Dribbler’s Diary: The bribe worked

by Brittany Gilliam of of The Daily Mustang

Editor's note: SMU forward and journalism student Brittany Gilliam, shown here going in for a layup against UAB on Sunday, is writing a weekly blog this semester for the Daily Mustang.

We (the SMU women's basketball team) dropped two games recently to Southern Mississippi and Central Florida, sliding us from first place in Conference USA to third. But the last two games have been all about redemption. Going on the road to Memphis, we finally got our act together and stopped the bleeding. We won! We defeated the Memphis Tigers in comfortable fashion while teammate Delisha Wills put up her season high of 22 points.

Finally we came home from a three-game road trip and got a chance to play in front of our home crowd on Sunday. It was incredible to see our fans once again cheering for us to beat the fifth place team, UAB. This week was very important for women’s basketball because of the efforts to raise awareness for breast cancer in honor of former coach Kay Yow. The gym was filled with pink t-shirts to help raise awareness. During a time out of our game a group of breast cancer survivors came out in their pink and put on a show, shaking their tail feathers and putting a smile on faces in the crowd. Coach Rompola even let the team turn around and watch the jazzy ladies have a great time.

We were hyped before the game when coach said, “Ok, ladies. I will make a deal with you all. If you all can beat this team in a comfortable fashion, then you can get this new gear that came in.” Wow, what a challenge.

Right before the game started, we all got together and said, “Let’s get us some new sweats.” We started the game on a 20-9 run and never looked back. Every player on the team got to see game action, which allowed me to rest my hyperextended knee and gave the other four starters plenty of rest before our next big game Friday against the Houston Cougars. We were excited to see our teammates get a lot of game time in front of our home crowd.

After defeating the Blazers on Sunday by 30 points, we walked into our locker room with the biggest grins on our faces. As soon as the coaches walked in, we said immediately: “Where is our gear?” This was one of the proudest moments of Coach Rompola’s day, after being honored for her time spent at SMU.

As a team, we felt honored to give coach Rompola her 18th career season with 15 or more victories. But most of all, we did what we had to do: Start another winning streak, and claim our new gear, which we received on Tuesday.