Women's basketball begins Midnight Madness

For the first time in history, the women's basketball team will be participating in Midnight Madness. In the past, Midnight Madness has kicked-off only the men's basketball season, but this year, it will also signal the start of the women's campaign.\n"We haven't been in a situation where we've played in a large amount of people," senior forward Rachael Honegger said. "It's a great way to introduce yourself to a community with a new coach and a new system. Maybe some of the men's fans will want to come and see the women's games."\nAt 12:01 a.m. Saturday in Assembly Hall, both teams will take the floor to participate in various events. The women's team will be competing against the men in the three-point contest. Coach Kathi Bennett determined who would participate in each event, and for the three point contest, juniors Erin McGinnis and Heather Cassady, senior Rainey Alting, and sophomore Jill Hartman will be going against the men's team.\nIn the spot shot contest, a team consisting of one men's player and one women's player will compete against other teams in a shooting contest. The participating players include Honegger, freshman Charliss Ridley and juniors Jill Chapman and Tara Jones. For the final competition, the women's team will judge the men in a slam dunk contest. \nThe women are looking forward to being in this event.\n"We're just getting a chance to be introduced," coach Kathi Bennett said. "The exposure will be great, and there's the excitement and push into the season." \nFollowing the event, the women's team will hold its first practice of the season. Up until now, the team has only been holding individual practices, so it will be the first time the team practices as a whole.\nThis will also be the first opportunity Bennett has to introduce her coaching style to the entire team, which stresses defense.\n"In all of our individual (workouts), everyone's been working really hard on defense," Chapman said. "Everybody just wants to get better. We know our offense is going to come, but we need to work on our defense. It's going to be intense."\nBennett anticipates that the team will be surprised during the real practice when they find out just how serious she is about defense. The practice will consist of various drills that cover just that.\nBut first comes Midnight Madness, where the women's team will have the chance to showcase their talents to IU fans. Bennett thinks the open practice will begin to instill some of the values she thinks her team needs to compete in the Big Ten.\n"Successful teams have events like this, and our men's program has established a strong level of excellence and that's something we want to establish too," Bennett said. "You can see the benefits of what they've done at Midnight Madness. \n"That's our goal. That's our drive"