![Nikki Cabuco is the third-year starting guard for the UFV women’s basketball team. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow Nikki Cabuco scored 197 points this season, averaging 8.9 per game, and totaling 37 assists, improving her shooting accuracy both beyond and inside the 3-point line. But scoring and stat accumulation is secondary for the Child and Youth Studies student. Her primary objective is simply to celebrate the successes of her teammates while learning to recognize her own contributions internally. If points and stats aren’t your top concern, what would you say your role is on the team? I think I’m that positive upbeat person. My goal is to have the team be in the right headspace and be together. So when we're in team huddles, I'm the positive booster rather than the analytical one. That's just not my role on the team. As a leader, I’d rather have those mini side conversations with all my teammates asking ***are you good? That fits my personality more. I'd rather know that all my teammates are in the right headspace, or that everyone's on the same page to win the game, rather than have my individual award. Really good defence — there's no stat for that. What are the steps you want to take on for your next season with the team? For the next couple of years, I want to have that confidence and hunger to want to score. I think I struggle with this because obviously to be a good shooter, you wanna take shots more in practice, find time to shoot on your off-days, or play one-on-one with my teammates like Maddie [Gobeil]. Maddie is so analytical; she's amazing with that type of stuff. We'd watch [game] film by ourselves, and I would get her to send me clips of what I probably could have done [better] from a player's perspective. I think it's finding that switch… wanting to be better for the team, but also better for myself. I want to find that mentality where I am thinking about myself, and not dismissing myself. How do you balance school and basketball with the tough student-athlete schedule? I feel I’d regret not playing all five years. It's a cool opportunity to play. I love my schooling. I love what I'm learning. When I have homework, it's not a burden to do homework. I love my degree. It's kind of nice that I’ve actually found a great group of girls who are my program friends who aren’t always associated with basketball.](http://ufvcascade.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/NikkiCabuco-UFVCascdes-Copy.jpg "NikkiCabuco- UFVCascdes (Copy)")
Nikki Cabuco is the third-year starting guard for the UFV women’s basketball team. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow
Nikki Cabuco scored 197 points this season, averaging 8.9 per game, and totaling 37 assists, improving her shooting accuracy both beyond and inside the 3-point line. But scoring and stat accumulation is secondary for the Child and Youth Studies student. Her primary objective is simply to celebrate the successes of her teammates while learning to recognize her own contributions internally.
If points and stats aren’t your top concern, what would you say your role is on the team?
I think I’m that positive upbeat person. My goal is to have the team be in the right headspace and be together. So when we’re in team huddles, I’m the positive booster rather than the analytical one. That’s just not my role on the team. As a leader, I’d rather have those mini side conversations with all my teammates asking are you good? That fits my personality more. I’d rather know that all my teammates are in the right headspace, or that everyone’s on the same page to win the game, rather than have my individual award. Really good defence — there’s no stat for that.
What are the steps you want to take on for your next season with the team?
For the next couple of years, I want to have that confidence and hunger to want to score. I think I struggle with this because obviously to be a good shooter, you wanna take shots more in practice, find time to shoot on your off-days, or play one-on-one with my teammates like Maddie [Gobeil]. Maddie is so analytical; she’s amazing with that type of stuff. We’d watch [game] film by ourselves, and I would get her to send me clips of what I probably could have done [better] from a player’s perspective.
I think it’s finding that switch… wanting to be better for the team, but also better for myself. I want to find that mentality where I am thinking about myself, and not dismissing myself.
How do you balance school and basketball with the tough student-athlete schedule?
I feel I’d regret not playing all five years. It’s a cool opportunity to play. I love my schooling. I love what I’m learning. When I have homework, it’s not a burden to do homework. I love my degree. It’s kind of nice that I’ve actually found a great group of girls who are my program friends who aren’t always associated with basketball.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.
