Diary Series: Mark Pope, Asst. Coach - BYU

We learned two important things about our team from our exhibition games this season. First, we are really talented.  Second, we have a lot of work to do to reach our potential. With the loss of the unanimous NCAA player of the year and NBA lottery pick, Jimmer Fredette, and the undeniable heart and soul of the team, Jackson Emery, we definitely have some retooling to do.  Fortunately for the Cougar nation, we have one of the best coaches in all of college basketball in Coach Rose and a whole crew of really interesting players for him to work with. There is no one in the business that is better at putting all those pieces together than Coach Rose.  We have a tremendous test ahead of us as we prepare to open the season at Utah State this Friday.  We can't wait to get started.   

Our players have been working very hard. Brock Zylstra has been terrific in assuming his new role as our starting point guard.  It is remarkable to think that he had never even considered the possibility of playing the point before our trip to Greece.  Noah Hartsock and Charles Abouo have taken over leadership roles as the only two seniors on our team.  Stephen Rogers and Brandon Davies have asserted themselves as big time scorers.  Our only true Freshman, Damarcus Harrison, has shown flashes of brilliance.  Chris Collinsworth is getting healthier every day and our three return missionaries, Josh Sharp, Nate Austin, and Ian Harward are rapidly regaining their pre-mission form.  Anson Winder, Nick Martineau, and Craig Cusick have all been great thus far.  With the great effort that everyone has put it, December can still not come soon enough.  That is when Matt Carlino finally becomes eligible.     

Coaching Thought

After spending the fall and the summer recruiting, scheduling and fulfilling all of the administrative duties that require so much of a our time as coaches, there is nothing that I look forward to more than getting back to the part of coaching that I truly love....teaching. We still have to be salesman and administrators and counselors, but during this six months of the calendar year our most important job is it is to teach.  It is incredibly rewarding to see a player take a foreign idea, skill, or way of seeing the game and make it their own through instruction, practice, and repetition.  That we get to take part in that process is awesome.   It is not all roses and victories, however.  Sometimes we totally fail to get our point across.  

One example of this occurred last season.  Faced with a lengthening string of consecutive losses, I had meticulously put together a scouting report for our upcoming game.  After hours of film study, research and prognosticating, I compiled what I modestly considered the "perfect" scouting report.  I prepped our guys in the film room and on the court for exactly what they would face against this opponent.  As it turned out I was right.  Our opponent played exactly how I had projected.  They utilized the same offensive sets and defensive strategies that I had taught our guys.  Their player tendencies held exactly true to form. Once again I had proven to myself that I was indeed a living, breathing, basketball savant. The only problem was that we lost the game and our players played like they didn't have a scouting report.   I was furious.  Devastated by yet another loss and baffled by our player’s inability to follow our game-plan, I wondered what was wrong with our guys?  

Of course it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the problem was not with our players at all.  The problem was me.  We are teachers, but we don't teach in a lecture hall and we don't teach in a vacuum.  Our teaching is not judged on how comprehensive our written scouting report is or how tight our video edits are.  In this classroom the only thing that matters is what we put IN to our players.  The value of a scout can only be determined by how our players perform.  So now when frustration at a poor performance tempts me to question why my players didn't listen to my instruction, I remind myself that my job is not to tell but to teach. And in the case of coaching, teaching is judged on nothing less than what our players hear and assimilate.

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