It's expected for a team to hold its own on its home floor, but winning on the road carries an entirely different mindset.
Ball State is still very much in the process of mastering that attitude. Excluding coach Kelly Packard's inaugural 2008-09 season, Ball State has a combined record of 8-30 away from Worthen Arena.
Taking a look at every sport, not just basketball, Packard said the winning percentages for teams playing at home are staggering.
While coaching a team that consists of just three seniors, Packard hasn't had the luxury of having veteran players who have won games on the road.
Instead of looking at her team's overall winning percentage, Packard examined the Cardinals' road troubles more closely, narrowing them down to competiveness and maturity.
"We don't have players right now logging minutes that have won on the road," Packard said. "We've got to somehow figure out how to do it and believe we can."
The two veteran players who have experienced road success are the two senior co-captains, Suzanne Grossnickle and Amber Crago. During the 2008-09 season, both Grossnickle and Crago saw limited action in their roles as mainly bench players. Grossnickle averaged 9.5 minutes per game, while Crago averaged 6.5.
"I wouldn't even say that they know how to win on the road as seniors," Packard said. "The maturity part means that I know that we can and expect that we will [win]. I know we want to, [but] I don't know that we think we can and expect that we will."
Aside from having competitive maturity, Packard said it takes twice the effort to win in hostile environments.
"You can't go on the road and do the ordinary thing and expect to win," she said. "Ordinary things would be [to] defend a ball screen, defend a down screen, managing their full-court pressure with a pass break. That's ordinary.
"You can't just do that on the road. I told them that you have to do the extra ordinary [thing]. You're going to have to find extra. Extra might be averaging four more offensive rebounds than we have on the season, getting 70 percent of the loose balls, taking three-to-four turnovers off of what we're averaging."
Despite coaching a young team, Packard said there is no need to change her coaching philosophy or alter her team's routines when they go on the road. The team will eat together, go to the gym and hold a shootaround, where they spend time fine-tuning their defensive strategy.
Off the court, the team spends a lot of time around one another. At times, the team will be gathered in a hotel room gossiping or keeping their beauty up to par.
"Sometimes with all girls, [it] looks like gathering in somebody's room and painting nails, I hate to say," Packard, laughing, said. "Just trying to create team unity, the focus of taking the court united. We just like to be together."
With three road games remaining this season, including a two-game trip starting in Ohio on Saturday, Packard has reverted to the basics of coaching.
"You have to teach, and we dominantly do that in the film room and then on the court," Packard said. "You have accountability and clearly define what it was that we didn't do well enough and then you re-teach it if you have to."
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