Note: Because of NCAA rules, I can't mention names of recruits and/or their high schools. That is why some of the information is vague.
After our last practice of the semester on Friday, I headed to a game to watch one of our top recruits in Wisconsin. Though I wasn't able to watch him play, it was great to make contact with him after the game. This recruit has told us that we are one of his top two schools. He is hurt right now, with a broken ankle. I think it says a lot about how much we want him if we see him when he isn't even playing. Hopefully, the visit went a long way.
After watching that game, I traveled to my hotel outside of Chicago. The Chicago area was getting the western part of the storm that buried the East Coast. The roads weren't too bad but it's always interesting to see how people drive in that type of stuff. I arrived around midnight and went straight to my room to get some sleep.
In the morning, I was able to catch a practice near Evanston. It is always good to watch how different coaches approach practice. It was the night after a game for this team and their two best players (one of them, a kid I was watching) barely practiced. They had a tough game on Friday night and play at 9am on Monday morning. Once practice was over I was able to talk with our recruit. It was the first time I was able to meet him in person and it's always good for him to put a face with a name he has heard on the phone a bunch.
After watching practice, I headed back to the hotel and watched a bunch of college games including the Texas-UNC matchup. I'm a huge UNC fan and Texas just flat out beat them up. The Tar Heels rely on a lot of younger guys and they didn't exactly respond to the physicalness that Dexter Pittman and Longhorns brought. I thought it was very similar to how our Hamline team is. We both can get stops but second opportunities hurts us. I won't compare Nelson or myself with Roy Williams but I think both teams will be much better down the road.
I got sick of sitting around and decided to head down to the North Central part of Illinois. There was a local eight team tournament that one of our recruits was taking part in. I wanted to check out the 3rd place game and the Championship game. You just never know what and who you will see. Both Nelson and Jamison were able to watch the kid I was looking at this summer, so this was the first time I have been able to lay eyes on him. Needless to say, I was very impressed. Once again, I talked to him for the first time in person yesterday and I was very impressed with him as a person and how he interacted with everyone from his community. He is getting recruited at all different levels and rightfully so, hopefully we can be involved until the end.
Now, I'm sitting in the hotel room watching a replay of the Whitewater-Mount Union football game on tv. Today is a off day as far as watching hoops but I get my fill tomorrow at the Wheeling Hardwood Classic starting at 9am. It should be an interesting day and a lot of sitting on my rear end.
To everyone, have a great Sunday and a Merry Christmas. This will be my last post until we get out to California.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Concordia-Moorhead
We had our first overnight trip this past weekend and headed to Moorhead to face the Cobbers of Concordia. It was the first true road trip for our freshmen and it is always good to see how they react to be in different settings and staying in a hotel. We decided against a shoot-around in the morning because we felt the guys needed some sleep. I also heard something about the Celtics not doing shoot-arounds anymore because there was a study saying that performance was better with more sleep. Looking back on it now I'm not sure we made the right decision. It's always good to get some shots up before a game. The problem was the only time available was too early. We can always change that.
The game started off really well for us as we opened up 10-3. Concordia got back in the game and ended up three at the half. We looked really sloppy and weren't moving the ball or penetrating like we should have been. We were lucky to be down only three. One good thing we did in the first half was limit their second opportunities. We rebounded really well but just couldn't make shots.
In the second half, the Cobbers came out with a bang and went up early. We battled back and tied the game several times and might of been up at one point but it wasn't for long. We just couldn't make shots when we needed. It didn't help that we only got to the line 14 times to their 34. I thought we were somewhat aggressive to the basket and passing to the post but things just weren't going our way. We certainly didn't think we got a fair shake but at the same time we can't put ourselves into that situation.
They ended up with four guys in double figures while we had two. We have to be able to find that third and fourth scorer behind Carl and Ray. In the games that we have been successful, we have had that. We also have to be more aggressive to the basket and get to the free throw line. If you make more free throws than your opponent attempts then you are doing a good job (like Concordia did).
Hopefully this week's practice will be super intense. We are hoping that we can string these practices together before we face #8 Wheaton out at Cal Lutheran. We head out to the California on the 26th to play on the 29th and 30th.
