Forget March Madness. When it comes to the UAA women's basketball team, the make-or-break time of the year is Summer Suffering.
If you play for the top-ranked Seawolves, the offseason comes with expectations. And so summer is a time for weight-lifting, running, agility drills, open gym -- it's a time for the Seawolves get fit, so they are ready to roll once the season begins.
UAA is 27-1 and riding a 15-game winning streak into this week's Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament because they run opponents ragged. The Seawolves have a first-round bye and don't play until Friday's semifinals, when they'll face Simon Fraser (15-12), which defeated Saint Martin's 64-56 in Wednesday's first round in Billings, Montana.
The Seawolves have some enviable offensive weapons in posts Megan Mullings and KeKe Wright, shooters Jenna Buchanan and Jessica Madison and playmaker Kiki Robertson.
But it's defense that drives them, a defense that requires non-stop pressing, trapping and running. Many opponents have managed to hang with the Seawolves for a half, maybe even for 30 or 35 minutes. But few manage to keep pace for a full 40 minutes.
"Our style ultimately wears on a team," third-year coach Ryan McCarthy said. "One thing you can't fix is depth and conditioning. We have a deep enough roster where we can play this style."
UAA platoons its substitutions -- three or four players check in at a time, giving the team a near-constant source of new energy and refreshed legs. Eight of the team's nine players average double-digit minutes and the ninth, freshman point guard Jerica Nelson, averages 7.6.
Logging the most minutes per game is senior Alli Madison, a guard who is the prototype for McCarthy's system. She averages 26 minutes a game and is in constant motion on defense, always trying to get a hand on the ball or pressure the ballhandler into a turnover.
Acquiring the fitness to play 40 minutes of relentlessly fast-paced basketball is a year-round job for Madison and her teammates.
"Oh boy," Madison said when asked about it.
"There's a hefty summer schedule," she said. "We have accountability partners and we call each other every day to make sure everybody's being honest."
A typical week, she said, includes four sessions of weightlifting and enough running so that players can meet the team requirement for a 1.5-mile run. Post players have to do it in 10 minutes, 40 seconds; guards have to do it in 10:20.
Once school is in session and teams are allowed to begin preconditioning, it's time for Hell Week.
"5 a.m. workouts and open gym later," Madison said. "It's pretty intense."
Junior guard Jenna Buchanan said players sometimes go to Kincaid Park for workouts.
"We run on the sand dunes," she said. "Uphill."
And then there are conditioning drills set on an obstacle course, with players split into two teams. "The losers run more," Buchanan said.
UAA leads the nation in steals with 15.1 a game and rank third in rebounding margin at plus-10.8. Those are hustle stats.
The Seawolves give up their share of points -- they rank 37th nationally in scoring defense, allowing 59.4 per game -- but they boast an offense that averages 80.9 points, the fourth most in the nation.