The Nicholls State University’s Women’s basketball team is determined to finish off the remainder of the basketball season with a steady rise.
So far the team maintains a record of eight wins and nine losses for the 2013-2014 season.  This is a stark contrast to the 19 wins and 11 losses that they maintained during the 2012-2013 season.
“We need to come together more, and we need to figure out how to always be on the same page, how to beat the teams that we should and how to get everything done that we need to do. We kind of slacked off and let a few slip this year, so we need to need to get back on the same page and start playing together so that we can do what we are supposed to be doing, ” KK Babin, a senior accounting major from Gonzales, said.
Emani White, a sophomore Family Consumer Sciences major from New Orleans, thinks that the team’s defense could use improvement saying, “The main thing is defense. We need to be more together in defense.”
The team expected this year to be mostly successful, yet their performance has fluctuated with each game.  During practice, it is evident that both the coaches and players are frustrated, as they are not meeting the goals they set for themselves at the beginning of the year.
“We have been on a little bit of a roller coaster ride. We have been up and down. In terms of my expectations of this year or of any other year, I expect every contest that we go in that we give ourselves an opportunity to win,” Dobee Plaisance head women’s basketball coach and senior women’s administrator said.
Plaisance added, “So far, I really feel like, with the exception of maybe two games, we really were in a position to win, and we should have just pulled it off. In terms of meeting expectations compared to the outcomes at this point, I really would have expected more ‘W’s’ in the win column”
White believes that her individual performance has improved since last year but agrees that the team has not “met expectations because our expectation is to win the Southland Conference.”
Still, White believes they can redeem themselves, saying, “I just hope that we win the championship.”
Babin has also seen improvements in her performance. “Overall I think I’ve become a better leader and a better communicator.”
She has also noticed that improvement is needed, adding, “I’ve improved certain aspects of my game. There are some things I need to go back to that I was a little better at last year that I kind of forgot about.”
Plaisance is confident that the players can make the improvements they need.  “We are a very talented team, and we have great balance and just some outstanding young women on the team. I look forward to the future with this group. I think the future is very bright.”
Babin has determined that the team’s losses will not hinder their performance, adding, “I’m just going to try to keep my head in the game. It gets frustrating when you aren’t performing how you should be, so I’m just going to keep working hard and try to get everybody on the same page to get back to where we were in the beginning of the season.”
The team has worked hard to identify their weaknesses in order to become a more formidable opponent.
“Our best basketball game is yet to come, and I’m really looking forward to it. We have been inconsistent. If we stay focused on the details and just really relate to the intangibles of this game, we are going to be fine. It’s when we get away from the details, when we lose focus of the intangibles, that is when we find ourselves getting into the most trouble,” Plaisance said.
Babin is confident in the team’s ability to bounce back, saying, “We still have our large goals that we want to reach. Going into the break, we wanted to be close to undefeated, maybe one loss, but now we just have to get back on track and beat the teams that we need to beat so that we can get our Conference Championship.”