The University of Mississippi Athletics
REBELOG: Women's Basketball's Bianca Thomas 03.19
3/19/2009 | Women's Basketball
OleMissSports.com's Rebelogs provide fans with a look inside the life of Ole Miss student-athletes. A junior and All-SEC guard for the women's basketball team, Bianca Thomas is among the Rebels that are blogging throughout the 2008-09 season, which continues Sunday in the WNIT.
March 19, 2009
Hello Rebel Fans,
It's been a great season so far and we are all thrilled that we will get to continue to play after we received a bid to participate in the WNIT. It's a brand new season and we are going to work especially hard to bring home a championship to Oxford. We won two regular season tournaments this year and would like nothing more than to capture a postseason tournament as well.
Although we are extremely excited about the opportunities ahead of us in the WNIT, we are still very disappointed that we failed to make the NCAA Tournament field this season. Everyone on our team feels like we belong in the tournament, but we let too many games slip away from us this year. Looking back on the season, there are so many games that we should have won that would have turned us into an NCAA Tournament team.
After losing to LSU in the final game of the regular season, we knew that we would have to win the SEC Tournament to earn a bid into the Big Dance. We knew it was going to be tough to win four games in four days, but we entered the tournament with a lot of confidence, because we knew we could play with anybody in our league.
Prior to leaving Oxford for the SEC Tournament in Little Rock, I learned that I had been selected to the All-SEC first team as voted on by the coaches in the SEC. It was such an honor to be recognized by the other coaches in the conference. I worked really hard in the offseason to become a complete player, but I never thought it would result in such a prestigious award. The award is really a reflection of my teammates, because I couldn't have accomplished anything this year without them.
We opened the SEC Tournament playing against No. 8 seed Arkansas. We knew it would be a tough game, because the Razorbacks were playing in their home state in front of a lot of their own fans. We really wanted to play good, because Arkansas had beaten us earlier in the year in a game we felt like we probably should have won. In the end, we got the revenge we were looking for as we won 65-60.
Our next step in winning the championship was knocking out No. 1 seed Auburn in the quarterfinals. We lost to them earlier in the season on their home court, but it was a really close game and we had a chance to win in the final minutes. This time, Auburn was ahead by as many as 18 points in the second half, but we never quit fighting and cut the Tiger lead to just three points with just over a minute left to play. The Tigers made some big shots in the final minute to hold us off. It was a difficult loss, because we really wanted to show everyone we could beat the best team in our league.
After having a week off following the SEC Tournament, we all gathered at Coach Ladner's house to watch the NCAA selection show. It was hard watching some of the names come across the screen, because we knew we were better than many of those teams that had earned an invitation to the dance. Everyone kept talking about how if we had just won a few more games we would have seen our name pop up in one of the brackets.
Nevertheless, we are excited about playing either Murray State or UALR Sunday. Hopefully we will get to play at home, but it really doesn't matter because we just want to get back on the court. I look forward to seeing all of our fans at the Tad Pad Sunday if we are hosting.
Until next time ...
November 20, 2008
Hello Rebel Fans,
The season has finally arrived and we are so excited that we are off to a 3-0 start. This past weekend we had the opportunity to play in the Winthrop tournament in Rock Hill, South Carolina. We arrived in South Carolina Friday afternoon and practice on the Winthrop campus. It was a real nice campus and I was glad that we were able to visit. On Saturday in the first game of the tournament, we faced off with North Carolina A&T and found ourselves down by seven at halftime.
The great thing about this year's team is that we keep fighting even though we are down. Plus, we have worked too hard all summer and during preseason to lose! It was a total team effort and we ended up winning 80-64 to start the season with a victory. We were ecstatic about the victory and about playing in the championship game.
We played Davidson College next, a very fundamentally sound and disciplined team. We found a way to win the game 55-50 even though it was an ugly win, but it was a win. Tournament Champions baby!!!!!!!!! Everyone was so excited because we were the first Ole Miss team to win a tournament since 2005. Also, we played without our All-SEC center Shawn Goff! We all dedicated this win to her. We love you Goff! It felt great to open the season 2-0.
On Wednesday we picked up our third straight victory after beating Louisiana-Lafayette 74-48 to earn a huge road win. I'm really proud of the way we played. The Ragin' Cajuns had a lot of loud fans that made it a very hostile environment. It was really hard to hear, but we found a way to overcome it and move to 3-0. I can't wait to get back home for our first game Friday against Memphis. We want to see all you Rebels fans cheering us on at the Tad Pad at 6 p.m.!!!!
Until next time ...
