Coming into the fifth game of the season, the University of West Georgia women’s basketball team has to play better than it has the last two games.

After starting 2-0, the Wolves have dropped their last two games and will hope to break the short skid tonight at 7:30 against Morris at The Coliseum.

“We’re trying to get a win, trying to get some energy and enthusiasm to doing things the way we were doing them the first two games of the year. I just think we’re in a really bad funk. Sometimes teams get in that and we’re trying to break out of it,” UWG coach Scott Groninger said.

Today’s game is a good time to make that happen with the Gulf South Conference schedule looming, but Morris isn’t going to be a pushover. In last year’s game, the Lady Hornets had a three-point lead at halftime and had a 22-rebound advantage for the game.

“We’ve played them both years I’ve been here and last year we were coming off a couple good wins and we were feeling good about ourselves and they took a three-point lead at halftime. I’ve never been out-rebounded 57-35 before. We ended up winning by [nine]. They’re going to play hard. They’re going to play each possession and are a good rebounding team,” Groninger said.

Even with the expectations of a tough opponent, the focus right now is more on UWG (2-2) than on any given opponent.

“We’ve got to get out of this funk. We’re not so much worried about them as we are worried about ourselves right now. In watching us play the last two games, I think a lot of the problem is ourselves. Not so much what the other team is doing, but what we’re doing to ourselves, as far as not executing or not communicating on the floor. We’re really more concerned about that,” Groninger said.

The Thanksgiving holiday won’t be used as an excuse. Basketball is one of those sports that plays across holiday breaks and that is something the UWG coach expects his players to be used to by now.

“We don’t have excuses for that. It’s basketball season. They’re used to playing. High school teams play, they’ve been playing during holiday breaks since high school. College players are used to playing. I told our kids [Tuesday] night, they can think of it as being a Hawaiian game. You watch those great games on the island and sometimes those early-morning games, there’s eight people in the stands,” Groninger said. “It’s just part of playing this time of year.”