What does it mean to be a female basketball player at the Universty of Georgia? There are standards that former and present players uphold. During this season, there have been times where some games just didn’t quite go Georgia’s way, and they were beaten. However, after Christmas break, there was a change of attitude about the team. Since then, the Lady Bulldawgs have gone 3-1. They’re passionate about being on the court; they don’t quit when baskets don’t fall. It seems that some the players had a heart-to-heart with themselves. They knew this wasn’t how the Georgia women play.
The pre-game speech for the Vanderbilt game was led by Caliya Robinson. Her message was to find their story as a team; what is the story of being a Lady Dawg. The team took that to heart, as did Coach Joni Taylor and this is what they had to say.
SHANEA ARMBRISTER:
“Every game is a test for us. We’re a growing team, and were making a lot of progress,” Armbrister said. “So I think were not there yet, but we are striving so that’s all that matters, getting better every day, going hard in practice every day and win or lose, we see the areas where we grow a lot. It’s important to pick up those flaws and work on them.”
“Caliya had the message today. It was basically who we want to see ourselves as,” Armbrister said. “Like we feel like we have a story to tell that is just what it is. We will win against a good team the other night here at and we didn’t want it to seem like a mistake, it was us. We’re going to do that every game from now on, and gonna play the best of our ability and see what the outcome is.”
STEPHANIE PAUL:
“I think we are going to do pretty well. We’ve been practicing really hard and working on our defense a lot. And that is one of the biggest things we pride ourself on. So if we do well defensively we will be fine,” Paul said. “Well, we started off pretty shaky at the beginning of the season and were starting to get rolling. We’ve been having better practices and everyone is stepping up and taking advantage of getting better.”
HEAD COACH JONI TAYLOR:
“Well, right now I feel like we are a team that is on a rollercoaster. Sometimes were good sometimes were down. I think the story you are referring to is what legacy are they going to leave and what story they are going to write for this program,” Coach Taylor said. “We spend a lot of time here talking about the tradition of Georgia Women’s basketball.”
“Today is alumni reunion day, we make sure when those alumni are here, that they are having conversations with our players,” Taylor said. “We spend a lot of time making sure they understand what it means to wear that jersey and so what story are you going to write. I think when we struggled in the non-conference games and lost a few games and didn’t think we should have, that they didn’t think they were writing the right story. So now it’s about getting that corrected and what legacy they are leaving for this program.”
The title of Lady Dawg is about leaving a legacy. This team seems to found their story.