After a month of practice with the Ohio women's basketball team, freshman Jackie Hiebert knows she's not in high school anymore.
Hiebert and five other first-year players will get their first look at live competition when the Bobcats face the Showtime Skins in an exhibition game at 7 tonight at The Convo.
It's a whole new level of play
Hiebert said. We have to be ready for the intensity and the skill is a lot higher than it was in high school. Getting ready for that has been a big adjustment for all of us.
Hiebert said she's excited to see how the weeks of practice will pay off in a contest against different players.
It will be a good test for all of us to see where we are and what things we need to work on she said.
The freshmen are developing at different speeds, said coach Sylvia Crawley. Some players are becoming productive offensively, while others have moved along nicely on the defensive end.
Crawley said she'll have her eye on all the newcomers and how they react to the real game situation.
This is their time to develop in the preseason and to give them some experience
she said. We just don't know how much they'll get to play. We're going to try to give them all a chance to get the jitters out.
Last season, her first as Ohio's head coach, Crawley only had to indoctrinate two freshmen into her new system, and said she was able to move at a quicker pace. With six new players this time around, Crawley said she's glad the upperclassmen are there to help the process.
Last year
everyone was like freshmen. They were all new to my system
she said. This year
we have a lot of returners who can help us with the younger ones. They can kind of talk them through where they need to be when they forget or help them out after practice.
Senior Simone Redd said the upperclassmen tried to do their part in the preseason to prepare the newcomers, and those efforts were successful.
As a team
we've come together
she said. It took some time to get them acquainted to the system and what we're trying to do
but they've responded. We've been working hard.
The Showtime Skins are a traveling exhibition team composed mostly of secondary school players from Australia. Crawley said the exhibition could serve a variety of purposes, but most importantly, the team will get a chance to see where it stands.
There are a lot of things our team needs to work on
she said. It'll be nice to have some new bodies in here to play against.
The matchup with the Skins will give the Bobcats a chance to run their offensive, defensive and in-bound schemes against an actual opponent, Crawley said.
In practice
