Several weeks ago UTEP women's coach Keitha Adams pulled out a new line of optimism to describe a team where seven of the 12 players are freshmen.
After the brutal nonconference schedule that included five power conference opponents, she said those freshmen were no longer freshmen, that in terms of experience they were basically sophomores.
The first one to get to that point was 6-foot-2 power forward Zuzanna Puc. A longtime veteran of various Polish national teams, she was the first freshman to appear in the first game, the first one to score and at the moment the one with the most starts.