All Fun and Sun in the Bahamas? NOT!

When we entered the plane on the way back from the Bahamas, a gentleman sitting on the plane asked where we were from. When we responded that we were a basketball team from the University of Charleston, he sarcastically replied, "So that is how the University of Charleston spends its money--sending their teams to the Bahamas." When I informed him that every penny of the money we spent was due to our fundraising efforts, he immediately changed his tune, "Wow. You must have spent a lot of hours doing car washes."

While we didn't do car washes, we did spend many hours "hustling" for the money. Many people have inquired why we want to take the team to the Bahamas or other exotic locales. As educators we want to provide opportunities for our players to learn about the world. We had three players who had never ridden on a plane; four who had never been on a boat; and several who had never been out of the country. They received new experiences and learned that the world is bigger than our gym. They got to put their feet and faces in the ocean and see the wondrous colors of the fish and life beneath the water. Hopefully, we have opened up their minds to new opportunities and ways of thinking.

I personally like to plan a trip every other year because it assists us in recruiting. It may just be the edge we need to convince some great young talent to choose the University of Charleston over another institution. In the challenging world of recruiting, we need every advantage we can get.

Finally, there is a misconception that we simply go to the Bahamas to get a tan. Any person who has spent a few hours with me knows that this is not about to occur. Our first and foremost concern is playing basketball and using the experience to get better.

During our stay there, the players had a basketball quiz, scouted our opponents both on tape and live, dissected our team on tape, played two games, practiced two times, and had a team meeting to dissolve differences. On the days we played games, there was not any time spent on the beach, in the pool, or in the sun. Those days were entirely spent on business.

We did allow ourselves one day after the games were completed to enjoy the sun, the beach, and the ocean. Even though this was a "fun" day; it still served a purpose--team bonding. There is nothing more critical to the success of a team than to have players enjoy being around one another. If players like one another, then they are more apt to play better together. A trip like this one where there are no friends other than teammates, the team has to learn to be together and have fun with one another. I have taken teams on several excursions and on every one of them, we came back with a greater sense of unity.

It is my belief that not only do we become a better team from a trip like this one, but we also become better people. What more could a coach ask for?

Three in a Row!

After a somewhat slow and tedious start, the Golden Eagles are gaining ground. We have won the last three games in a row. With six games on the road and two starters from last season sidelined early due to injuries, a 5-2 record is not too shabby. Although from this coach's viewpoint, we could have been 7-0. We've beaten ourselves more than the opponent has beaten us. We are fortunate to be in this position which means if we limit our mistakes and continue to learn the game, we can become a very good team. It beats the flipside which is knowing we are not good enough to win the games which we have lost.

We still have players wrestling with their roles on the team trying to figure out what it is that they can do and what they believe the coaching staff wants them to do. This is often difficult as players perceive themselves differently than who they are. Some players believe they are running the offense when they penetrate and pitch without ball reversal or screening action. While this may be effective at times, it is the timing of the act which is critical. There are times when the coaching staff thinks it is a great idea to catch and shoot the first pass then there are times when this is not such a grand idea. Teaching the players the difference is the difficult part.

Our last game against Edinboro, we were able to develop a 20 point lead early in the game only to see us make error after error which the opponents used to their advantage. When we were up by 12 points with 5:00 minutes remaining, we would like for our team to take good shots such as uncontested shots by a great shooter, lay-ups, and 1-on-1 shots in the paint. We don't want to shoot the ball early unless we have one of those options. We'd rather work the ball, set several screens, get the defense moving from ballside to helpside, use the clock, and look for a great shot. Unfortunately, we did not choose to do those things.

Our players took shots which we had been asking them to do early in the game or perhaps even encouraging them to work on during practice. However, the timing these shots resulted in easy baskets for Edinboro. A bad shot is like a turnover. It is difficult to transition to defense when teammates are not prepared for the shot. Fortunately, we were able to do enough smart things to win the game this time. It is during next game that we must not allow ourselves to make the same errors.

When players become smarter, the game gets easier. When they understand what the coaching staff wants they no longer have to second guess their shots or actions. This is a tedious process and right when the coaching staff believes we have players where they need to be, they graduate and leave us to start at the beginning again with newcomers. At least with the current team, we have several sophomores who are playing and gaining tremendous experience. This knowledge should make them phoenomenal players by the end of the season.

We depart for the Bahamas on Monday for a two game tournament against some great opponents. Hopefully, we will have good news about our experiences both on and off the court.

I hope all of you enjoy family and friends over the holidays.

Recovering From a Loss

We were blitzed, hammered, chewed up and spit out by West Virginia Wesleyan on Tuesday at home in Eddie King where we should play our best basketball. We didn't. In fact, it would be generous of me to say that we played team basketball at all. What we did was a lot of one-on-five offense and take-care-of-my-player-only defense. Neither was very successful.

So how did we get from Tuesday when we were horrible beyond repair to Saturday where we defeated Shepherd at their place? Good question. Was Shepherd a bad team? No. Not at all. In the matter of a few days, we had made the decision to play team ball.

After our devastating loss to WVW, we had a video session on Wednesday with the entire team. We had them pull out a sheet of paper from their notebooks and create several columns. The headers for the columns were as follows: number of passes, number of post seals, number of picks-on-ball, number of dribble hand-offs, number of combination screens, and number of good shots. We then watched each offensive possession we had and filled in the correct numbers which was not difficult since we averaged 1-2 passes and 0 in the other columns. Then we watched WVW on offense where they averaged 6-7 passes, took great shots and had several screens each possession.

It was easy to see why we could not score. It wasn't difficult to defend us since we didn't run an offense. It is easy to play defense when a defender never has to move from ballside to helpside or when they never have to fight through a screen.

While we didn't break down our defense like we did our offense, we did have some serious discussions about lack of effort and lack of talking on defense. Then we allowed the players to tell the coaching staff what they needed from us. How could we make practices better? How could we better prepare them for games? The players felt they needed more five-on-five in practice. As a coaching staff, we agreed to make certain we would allow them more opportunity to play in specified five-on-five settings.

Finally, the players pull out another sheet of paper from their notebooks. We asked them to write down all the ways they could personally help the team become better. Then we had them write down their personal goals in terms of what points, rebounds, or assists they could average according to the playing time they received.

It was awesome to see how they responded to the WVW loss and how they came back after watching themselves on videtape. It gives me hope they will continue to learn and grow and that they have the desire to become the best they can be.