In describing her women’s basketball team, coach Kay Yow compared it to a woman looking to swim across the English Channel. Swimming through a thick fog, the woman gives up on her first attempt, only to realize “in a matter of seconds, she could see the shore.”
The woman then trains a bit harder, sees her goal and accomplishes it on her next attempt.
Such is the state of the women’s basketball team (12-7, 0-4). Though the team has failed to earn its first conference win, three of its four losses have been by nine points or less, giving Yow and her team hope that they are very close to turning the season around.
“Sometimes young players can’t see it,” Yow said. “It’s that close. We have to see how close we are. It’s not like we’re way off and can’t do it. We can do it; we just have to set our minds to it, believe and execute better.”
The women will have two opportunities to change their conference struggles this weekend, as it hosts Virginia Tech tonight at 7 p.m. and Wake Forest on Sunday at 12:30 p.m., both in Reynolds Coliseum.
And though N.C. State has yet to earn its first conference win, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are in the same boat, sitting at 0-5 and 0-6 in the ACC, respectively.
According to sophomore guard Sharnise Beal, the Wolfpack is hungry to break its four-game skid.
“At this point, it’s all about getting a win,” Beal, a sophomore in First Year College, said. “We’ve disappointed ourselves with the previous losses, so we’re just trying to pick it up.”
According to Yow, the problem hasn’t been in one specific area, rather the Pack has failed to put together a complete game. Against Georgia Tech, turnovers cost State the game as it turned the ball over 34 times.
Against North Carolina, the Pack took care of the ball, but failed to rebound effectively. Yow said when the team can take care of the ball, rebound and defend well in transition all in the same game, the results will be positive.
“We don’t have a pattern that we’re following,” Yow said. “As soon as we get ourselves together and play decent in all these areas, we can compete with anybody. I really believe that.”
Two of the Pack’s early losses have been at the hands of highly-ranked, tobacco road rivals in No. 3 North Carolina and No. 10 Duke. The strength of the early schedule is no excuse for the team’s record, though, according to Beal.
“We have to play them eventually, so when we play them doesn’t matter. It’s just unfortunate that we didn’t pull those games out,” Beal said. “We just have to execute more and cut down on the turnovers, and we should be all right. We definitely have enough talent to pull off some of the games that we lost.”
And though she has coached teams through similar situations in the past, Yow said she understands the importance of earning that first conference win at home this weekend.
“It puts us in a hole,” Yow said. “We are really fighting now, and scratching and crawling to get out.”
But like the woman in the English Channel, Yow believes her women are plenty capable of coming out on top.
“I don’t know if they can understand. You’re this close to turning the corner and getting the W instead of the L,” Yow said.