To add a laughter to a tough end of the first semester, here we go...
The game started off really well for us as we opened up 10-3. Concordia got back in the game and ended up three at the half. We looked really sloppy and weren't moving the ball or penetrating like we should have been. We were lucky to be down only three. One good thing we did in the first half was limit their second opportunities. We rebounded really well but just couldn't make shots.
In the second half, the Cobbers came out with a bang and went up early. We battled back and tied the game several times and might of been up at one point but it wasn't for long. We just couldn't make shots when we needed. It didn't help that we only got to the line 14 times to their 34. I thought we were somewhat aggressive to the basket and passing to the post but things just weren't going our way. We certainly didn't think we got a fair shake but at the same time we can't put ourselves into that situation.
They ended up with four guys in double figures while we had two. We have to be able to find that third and fourth scorer behind Carl and Ray. In the games that we have been successful, we have had that. We also have to be more aggressive to the basket and get to the free throw line. If you make more free throws than your opponent attempts then you are doing a good job (like Concordia did).
Hopefully this week's practice will be super intense. We are hoping that we can string these practices together before we face #8 Wheaton out at Cal Lutheran. We head out to the California on the 26th to play on the 29th and 30th.
To add a laughter to a tough end of the first semester, here we go...
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
St. Olaf
We had our first road of the year on Monday and it certainly didn't end the way he would've liked. We by lost 7 and once again got killed on second opportunities just like the Elmhurst and Augsburg game. We seem to want to use our youth as an excuse and I'm sick of hearing that. Yes, we do have nine newcomers to our team and yes, we have seven freshmen. We need to take care of business.
We started off pretty slow and never really came around in the first half. Olaf finished with 11 offensive rebounds in the half and probably scored on seven or eight of them. That's unacceptable. Carl Hipp had a tough half and missed a bunch of chippys early on. He definitely was frustrating and when we have an emphasis on getting the ball to him and he isn't scoring, that's definitely not a good thing for us. We ended up being down three at the half after playing awful.
We got back into the game with more intensity in the second half, but we still couldn't stop Mark Torell. He finished with 27 and we were supposed to focus on him early. We held the conference's second leading scorer, Alfie Jaryan, to one field goal because of the defense of Brandon Rieg and Jordan Schmidt. We need to be able to focus for longer stretches on defense and make sure their best players don't beat us.
We actually had the lead with 1:51 left in the game with the ball. We called a timeout and we going to look for the backdoor and if it wasn't there, an iso play for Ray Brown. Victor Easter, who played great in the second half, made a bad pass and the play went out of bounds. They come down, score, and get the momentum. They made their free throws down the stretch and ended up winning by seven.
It was another learning experience for our guys. We can't expect to give teams so many second opportunities (or timely opporunities for that matter) and expect to win. One thing that I noticed is that everything seems to snowball for us. If we make one bad play on offense then we make a bad play on defense, so on and so forth. We can't continue to do that and win in this conference, the guards are too good.
One thing about Nelson's teams is that we have always played well at the end of the year. Last year was a great example but we dug ourselves too big of a whole in the middle of the conference season. I told our guys that my senior year with Nelson at Brockport, we were 7-6 to start the year and then went on to win 15 straight and made it to the NCAA Tournament and the "Sweet 16." I think this team is capable of that, we certainly have enough talent. We'll see how much heart we have.
Up at Concordia-Moorhead on Saturday in our last game before break.
We started off pretty slow and never really came around in the first half. Olaf finished with 11 offensive rebounds in the half and probably scored on seven or eight of them. That's unacceptable. Carl Hipp had a tough half and missed a bunch of chippys early on. He definitely was frustrating and when we have an emphasis on getting the ball to him and he isn't scoring, that's definitely not a good thing for us. We ended up being down three at the half after playing awful.
We got back into the game with more intensity in the second half, but we still couldn't stop Mark Torell. He finished with 27 and we were supposed to focus on him early. We held the conference's second leading scorer, Alfie Jaryan, to one field goal because of the defense of Brandon Rieg and Jordan Schmidt. We need to be able to focus for longer stretches on defense and make sure their best players don't beat us.
