Tulane women’s hoops finding strength in flexibility through two weeks of practice

NEW ORLEANS – The Tulane women’s basketball team completed its 10th official practice on Thursday morning, working hard to get better before the season begins on November 10.

The Green Wave, under the direction of Coach Lisa Stockton for the 24th straight season, will have the next three days off for Tulane’s fall break.

Tulane’s team this season has shown flexibility as the group is spread out in age and position. The upperclassmen make up seven of the 12 members of the squad while five players are underclassmen. Tulane also brings have eight players while adding four newcomers. The Green Wave also have a good split between guards and forwards with eight and four, respectively.

That makeup has proven valuable through nearly two full weeks of official practice.

“The nice thing is we have a lot balance,” Stockton said. “Different players step up different days, and it’s pretty physical in practice. Hopefully we can continue some momentum up until fall break and come back and get going after fall break.”

Tulane’s largest class this year is the junior class. The 2017-18 juniors are made up of four returners and one newcomer, Tatyana Lofton. The returners are Ksenija Madzarevic, Meredith Schulte, Tene Thompson and Harlyn Wyatt.

“Practice so far is very competitive and I like our energy,” Wyatt said. “Every practice someone new you can see where you’re like, ‘Ooh, they had a good practice today.’ I really love the energy, and it’s going to carry over into games in how we play defense and how we’re aggressive.”

Until practice resumes on Monday, the Green Wave student-athletes will have three days off for fall break. The coaching staff, however, remains diligent in preparing the team for an upcoming scrimmage against Ole Miss, an exhibition against Loyola-New Orleans on November 2 and the season opener at Maine on November 10. Much of that preparation time weekend will be spent in the film room.

“We try to watch a lot of film, see where we are and evaluate that,” said Stockton. “We want to be able to come back and fix some things we need to and put some things in. We’ve got a scrimmage against Ole Miss coming up and we’re going to see some pressure, that’s gonna be really important when we get back.”

Season tickets for Tulane women’s basketball are now on sale and can be found online through TulaneTix.com.
TulaneGreenWave.com