Wilcox Tech girls basketball coach Scott Madeiros gives a pep talk to players Jasmine Hiraldo (left) and Neysha Caban (right) during a time out in the fourth quarter against Vinal Tech at Vinal Tech High School in Middletown, January 9, 2012. (Sarah Nathan/Record-Journal)

     MIDDLETOWN - The Wilcox Tech girls basketball team is at its best when in motion. Running the floor, getting active with a zone press - that's when the Indians really click.
     This is apt for a team that spends so much time on the move off the court.
     In a quirk of scheduling, the Indians are playing 14 of their 20 regular-season games on the road this winter. Not only that, they're playing games far and wide that will essentially take them to all four corners of the state.
     The odometer doesn't lie. Roundtrip, the Tribe travelled nearly 600 miles opening the season with six straight road games to Granby, Joel Barlow-Redding, Holy Family-Baltic, Windham Tech, Somers and East Windsor.
     By season's end, with games in Bridgeport, Ansonia, Enfield and Torrington still ahead, Wilcox will have logged over 1,000 miles on their big blue school bus, with culinary arts teacher Frank Ahern at the wheel.
     Between packing plenty of snacks and singing plenty of karaoke, coach Scott Madieros and his team have re-signed themselves to making the best of it. Madieros even waxes philosophical.
     "If this is our only problem that we have to deal with, to have to worry about wearing a hole in the bus seat, that's our only issue?" he said after Monday night's 56-49 win against Vinal Tech in Middletown.
     At 24 miles roundtrip, Vinal Tech was Wilcox's shortest jaunt of the season. The approximately 120-mile odyssey to Holy Family-Baltic out in the farm country of southeastern Connecticut was the longest, and that baby is in the rearview mirror.
     So is the 85-mile tour of duty out to Joel Barlow in Redding, a trip that seemed longer because a good portion of it was spent on secondary roads after exiting I-84 in Newtown.
     "I think the longest was an hour-fifteen. Maybe Joel Barlow?" senior captain Stephanie DeJesus tried to recall Monday. "I don't even remember."
     Typically, CIAC teams play half their regular-season games at home and half on the road, with the occasional plus or minus one or two. A 6-14 split is unheard of. Even within their Constitution State Conference slate, the Indians have five home games and nine away.
     And regardless of what Gene Hackman's Coach Dale said in Hoosiers, all basketball courts may be 50 feet by 94, but all basketball courts are not the same, which makes for a distinct road disadvantage.
     "Every gym has a different set up. We're accustomed to our own hoops," said junior Neysha Caban, noting that public school gyms tend to be more spacious and open-ended than the tech schools. "It's hard to get used to 14 games on the road."
     Initially, the Indians had a 10-home, 10-away slate. But when Madieros revisited his schedule on the CIAC website in late summer, it had changed.
     Constitution State Conference commissioner Bob McNamara, in comments to the Hartford Courant, took the hit, calling it an "unfortunate situation that came to light too late for it to be corrected."
     Another factor to be considered was the changeover in the Wilcox Tech athletic department during the fall.
     Madieros isn't interested in pointing fingers or demanding explanations. He's got a team to coach, a team that stands at 4-7 a year after going 11-9 and reaching the second round of the CIAC tournament.
     "It was frustrating at the beginning," Madieros said. "I know my seniors aren't too happy about it. They want to play in front of their friends and their fans. But for the most part they're trying to make the best of it, even after a loss."
     "I want more home games like last year," senior Jasmine Hiraldo could only wish.
     Since tech schools don't typically stop for meals on return trips - that requires a written request made well in advance - the Indians refuel after games with snacks they provide. They rotate. Two girls supply one game, two girls handle the next.
     They talk basketball, about games already played and the game about to be played.
     They burrow into I-pods and engage in sing-alongs. Hiraldo and fellow senior Kathleen Roldan specialize in "Someone Like You" by Adele.
     "I love it," Madieros said. "I sing along."
     It's an odd choice, though, when you consider the first line is "I heard that you're settled down."
     "The Long and Winding Road" by the Beatles might be the better theme song. "On the Road" by Kerouac should be required reading.
     Or maybe all that's too old school. What's for sure is present circumstances have prompted new-school coaching techniques.
     "Some days are real good and some days I know when to lay off a little bit and give them their space because they're tired and cranky," Madieros said.
     The longer trips don't see the girls getting home much before 10 p.m. That's a lot of time away from family, so in some respects the team becomes a surrogate clan, marked by the same kinds of joys and tensions. Maybe that is the true destination of this long Wilcox season on the road.
     "Yeah, we get on each other's nerves," said DeJesus, "but we're a team. We love each other."