(Editor's note: Mississippi State sophomore LaToya Thomas, who led the SEC in scoring last season en route to landing a spot on the Kodak All-American team, will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season.)

Dec. 11, 2000

I'm back! This has been another eventful week at Mississippi State. We traveled to Louisiana Tech last Thursday and came up a little short. We played hard, but we still didn't pull it off. La Tech had a great crowd. Ruston is a tough place to win.

	Thomas

We learned from that loss and this week at practice we just have to work harder. For example, I've got to work on playing defense without fouling. I got a lot of stupid fouls and fouled out with more than five minutes left in the game. I can't contribute much from the bench, so I've got to work on staying on the floor.

We are hosting a tournament this weekend, the Mississippi State Classic. The teams coming in are from all over. We play Louisiana-Lafayette first. Howard (from Washington D.C.) and Stony Brook (from New York) play each other in the first game of the tournament.

We are looking forward to playing in front of our home crowd before we hit the road again over the holidays. We play at Southern Miss on the 19th and then we get to go home, but we have to be back on Christmas Day because we fly to New York on the 26th. We are playing Albany and Marist while we are in New York.

I twisted my ankle yesterday in practice, but I don't worry about injuries too much anymore because our trainer, Mary McLendon, and her student assistant, Carmin April, take good care of us. Mary has been keeping me healthy ever since I got a stress fracture in my foot last year. She always finds a way to keep me on the floor and I hope she knows how much we all appreciate her.

Finals started Saturday so I've been pretty busy preparing for those. Since we don't have a game this week, I've got a little more time to focus on my studies. I still can't believe the fall semester is almost over. Time just flew by! In less than a month, we'll be playing the SEC part of our schedule.

Heading home for the holiday
I haven't had much time to chill with my girls (Cornbread and KiKi) because of finals. And we haven't played any cards in a good while, but I think we'll make it up over the break.

I am looking forward to going home for a few days. I miss my family and all my friends back in Greenville! I can't wait to eat a home-cooked meal, too! It will be a short stay, but I'll be loving every minute of it.

I won't be writing again until January, so I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading my journal entries and keeping up with women's college basketball. Enjoy the time you get with friends and family -- I know I will!!

Peace -- Toya