"I Can Play This Game"

by Cheryl Dozier

A young lady who was at UB before I arrived to coach the women's basketball team, and who is just now really coming into her own, is Mari McClure. This year I really think she's our X factor, in terms of how successful we're going to be.

Mari didn't play a whole lot her freshman year - they had depth, or whatever, I don't really know. When I came in here I asked her to go from playing a little bit to playing almost 40 minutes a game for us. She has really taken it upon herself to make herself better.

What people don't know about Mari is that she has degenerative arthritis in both her kneecaps and really should be done playing. The doctors have said that a normal student-athlete would already have said, "It's too much, I can't take it every day, the pain." But this kid has guts, determination -- and she has grown so much in the last two years, knowing what her body can do and what her body can't do. She can do the things that we need her to do, whether it's in practice or a game situation.

Mari is a tremendous leader for us and has really matured a lot even away from the court, in the locker room and with her teammates. She has really come into her own.

Tara Perrier is a young lady who averaged about a minute a game before I got here. She's a tremendous shooter, and the biggest thing about Tara is that she was lacking a whole lot of self-confidence when I got here.

One of the moments last year when I think it finally went off - you know, a light in her head -- we were playing at Bowling Green. We're down 17 points with 11 minutes to go in the game. Tiffany Bell goes out, and I think we're in big trouble. I put Tara in, and we go four guards instead of three guards and two posts. Tara gets eight of nine 3-pointers, and we win the game.

Tara finally had something that she could hang onto, saying, "I can play this game." And I've seen it: she has worked really hard in the off season, and now in the practices, she's starting to believe even more. She's a kid that I'm going to ask to do a lot of different things for us this year.