7:50 AM: The team departs approximately five minutes late for the airport, but the delay did not cause any problems as the Lady Raiders arrived about one hour and 15 minutes prior to takeoff. Assistant Coach Drew Clinton passes out meal money, which draws a few smiles from the players since they have not had a chance to eat anything at this point. Assistant Coach Melanie Walls works on finishing up the scouting report on the way to the airport. The team will have a scouting report meeting later in the day.

8:45 AM: Team arrives at airport, checks in, goes through security, and immediately heads for the closest café for a quick bite to eat.

9:15 AM: Head Coach Stephany Smith, who is filling out her NCAA and WNIT brackets while waiting to board the flight, engages in a conversation with Daily News Journal writer Monte Hale. Smith talked about how Patrice Holmes is so smart and into the game of basketball. In a recent meeting, Holmes knew all the trends and stats to every NC State player. "Patrice chimed in during our meeting on numerous occasions letting the team know what they had to do in order to be successful against NC State," said Smith. "She told us that Tiffany Stansbury had 102 offensive rebounds this season and that we better box her out. Obviously, as a staff we already knew this, but it was easy to see how into the game Patrice already was at this point." Smith also provided the tidbit that former star Joanna Aluka is playing for Nancy Lieberman-Cline in Texas for a development league team. Lieberman-Cline will be providing color commentary for the MT-NC State game on ESPN2.

9:40 AM: The team boards American Airlines flight 853 for Dallas. The flight, which is not full, takes off five minutes early (9:55 AM) and the flight attendant recognized the Lady Raider basketball team over the intercom system and wished them luck in the NCAA Tournament.

11:46 PM: After a smooth flight, the Lady Raiders touch down at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW). The bus gets loaded and the team leaves for the Renaissance Hotel at 12:23 PM, but along the way a stop at McDonald's for lunch was in order.

1:08 PM: Team arrives at the Renaissance Hotel.

2:00 PM: The Lady Raiders boarded the team bus and headed for the nearest mall where they shopped until 4:00 PM.

5:00 PM: The players, coaches, trainer and managers all met in the Riviera Room in the hotel and played a game called Taboo. They broke down into two teams of nine people each by drawing names out of a hat to decide who was on each team. The two teams were named 'Ballers' and 'Elite Eight with a Captain'. Taboo is a game where you draw a word, then you describe the word without using the most logical clues and your teammates have to guess the word within a certain time limit. After the game, the team spent about 45 minutes going over the scouting report for NC State.

6:45 PM: The team headed to dinner at Campis's, which is a local Italian Restaurant that has been around since 1946. The baked lasagna and ravioli was awesome.

8:30 PM: The team returns to the hotel. Players and coaches go to a brief meeting, while the rest of the traveling party settled in front of televisions to watch the night session of the NCAA Tournament.

11:00 PM: The team headed to their rooms and settled down in preparation of a busy day on Friday.

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