At least one student-athlete from each Association school will blog about a UAA basketball road weekend this season.
Jenn Dynis and Zoe Vernon, Washington University
Jenn Dynis and Zoe Vernon coming at you from our last trip in the UAA. We each have only spent two years as a part of this conference, but this conference has provided us with great memories on and off the court.
Thursday 2/16
We started the trip off with a 6 a.m. wakeup call, and headed to airport for our flight to New York. Once we got to LaGuardia, we picked up our bags and headed to McDonald’s for a nutritious pre-practice lunch. We practiced at SUNY Purchase, a school half an hour outside the city, because NYU’s gym is under construction. When we are arrived, the gym was looking a bit rough. We had to clean the floor a few times before the dust was bear-able (that’s a pun). We also shared the court with the men’s team – check out the WashU twitter feed for the great assist by me to Andrew Sanders on the dunk (ESPN top-10 worthy). After practice we headed to the hotel with a quick turnaround for dinner.
On every New York trip, a WashU grad and donor by the name of Richard Ritcholz treats both teams to a nice dinner. This year we all went to Red Hat on the River. At the dinner, we enjoyed a buffet of steak, salmon, ricotta ravioli, mixed vegetables, potatoes, and last but not least, an assortment of bite-sized desserts. After dinner, we continued a NYU-Brandeis trip tradition of performing skits with the men’s team in our hotel. At the expense of Stephanie Botkin, it was very funny. Great comedy and a fun time had all. Then we were off to bed to get ready for our games the next night.
P.S. Special shout out to Mr. NYC himself, Michael Bregman, for providing us with even more calories that night in the form of bagels.
P.S.S. My apologies if there are no more puns… Jenn just fell asleep on the plane.
Friday 2/17 (Happy birthday Jenn!!!!)
We woke up at 9:30 for an always enjoyable UAA breakfast buffet at our hotel, and made our way to SUNY Purchase for shoot-around. Unfortunately, we didn’t have guys to catch our alley-oop passes, so we had to settle for lay-ups and jump shots instead. At the shoot-around, we fine-tuned our game plan for NYU. We returned to the hotel and people scattered to their rooms to do some school work or take a nap before we watched a little more film and ate our pre-game meal. After a little more time to rest, we headed out for the game, which we played at Pace University. That night we came out on top against NYU in our last Friday night game in the UAA. We were fortunate enough to get a lead relatively early and were able to hang on to it throughout. Then we had a very enjoyable social with the NYU team. They fed us good sandwiches and salad and we shared some of our many cupcakes Jenn received for her birthday. After watching the boys get another victory, we all went back to the hotel and made our way back to our rooms.
Saturday 2/18
On Saturday, we got up in the morning, had another nice breakfast, and got on the bus to our next stop in Boston. The bus trip was relatively uneventful. We made it to Brandeis for practice around 2:30 p.m., when we watched film and spent time on the court getting ready for our game the next day. After practice, we beat the men’s team in a quick snowball fight and got on the bus for a short ride to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner. Jenn and I both had family in town that we went to dinner with, while the team ate at an Italian restaurant nearby. I got back to the hotel and watched my favorite college basketball team, North Carolina, beat Virginia. The team came a little later and the other seniors, Lily and Ereka, joined me to watch the end of the game and the NBA dunk contest.
Sunday 2/19
Sunday, we followed our typical Sunday morning routine with a 9:45 film session followed by our pre-game breakfast, and a little more downtime before heading to watch the first half of the men’s game (congrats to the men on clinching the UAA title!!). At halftime, we got ready for our game, and we went up to another gym to warm up for the game. That day was Brandeis' "Senior Day," so we listened as their five seniors were honored. Then the game began, and we were able to earn a hard-fought victory. Finally, we headed to the airport and now we are on the flight back to St. Louis from a very memorable trip.
Jenn Dynis and Zoe Vernon are both seniors on the Washington University team. Dynis is ranked in the top-10 in UAA play in blocked shots and the top-20 in scoring. Vernon is also ranked in the top-20 in Association play in scoring, and is ranked in the top-20 in blocked shots and rebounding.