It’s been months since the women’s basketball team faced an opponent in a regular season game. After an 81-27 exhibition victory last week, the Tide will be hitting the court against Nicholls State for their first game of the 2011-2012 season. Tipoff is set for Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. in Foster Auditorium.

“The exhibition game really taught us a lesson about ourselves,” said head coach Wendell Hudson. “I think that our intensity was up for forty minutes. That’s going to really help us prepare for the opening game.”

Alabama got leading double-digit scoring efforts from Kyra Crosby and Celiscia Farmer, who had 15 points each. The team out-rebounded AUM 29-19 and also dished out 19 assists. Nevertheless, they saw many areas of improvement.

“We need to make free throws, and just being able to get everybody on the same page every possession are the biggest things we’ve been working on,” said senior Ericka Russell.

Sophomore guard Khristin Lee said, “We’re working on cleaning up all of our small mistakes. We’re putting big emphasis on defense and sharing the basketball.”

This year’s team features Russell as the lone senior who was named a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior Class Award, as well as second team All-Southeastern Conference. Though the squad will not have players due to injury, it welcomes three junior college transfer All-Americans – Crosby, Jessica Merritt and Meghan Perkins – that will play big minutes.

Nicholls State finished last season with an 8-21 record and returns three of their five starters. The Tide ended last season with an 18-15 record and a trip to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament Sweet Sixteen. They’re excited for the start of this season.

“I think we just have to be able to compete against other teams,” said Russell. “We’ve been working hard in practice, so we’re just ready to go compete and get it started. We’re pretty excited.”

Hudson says the key to victory is to stay focused while they look to build off of the success from the exhibition game.

“It’s going to count for real on Saturday,” he said. “I think the big key is to continue to play the way we practice because we’ve had some really good practices… If we play to our potential, we really believe winning and losing will take care of itself.”

Lee says the team’s goals are simple.

“Dominate,” she said. “We want to be the team that everybody else hates to play.”