Confidence riding high

It's that time of the year again for postseason tournaments.  For the Lady Rams basketball team they will have an opportunity to compete for championships.

 Postseason play starts with the CIAA tournament, Feb. 27 to March 3.  

The location for the tournament is Charlotte in the Time Warner Cable Arena.

Going into this postseason, Head Coach Stephen Joyner Jr. said that he has seen his players become more focused.

"I do see them tuning in a little bit more than they had throughout the year," Joyner said.

"I think they understand what time of the year it is and what needs to be done."

As CIAA tournament play raises the importance of each game, Joyner said that he believes his team has the experience to win.

"I think that we have the experience, and I think that we have the talent," he said.

"It's just about us making sure that we prepare the right way and go into each game with the right mindset."

If the Lady Rams are going to have success in tournament play, they will surely need contribution from their two leading scorers, guards Courtney Medley and Jasmine Newkirk.  

Medley is leading the team in scoring with 13.4 points per game, and Newkirk follows averaging 12.7 points.

Newkirk, a junior from Raleigh, said that her team has strong belief at this point in the season.

"Confidence seems to be really good, and that's the most important for tournament time," Newkirk said.

"[You have to] go in with confidence."

On just how confident the team is Newkirk said that she and her teammates have high aspirations.

"We definitely want to win the CIAA championship so we can go into national play," she said.

"We want to be one of those type of schools that can contend for a national title."

With there always being areas to improve, Newkirk said that each player should continue to work at bringing a more constant effort to each game.

"An area that we can improve on is staying consistent. That's the main thing," she said.

"Work on consistency and buying into Coach Joyner system."

Being able to see the possibilities in what they can accomplish this season is a reason Assistant Coach Shenika Worthy said that the team will continue to get better.

"I think that the team is completely starting to see the potential that they have; there's growth every day," Worthy said.

"The fact that they know that they can grow every day keeps them from becoming complacent," she said.

On how the team will approach postseason games, Joyner said that they would focus on just one game at a time.

"The motto that my college coach used was ‘A journey of a thousand miles starts with just one step'," Joyner said.

"So each game that we're going to play we're going to consider as just one step toward our goal."