Women look to defend titles

First the women's basketball team wants to enjoy itself tonight at Midnight Madness, then it's down to the task at hand, which is to improve from last season, when the Hoosiers finished 20-11 and earned a post-season berth to the National Invitational Tournament.\n"It's kind of like a party, then it's business right away," senior forward Erin McGinnis said. "Our expectations are very high. We want to come out and make the tournament, and be competitors for the Big Ten championship."\nTonight at midnight the team has its first official practice at Assembly Hall. The practice, which is open to the public who bring a non-perishable food item, will feature a three-point shooting competition between the men's and women's teams, along with a spot-shot competition. The first hour will be all fun and games, but after that, the team will bear down and have its traditional grueling coach Kathi Bennett style of practice.\n"The first practice is to go out and have fun, but then we have real practice after that for a few hours," junior guard and Butler-transfer Kristin Bodine said. "We want to win a Big Ten championship. But really we want to improve everyday."\nAfter a few weeks of workouts that allow for only four players and one coach at a time, the team is looking forward to playing with one another.\n"I think we're all excited," freshman Jenny DeMuth said. "We had conditioning and weight-lifting for the past month, I think everyone is ready for that to be over and to start getting into the season."\nPractices will allow players to get used to one playing with one another again and to adjust to the team's newcomers.\n"(Early season practices) are really important, because this is when you gel," Bodine said. "You don't have any games to worry about, you're just thinking about the next day of practice."\nBeing a newcomer, DeMuth is waiting with nervous anticipation for tonight's event.\n"To be honest, I have no clue (what to expect)," DeMuth said. "They say Assembly Hall is usually filled and I can never imagine playing in front of that many people."\nWith thousands of fans expected to attend, the Hoosiers want to use the opportunity to help attract fans to their games.\n"I'm looking forward to being able to see all the fans out and letting them see our team this year, let them see how good we're going to be, so they can come out and come to our games," McGinnis said.\nThere's another aspect of Midnight Madness the women's team said it is looking forward to and that's maintaining bragging rights over the men's team. At last year's practice, the women stole the show, highlighted by Heather Cassady winning the three-point shootout.\n"I'm pretty sure we'll win the three-point shootout," McGinnis said. "If we could dunk, I'm sure we'd win that, too"