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Sunday, November 14, 1999
Isles women expect victory against Monterrey Tech
Estes looks to build on confidence from Houston Flight win
By Matt Young
Caller-Times
Coming into the exhibition season, none of the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball players were sure what to expect. No one knew where to place the bar of expectation.
Now, with a season-opening exhibition win under their belt, the Islanders have elevated their expectations.
"Now that we won the first game, we know what to expect; we expect to win," A&M-Corpus Christi head coach Sheryl Estes said. "None of us were sure what would happen in that first game, but now we know, and that gives us a lot of confidence going into the season."
Before the Islanders open the regular season, they will go through one more exhibition game when they face Monterrey Tech at 3 p.m. today at Memorial Coliseum.
Monterrey Tech is in the middle of a tour in which it will play exhibitions against several Texas colleges.
"I don't know anything about them, except that I've heard they're the best team from Mexico to play against," Estes said. "I imagine they'll put the ball on the floor and try to drive a lot."
Estes may not know what to expect from Monterrey Tech, but she expects to see her team make fewer turnovers and play better defense than it did in its first exhibition game.
Despite beating the Houston Flight 59-52, the Islanders committed 32 turnovers and allowed too many easy drives to the basket by Flight players.
"The day after that first exhibition, we got in the gym and worked real hard to iron those things out," Estes said. "We focused on our transition defense, and obviously, we had to work on limiting the turnovers."
Estes hopes a major case of the first-game jitters was the cause for the sloppy ball-handling.
"We won't have that excuse this time, so we'll see how it turns out," Estes said. "We've played a game at the Coliseum, and we have the first game under our belt. Now, we'll get a better feel for what we have."
With the regular season opener against North Texas less than a week away, Estes also wants to figure out what her rotations will be once the season starts. Against the Houston Flight, four of the Islanders' starters played more than 32 minutes, which left all four players visibly winded down the stretch.
"We definitely need more depth," Estes said. "Our starters had to play that much, because we needed them in the game to win. We'll have to find some freshmen that can step up and fill those roles. Hopefully, we'll see some of them step up against Monterrey Tech."
Staff writer Matt Young can be reached at 886-4304 or by e-mail at youngm@caller.com
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