I'm pleased to be joined by Chanel Fandher, freshman on the St. Xavier women's basketball team, currently coming off a victory against Indiana University. Kokomo getting set by their second round matchup tonight on Cougar Pregame. I have to ask you, as a freshman, you're new to this kind of environment.
How were your nerves last night before the first game? They were pretty good. I mean, definitely it's a different environment, but someone once always told me that you shouldn't be nervous because how many basketball games have you played before this one? What makes this one different from the rest experience-wise?
I just kept repeating that in my head and just kind of taught me to settle down a little bit. Awesome. What was Coach Halber's message before the game? Do you kind of calm things down a little bit?
Specifically. He kind of stressed out all the teams here are here to play hard and obviously no one wants to go home, so don't let up on Kokomo and just kind of keep attacking at him. So you've logged a ton of minutes of the season. I mean, you've started pretty much every game.
Besides earlier this year, I think you were hurt. Are you out of ankle injury? But other than that, it's been pretty much you in the starting line up every single night. How do you feel at this point health-wise?
Because you've logged, like I said, a ton of minutes this season. I feel pretty good. And I mean, say something should happen. There's other people that can obviously step in right away and kind of take care of business even if someone did get hurt.
So I feel pretty good. How were the practices like? Do you practice all your does he make you guys run a lot? Does he condition you?
Or do you guys just do it on your own? Yeah, our conditioning is kind of built into our scrimmaging. So we'll do like kind of half-court sets and then we'll go full-court. So that kind of is our conditioning is just like the basketball in itself.
Because you guys love to push the floor in transition. It's a really great part of your game as a team. But there's been a lot of growth in your game specifically, really in all facets of the season. But if you can nail down one thing that you've most improved on what would it be?
I definitely think from the beginning of the season I kind of stepped up my defense a little bit, but I'm just obviously not the best defensive player on the team. I feel like at the beginning of the year I was kind of shy of taking my shots and stuff, but the coaches have intimates. I really pushed me to what I'm open to just kind of shoot it. Coach had by the way really nice things to say about your performance against St.
Francis. Especially when you got hot with your four threes there. That was awesome. Does he give you confidence?
Does he maybe pull you aside sometimes and just say, you know, do your thing. We got your back. Does he do anything like that? Yeah, I'll say like sometimes like you have one of the worst defensive players on your out there.
Like why aren't you taking them to the basket? I think he's really confident in me and all the other players on the team and our offensive abilities. And I think he thinks that sometimes we hold ourselves back. So kind of switching gears a little bit.
As a freshman, you look to the upperclassmen who've been here before kind of to sort of guide you through the season. How have the seniors on this team specifically been this year so far? They've got amazing. I mean, honestly, like in high school you deal with senior leadership and then like coming in back as a freshman.
You deal with it again and it's a little nerve-wracking because you never know how they're going to be. They're going to ice you out or let you in. But this team has just like really opened up and I honestly feel comfortable going up to anyone and like talking to them about anything. And I just think our chemistry of the script was really special.
And staying on the topic of chemistry, I talked to Karen Brittney before the game yesterday. And I believe that this team is something special. Do you agree? Yeah, I do.
I feel like our chemistry really helps with all that. And I also think it helps our ventures really deep. So we can go to anyone on the bench and feel comfortable with them on the floor all the time. So we're making three different trips to, I guess, states?
Right on this one. We're in South Dakota, Nebraska, and even Iowa. So have you ever been this far from home on a basketball trip throughout your career at all? Or is there something new?
During like AU, we flew to like Virginia that's probably the furthest one. And then we went to Minnesota. So I've been kind of everywhere. Okay, so you've been here.
That's cool. Alright, last question for you. What's your favorite memory of 2016-2017? I have no idea.
Probably just all the goofy stuff that just goes on in practice. I mean, whether it's like someone following or just like something funny happening between the team. It's really hard to pinpoint like a specific memory because there's just so many like every day is a different memory of this team. Well, it's awesome.
You're having a great season. Hopefully it continues. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.