Editor's note: Ball State's Tamara Bowie, last season's Mid-American Conference Player of the Year, will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season.

Feb. 5, 2002

I'm back! This week has been very difficult. I have three tests and it's only Wednesday! My first test is in sociology, then math and then accounting. Besides those, we had one of our biggest games last Saturday against the Toledo Rockets.

	Tamara Bowie averaged 18.6 points and 8.4 rebounds as a sophomore in 2000-01.

Last week I said that this was big stretch of games for us and it ended Saturday with a win over Toledo. We went 3-0 against teams which were at the top of the Mid-American Conference standings.

Against Toledo, the first half was slow for both teams. The shots were not falling, but our defense and rebounding kept us in the game. At halftime, we already had 29 rebounds and that was huge. Of course, we missed our fair share of shots, so that helped the numbers! Going into the half, the score was tied at 28.

The second half our defense was still there and our shots started falling -- and so did Toledo's. It was a back-and-forth game, which is what we expected, until freshman Kate Endress was fouled on a 3-point shot to start a BSU rally. Kate was "balling" on Saturday! That's why Kate's my idol ... :)

We were able to stretch the lead to double figures late in the game and then hold on for a big win. The final score was 68-61. The win gave us sole possession of first place in the MAC with seven games left. We know the final regular-season game of the year at Toledo will be tough.

We set a Ball State record with 4,030 fans at the game, and let me just tell you, the atmosphere and experience inside the arena Saturday was awesome! To have that many people supporting us and cheering for us is what college athletics is all about. We know that we have to earn their support, and believe me, those people in the stands are appreciated by everyone in the program. Nice job to the fans!

Now we are entering what coach Roller calls the "Ball State season." Why? Because the past two years, this is the part of the season where we haven't had much success because we relax. Personally, I don't believe that will happen this year. We talk about it as a team everyday -- how we control our destiny. That's so true.

This week it's back to work with two games at home -- Eastern Michigan on Wednesday and Buffalo on Saturday. I think we put a lot of focus into the three-game stretch we just finished, but we also know those games mean only as much as our next one, and that's EMU on Wednesday.

One Love,

Bowie