Syracuse, N.Y. -- Digna Strautmane carries a relaxed air about her this Syracuse women's basketball preseason, a reduced-stress approach that's no accident.
The sophomore forward is coming off what, for her, is a rarity. In another summer jammed full of basketball, she wedged in a couple weeks of downtime.
There was a brief gap between representing her native Lativa in the FIBA U-19 Women's Basketball World Cup and the overall World Cup, so Strautmane took a couple vacation weeks for the first time in her recent memory.
Strautmane hung out at her grandmother's house near the Baltic Sea and then dropped off the map to an even greater extent during a kayaking trip with her sister and friends.