(Editor's note: Tulane senior guard Grace Daley will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season. For more information on the Green Wave, visit Tulane's official athletic site.)

Nov. 17, 1999

Greetings Green Wave fans. I think I'm going to go to sleep a little earlier than usual tonight because we leave at 6 a.m. Thursday to fly to New York to play our first regular-season game, against Siena. We play on Friday night and the team is really excited about finally starting the season!

	Daley

So far, we've had two exhibition games against opponents we didn't have much background information about, but those games were more to find out about where we stood as a team anyway.

Remember how wars used to be in medieval times? Well, from what I've seen in the movies, one side fired up an arsenal of arrows and the other side held up their shields over their heads until the shower was over -- then they approached each other cautiously. In our first exhibition game, we scored 103 points, so as you can see, we fired off a bunch of potent arrows that penetrated through the Houston Jaguars' defense! On the other hand, they scored 92 points on us, so that was an indicator that we may have run out into the battlefield shooting -- but without holding up our shields!

This unauthorized tactic may have worked against this team, but we knew we had to work on a different strategy for the next game! This is by far the best defensive team that I have been on in my three years thus far, so we all knew that it was just a matter of commitment. All week long the coaches stressed defense; our offense just came along naturally. When the next game rolled around we were ready!

We sent off another arsenal of arrows that broke through the enemy lines with ease -- we scored 95 points and shot 61 percent from the field! We attacked with one hand and held up our shields with the other! We held the Mississippi All-Stars to 68 points on 36 percent shooting! We had some really shining moments in the game and some really not-so-shining moments, but the game is all about peaks and valleys.

We feel really confident going into our opener against Siena. We've been practicing very intensely these past few days, so we're excited about the challenge -- or shall I say "opportunity" -- that awaits us. We're also excited about getting a home-cooked meal! (Junior guard) Kelly Scanlon's family lives about 20 minutes from Siena, so we're going to have dinner at her house on Thursday night.

OK, I've got to get ready to go to class. I'm looking forward to writing again next week -- about our win! :-)

Thanks for your time -- I'll catch you on the rebound!

TTFN -- ta ta for now!

Grace