was just one of the antics that engaged the players en route to their game against Drexel in Philadelphia on Thursday night. To pass the time on a trip, a member of the coaching staff will show a movie, such as “Coach Carter,” “Rush Hour 3” or “We Are Marshall,” with “Hoosiers” winning out on this 100-mile excursion.
But not many players watch the television screens.
They?re busy sending text messages, listening to music on iPods, playing video games on PlayStation Portables, studying or sleeping. Sophomore guards Shanae Baker-Brice and Alexis Abraham scrutinized notes and textbooks to prepare for a midterm in their Jazz History class, while freshman guard Simona Petronyte curled up with a pillow resembling a basketball. Others traded snacks and gossip, munching on M&M?s, crackers and fruit.
Assistant coaches Stacy Alexander and Stephanie Cross huddled around a portable DVD player, going over final game preparations on how to stop Drexel?s potent, three-point shooting attack.
In the back of the bus, however, senior guard Holly Mahan and freshman forward Dovile Miliauskaite talked in hushed tones about the Tigers? season and ultimate goal: their first postseason berth in 26 years as a Division I program.
“We were just talking about how last year, three teams from the Colonial Athletic Conference made the NCAA Tournament,” Mahan said. “Even the fourth-place team made the [Women?s] National Invitation Tournament.”
The Tigers (18-9, 10-6) are winding down one of the best seasons in school history, just one win shy of tying the school?s single-season record. Their 10 conference wins are the most since Towson joined the league in 2001.
But most of the players had a more pressing concern as the clock neared 3:30 in the afternoon: lunch.
Nearly three hours prior to tip, the bus pulled into a Ruby Tuesday off of Interstate 95, and the players shuffled to a preset table. Upon being seated, waiters brought plates of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. But the highlight of lunch came as the team was leaving. Baker-Brice, listed at 5-foot-6, stood up and hit her head on a low-hanging light.
“How can you hit your head on anything, you are 5-foot-2,” Mahan joked.
Unfortunately for the senior, she was too busy making fun of Baker-Brice to dodge the light that she smacked her head against, sending the team into an uproar of laughter.
The bus pulled up to the Daskalakis Athletic Center in Philadelphia at 5 o?clock. But before the players debussed, Eric Franc, the team?s coordinator of basketball operations, put on a highlight video of the team to energize the players. After a fantastic crossover dribble from junior guard Alis Freeman, she made sure her teammates noticed: “That was a nice move, you know that was nice!”
The players dressed in a cramped locker room ? a windowless room the size of a jail cell ? in the basement of the DAC, and went through their shootaround and pregame routine, with Kennedy leading the team in stretching. Coach Joe Mathews discussed his scouting report scrawled on a chalkboard 20 minutes before tip.
And the Tigers were ready to go.
But the game didn?t go as they envisioned. Towson fell behind by as many as 18 in the first half. In the second half, the Tigers went on an 18-2 run, but couldn?t maintain the momentum and fell, 68-63, to the Dragons in front of a sparse crowd of 461. The loss dropped the Tigers from third to fifth place in the conference behind Old Dominion (25-3, 16-0), James Madison (19-8, 12-4), Virginia Commonwealth (21-6, 11-5) and Drexel (15-11, 11-5).
“We are fighters and we knew we would have to dig deep,” Mahan said. “They didn?t beat us, we beat us.”
But there were some highlights for the Tigers.
Kennedy, a native of Haddon Heights, N.J., averages just 3.8 minutes a game. Thursday night, however, she played four minutes in the first half, delighting nearly 30 friends and family members ? many waving homemade signs after making the 20-minute drive from her hometown.
“I was really nervous, but I was ready to go,” Kennedy, who returned to campus with the signs, said. “It was really special.”
Dinner from a nearby sandwich shop was waiting for the Tigers on the bus as it pulled away from the arena just before 10. There was little talk of the game, as many players broke out their textbooks or iPods. Baker-Brice practiced her sign language skills, teaching several interested teammates the word “sock,” while many snuggled against their pillows and closed their eyes as the bus whisked through the cold, dark night.
But for some, the trip back was a little painful. Freeman, who has missed two seasons because of injuries to both her knees, removed bags of ice that had been wrapped around her knees and stretched her legs across the aisle.
“I put up with the pain because I love playing basketball,” Freeman said with a smile. “But they don?t hurt as bad when we win.”
