I've been making them (outside shots) in practice, but just in games they weren't falling. The free throws helped my confidence quite a bit.

This means a lot. But our goal isn't to win the sectional. We want to play 27 games and win as many as we can.

Desi never missed a practice or a game. And when players were held over in practice for extra drills, Desi stayed and did the drills with them.

He comes to practice with a big old lunch pail and sweats on.

The first practice is always exciting and we're all pumped and ready to get in the swing of things. We'll use the preseason practices to help us come together as a team and gain some team chemistry going into the first series of the year against San Diego.

It was just a matter of the first half of the practice wearing all the rust off but I think overall we got done what we wanted to. There was a lot of excitement and everybody was eager to get back. We weren't in full pads but everybody wanted to get out and hit the first day but we know we can't do that. It was a pretty energetic practice.