We actually had the lead with 1:51 left in the game with the ball. We called a timeout and we going to look for the backdoor and if it wasn't there, an iso play for Ray Brown. Victor Easter, who played great in the second half, made a bad pass and the play went out of bounds. They come down, score, and get the momentum. They made their free throws down the stretch and ended up winning by seven.
It was another learning experience for our guys. We can't expect to give teams so many second opportunities (or timely opporunities for that matter) and expect to win. One thing that I noticed is that everything seems to snowball for us. If we make one bad play on offense then we make a bad play on defense, so on and so forth. We can't continue to do that and win in this conference, the guards are too good.
One thing about Nelson's teams is that we have always played well at the end of the year. Last year was a great example but we dug ourselves too big of a whole in the middle of the conference season. I told our guys that my senior year with Nelson at Brockport, we were 7-6 to start the year and then went on to win 15 straight and made it to the NCAA Tournament and the "Sweet 16." I think this team is capable of that, we certainly have enough talent. We'll see how much heart we have.
Up at Concordia-Moorhead on Saturday in our last game before break.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Augsburg and MAC
We started off the week with a Wednesday game against Augsburg in our first conference game of the season. Augsburg is always a tough matchup because they always play hard and they always have good guards. In the first half we took control of the game and led by five at the half. We should've been up at double figures. We shot the ball over 50% while they shot 26%. The biggest problem was that we had 12 turnovers and only got to the free throw line twice.
In the second half we took control again and got up as many as ten. We had a couple of opportunities to push the lead further but couldn't finish. There seemed to be a couple of calls that could've went either way and both went Augsburg's way. That is certainly the nature of the game though. I believe Augsburg took their first lead of the game with about three minutes to play. We had several opportunities to get the lead back or make a push and just couldn't do it.
Hopefully, we can learn from this game. We did do a good job defensively on their three guards. We held them to 13-39 shooting but they still made some big shots. We also beat them up on the glass by 12 but they got to some loose balls and had some timely offensive rebounds that they kicked out for 3. We held them to 36% shooting and outrebounded them. We still gave them too many second opportunities whether they be loose balls or offensive rebounds. These games are too important for us not to get better at those things.
We had our second conference game against a much improved Macalester team. They lost to St. Mary's by three on Wednesday and we were expecting a good one. The problem with playing a team that was as bad as Macalester was last year is that our guys know that and they have the tendency to take it easy and that definitely happened in the first half. We were down by three at the halftime buzzer after we went on a little run to finish the half. As a coaching staff, we were not happy at all.
The biggest issue was that the guys were playing tight. They didn't want to be the first team in our conference to lose to MAC. We got a good start to the half when Ray Brown got a steal in transition and had a pretty nasty dunk. That got everyone else going and our defensive intensity was sky high. We got a couple more buckets and pushed the lead to ten to fifteen for the rest of the game. Ray led us with 20 points and five boards. Carl Hipp finished with 19 and 7 (season low) while frosh Noah Aguirre had his third straight double figure game with ten to go along with three offensive rebounds. Nick Carroll played a great game with seven assists and two steals. I told him before the game, when he plays well, we do well. Hopefully, he keeps it up.
We have St. Olaf tonight in Northfield and then head up to Moorhead to play the Cobbers on Saturday. This week should be a good test for our boys.
In the second half we took control again and got up as many as ten. We had a couple of opportunities to push the lead further but couldn't finish. There seemed to be a couple of calls that could've went either way and both went Augsburg's way. That is certainly the nature of the game though. I believe Augsburg took their first lead of the game with about three minutes to play. We had several opportunities to get the lead back or make a push and just couldn't do it.
Hopefully, we can learn from this game. We did do a good job defensively on their three guards. We held them to 13-39 shooting but they still made some big shots. We also beat them up on the glass by 12 but they got to some loose balls and had some timely offensive rebounds that they kicked out for 3. We held them to 36% shooting and outrebounded them. We still gave them too many second opportunities whether they be loose balls or offensive rebounds. These games are too important for us not to get better at those things.
