ISU forward Tracy Gahan sits cross-legged on her beige love seat. The gray day seeping in through the window is the only light in her apartment.

It’s 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, but Gahan is dressed like it’s 2:30 on Wednesday morning.

Her black hair is pulled back in a pony tail. She wears glasses, a gray, long-sleeve T-shirt, and red and blue plaid pajama bottoms.

Six months of Division I basketball has recently ended for Gahan, and she sees no problem in dressing like this.

“I can just sit and do nothing and be happy,” Gahan said.

Lindsey Wilson can’t.

“I get super bored,” the point guard said. “You don’t realize how busy you are until you’re not.”

Today completes the first week since the ISU women’s basketball team lost to Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

Players and head coach fill their time differently.

“Out of everyone, Lindsey takes it the hardest,” Gahan said. “She’s the worst loser.”

“It’s just a weird week,” Wilson said. “I really get sad and depressed after the season’s over.”

After every other season, Wilson would take to the gym and shoot.

But instead, today she’ll have surgery on her right shoulder to repair cartilage damage done to her rotator cuff.

“I can’t sit around,” Wilson said.

She will have to for up to three months however, until the shoulder can heal – which may be helpful because, “we’re all behind on school work,” Wilson said.

“I think I’m the worst group partner ever,” center Angie Welle said. “I’m never in class.”

“I mean, Tracy and I were just talking about this,” Welle said. “It would have been fun to go to St. Louis [for the women’s Final Four], but I don’t know what I would have done with my school work.”

Welle said she just made up a test that was scheduled three weeks ago. But once she does catch up on homework, she won’t be satisfied.

“I have to keep busy,” she said.

She runs every day in preparation for April 9, the day the team starts scrimmaging and lifting. Every Tuesday and Thursday that follows until the end of the school year, Welle will spend time with post players, perfecting post moves.

“Basketball keeps us disciplined,” she said.

Basketball keeps head coach Bill Fennelly traveling.

“A lot of organizations, a lot of p.r. work, a lot of public speaking,” he said.

“They know that your season’s over,” Fennelly said. “It’s actually busier in the off-season in the sense of travel and the time away from home.”

And then there are the many gyms and AAU tournaments he will visit this spring and summer, cajoling young women to don the Cardinal and Gold.

Gahan is still wearing her red and blue plaid pajama pants.

She said it’s good to take a break from wearing the school colors. “I get caught up on my homework.”

She never forgets the losses. In fact, “it still kind of feels like we’re not done,” she said. “But you have to move on.”

This summer, she will lift weights and try to gain ten pounds. “I’ve been trying to gain weight for ten years,” she said.

The summer months are the key to early spring success the following year.

As she pushes the limit of her shooting range this summer, Welle will keep the images of Vanderbilt bouncing through her mind. “You use that as motivation in the summer.”

Wilson will strengthen her shoulder.

Gahan will “keep in touch with a ball through dribbling and shooting.”

But in the mean time, “I’m going to bed,” Gahan said.