After a heart-breaking last-second loss against Bucknell this past Tuesday, one thing was clear: Big girls don’t cry.

“No matter how badly we play, the game can still be close in the end,” captain and guard Jamie Van Horne ’09 said. “We proved that we can come back from 15 points down. Next time, we just need to be ready to come out and win.”

Over Thanksgiving break, the Bulldogs (1-1, 0-0 Ivy) will get a chance to test their mettle against some non-league competitors. First, the Elis will travel to Minnesota for the Subway Classic, where they will take on ACC powerhouse North Carolina State (4-0). The following weekend, Yale will hop over to Brooklyn and battle the SEC’s Mecca of basketball, Kentucky (3-1), on a neutral site.

Both games will provide a barometer of how well the Bulldogs can fare against big conference teams. Playing with an up-tempo style and the personnel to match, the Elis will hope to ignite breaks in transition and continually push the ball to wear out their opponents.

“What happened to Bucknell is going to happen to every one of our opponents; they’re not going to have anything left in the tank in the last 10 minutes,” head coach Chris Gobrecht said. “The ability for us to gas the other team is going to be there every game and we just have to be smarter in the game to not get too far behind.”

Tip-off for the first in a series of games slated for the break is set for 12 p.m. Saturday against N.C. State.

Contact John Song at john.song@yale.edu .