We had our second conference game against a much improved Macalester team. They lost to St. Mary's by three on Wednesday and we were expecting a good one. The problem with playing a team that was as bad as Macalester was last year is that our guys know that and they have the tendency to take it easy and that definitely happened in the first half. We were down by three at the halftime buzzer after we went on a little run to finish the half. As a coaching staff, we were not happy at all.
The biggest issue was that the guys were playing tight. They didn't want to be the first team in our conference to lose to MAC. We got a good start to the half when Ray Brown got a steal in transition and had a pretty nasty dunk. That got everyone else going and our defensive intensity was sky high. We got a couple more buckets and pushed the lead to ten to fifteen for the rest of the game. Ray led us with 20 points and five boards. Carl Hipp finished with 19 and 7 (season low) while frosh Noah Aguirre had his third straight double figure game with ten to go along with three offensive rebounds. Nick Carroll played a great game with seven assists and two steals. I told him before the game, when he plays well, we do well. Hopefully, he keeps it up.
We have St. Olaf tonight in Northfield and then head up to Moorhead to play the Cobbers on Saturday. This week should be a good test for our boys.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Buena Vista Game
After the Northwestern game I wasn't sure how our team would react to our next one against Buena Vista. We had a 12 day layoff (from games) and Thanksgiving in between. I was hoping our bodies were rested and ready to go for the rest of the season. We got off to a decent start in our first game with Ray Brown starting. He still isn't back to 100% but he certainly made a difference in our performance.
It was a back and forth game to start with not a lot of defense being played. I think that played to our advantage because Buena Vista wasn't use to playing at that speed. We ended up scoring 56 points in the first half, and that was with 12 turnovers and going 6-16 from 3. I think that's a very scary thought that we can score that much without playing to our potential. We settled for a bunch of early 3's and made several bad passes. Noah Aguirre, a freshman from California, led the charge with 17 points in the half.
In the second half we went on a run to get things going and push the lead to 20 points. Buena Vista answered right away and got it back to 11. After this scare we got it back to a comfortable lead and ended up winning 107-84. We were led by Aguirre's 27. Also hitting double figures we Ray Brown with 19, Carl Hipp with 18 and nine boards, and Brandon Rieg with 13. We also outrebounded a taller team 42-28. We still need to work on our rebounding, we are relying on our athleticism too much. Obviously, our defense needs work but I thought we took them out of their offense and made them uncomfortable. We played a style they weren't use to and they couldn't keep up.
We have a huge game tomorrow night against Augsburg in our first MIAC contest. It should be interesting to see how we match up with their three shooters that all play significant minutes. I would not be surprised to see their suspended player play against us. We certainly have something to play for after hearing some recent comments about our team. I'll just leave it at that.
It was a back and forth game to start with not a lot of defense being played. I think that played to our advantage because Buena Vista wasn't use to playing at that speed. We ended up scoring 56 points in the first half, and that was with 12 turnovers and going 6-16 from 3. I think that's a very scary thought that we can score that much without playing to our potential. We settled for a bunch of early 3's and made several bad passes. Noah Aguirre, a freshman from California, led the charge with 17 points in the half.
In the second half we went on a run to get things going and push the lead to 20 points. Buena Vista answered right away and got it back to 11. After this scare we got it back to a comfortable lead and ended up winning 107-84. We were led by Aguirre's 27. Also hitting double figures we Ray Brown with 19, Carl Hipp with 18 and nine boards, and Brandon Rieg with 13. We also outrebounded a taller team 42-28. We still need to work on our rebounding, we are relying on our athleticism too much. Obviously, our defense needs work but I thought we took them out of their offense and made them uncomfortable. We played a style they weren't use to and they couldn't keep up.
We have a huge game tomorrow night against Augsburg in our first MIAC contest. It should be interesting to see how we match up with their three shooters that all play significant minutes. I would not be surprised to see their suspended player play against us. We certainly have something to play for after hearing some recent comments about our team. I'll just leave it at that.
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