Pepperdine basketball players will take Waves fans behind the scenes as the orange and blue of Malibu plays its 2003-04 women's basketball schedule. We've also added a link so you can submit your own questions for players to respond in their next entry. Being a collegiate basketball player creates an interesting journal, but being a collegiate basketball player at perhaps the most beautiful school in the country that is flocked with celebrities is a whole other story. Enjoy...

Jan. 16, 2004

Shannon Mayberry
RS Junior, Center
Diary Entry No. 10

Hello Waves Fans!!

Well most of you probably already know who I am, but I'll give you a little information anyways. I am Shannon Mayberry and I am a red-shirt junior this year as a Wave. I didn't play last season because of a chronic leg injury. I am originally from Oklahoma, and I love it out here in southern California!

This last week was a hard one for your lady Waves. We went through practice as usual preparing for our first two conference games of the season. We had our usual practices, of running lines, going through drills, and scouting reports of the opposing teams for the weekend. We all thought we were prepared for what we would be facing for the weekend. We had a tough pre-season schedule that showed us the top teams in the country and prepared us for the most challenging situations. Little did we know what was about to happen to us.

Wednesday we traveled to West Los Angeles to practice, and afterwards we went to the airport to travel to Spokane. We should have known bad luck was going to follow us after Jennifer Lacy got hit in the mouth in practice and had to go to the doctor to get stitches!

After arriving in Spokane we checked into our hotel, and went to eat dinner at Chili's.

Thursday morning we woke up and had shoot around to prepare for the game that we would have that night. Shoot around went pretty well and afterwards we went to eat pre- game at Tomato Street. That night I don't think anyone was prepared for the events that took place. We have, throughout the years, beaten Gonzaga 19 straight times. The last four years in a row we have won conference. So we know every team we will face in conference will be after us.

So, they came at us hard and played really well as a team. We struggled making our shots, and struggled on the floor as a whole, which in result, ended in a 31 point loss. It shocked everyone with the score, but mostly it shocked us as players.

Friday morning we woke up to practice at Gonzaga because the Portland airport was closed....just one more thing that went wrong on this trip. So we practiced, but it wasn't a great practice because everyone was not in the best of moods. After practice we all hopped on the bus, only to travel for nine hours to Portland, because some of the roads that would have taken us half the time were closed. The weather was cold and icy and there was snow everywhere. It was great for some of the girls, because we made a pit stop and we got to have a snow ball fight. Some of my teammates had never seen snow before, so it was great to see them enjoying it and having fun.

After we got to Portland, we ate dinner at Kelli Spencer's house, which was amazing. We always look forward to seeing her family and enjoying her parent's nice home cooked meals. Saturday morning we awoke to have a shoot around where everyone seemed to be in better spirits, and even some unusual antics by our coaching staff. They were trying hard to lighten up the situation at hand. That night we had our game against Portland which we played better as a team, but still fell short of our goal of winning the game.

Sunday we traveled home after a disappointing trip, to refocus and prepare for Santa Clara and San Diego.

(Editor's note: Pepperdine ended up defeating Santa Clara on Thursday night).

Shannon Mayberry