July 26, 2010

FORT WORTH – The TCU women’s basketball team will head to western Canada for nine days next month in preparation for the upcoming 2010-11 season. The team will play seven games while touring portions of British Columbia Aug. 11-19.

This is the second foreign summer trip for the TCU women’s basketball team in head coach Jeff Mittie’s tenure. The squad previously traveled to Australia in 2001.

“This trip will be a great chemistry builder for our team on and off the court,” Mittie said. "With the number of new players that we added to our roster in the offseason, it is important that we take advantage of this additional opportunity to prepare for the season. This trip will also serve as good preparation for what I would consider our toughest nonconference schedule since I’ve been here at TCU.”

The Frogs' non-conference schedule features seven teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2010. Overall, the 13 opponents combined for a 275-176 record and an average of 20 wins per team.

Much of next month’s trip will be spent in Vancouver and nearby resort town Whistler. Vancouver, a coastal city located in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, is the largest metropolitan area in Western Canada and third-largest overall in the country.

Vancouver and Whistler recently combined to play host to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Whistler, located approximately 80 miles north of Vancouver in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains, hosted most of the alpine, nordic, luge, skeleton and bobsled events during the event.

In addition to ranking as one of the world’s most livable cities, Vancouver also rates as one of North America’s cultural and entertainment hubs. Nicknamed “Hollywood North,” the city has been used as a filmmaking location for nearly a century. In 2008, more than 260 productions were filmed in Vancouver making it the third largest film centre in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City, and second to Los Angeles in television production in the world.

The Frogs, which are allowed to practice in preparation for their trip, opened their schedule last week. In addition to the eight returning players from last season’s Mountain West Conference championship roster, four incoming freshmen also are expected to participate due to a recent NCAA rule change. In past seasons, incoming players were not allowed to practice or compete prior to the official start of fall classes. The new rule states those student-athletes can participate in all team activities as early as Aug. 1.

Returning players Emily Carter, Micah Garoutte, Rachel Rentschler, Helena Sverrisdottir, Antoinette Thompson, Starr Crawford, Hannah Christian and DeLisa Gross each participated in the opening week of workouts. The remaining days of practice will be held the week prior to departure, after incoming freshmen Jacqueline Chandler, Aron Garcia, Meagan Henson and Briesha Wynn are officially allowed to work out with the team. Latricia Lovings, another incoming Frog freshman, will not play after being sidelined with a summer injury.

The trip is scheduled to begin with the team’s Aug. 11 departure for Maple Ridge, B.C., which is located in the northeast section of the greater Vancouver metro area. The Frogs will play University of the Fraser Valley on back-to-back nights Aug. 12 and 13 in Maple Ridge prior to spending three days in Whistler Aug. 13-15 in order to practice and prepare for the final five contests of the trip.

Following its stay in Whistler, the team will head back to Vancouver. The Frogs will play games three consecutive days to wrap up their schedule Aug. 16-18. First up is a Monday matchup against Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., followed by four games on back-to-back nights against the University of British Columbia and Kwantlin Polytechnic University on Tuesday and Wednesday. The team is expected to feature split squads for the four games against British Columbia and Kwantlin Polytechnic in order to maximize playing time for all players on the roster.

The team will travel back to Fort Worth on Thursday, Aug. 19. TCU’s fall semester is scheduled to begin the following week on Monday, Aug. 23.