Editor's note: Louisiana Tech's Brooke Lassiter, a senior guard and two-year co-captain, will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season.

Feb. 25, 2002

Hello again, everyone! Glad to be back to give another glimpse into the crazy world of the Lady Techsters. This week didn't prove to be one of our best of the year, but hopefully we will learn from it and move in a positive direction. Although the week did not go as we would have hoped, there were some fun instances along the way!

	Brooke Lassiter is a starting guard for Louisiana Tech.

Our road trip this past week started out a little bumpy, if you will. The plane ride to Houston was not the most smooth flight and the turbulence had a few of my teammates and coaches (names will not be given to protect their anonymity!) extremely nervous. Little did we know that the rest of our stay in Houston would be "bumpy" as well.

Rice had a great game plan and carried it out nicely against us on Thursday night. Our tremendous defense was to no avail and we fell to the Lady Owls after they sank a free throw in the waning seconds to hand us our first conference loss in four years. We were quite disappointed, but knew we would have to regroup in time to face a tough Tulsa squad on Saturday.

I did manage to check out the spring line of clothing in Houston and was able to get some good ideas for later. The weather was beautiful during our shopping excursion and that made me anxious for spring to get here. I think the girls also had a good time shopping. Almost everyone returned to the bus with at least one package; I would say that was a successful day in the stores!

As always, our team's travels seem to involve a bus mishap and this trip was no different. Lisa, our bus driver, was taking the team to the hotel and ran a car off the road. She never missed a beat and kept on driving. As for the team, we all stood up to see what had happened. Needless to say, Lisa had nerves of steel and nothing could shake her commitment of getting us to our final destination!

We did have great fan support in Houston thanks to the Alumni Center's chartered bus. It was great of them to come and cheer us on; I'm just sorry that we could not pull out a victory for them that night. Thanks for all your support, loyal fans!

The Tulsa game was quite an adventure but we managed to pull off a victory and also clinch the WAC regular-season title. We arrived back in Ruston early Sunday morning and had the day to rest and recover from our trip. I was fired up about our decision to take a bus back to Ruston because it gave me plenty of time to do some reading. There is no better way to pass the time when traveling than reading a book.

I guess teammate Catrina Frierson would have a little something to say about that statement. She brought along her favorite movie, "Annie," for us to watch on the trip home. We all belted out the chorus, not to the enjoyment of coaches Barmore, Budke, and Long, and laughed until they made us remove the tape from the machine. It was great fun, but I wouldn't look for any of us to have a record contract anytime in the near future!

Sierra, coach Johnson's daughter, gave us her rendition of the Dixie Chicks' "Earl" on the trip home. We laughed so hard at her expressiveness that my stomach was hurting. There is nothing like a 4-year-old having "centerstage" on a bus full of college students. She was quite the entertainment for us all and helped pass the time nicely!

Classes are out for quarter break right now, so we will be able to focus solely on our team for the next few days in order to prepare for the upcoming conference tournament. We have our last two regular-season games at home this week, and I'm anticipating they will be a little emotional for some of us. It will be my last time to play in the TAC in the regular season in front of our great fans. I'll have all the details next week for you!

Have a wonderful week, everyone. So long from Ruston!

Brooke