NCDS: Jay Smith, Asst. Coach - Detroit

By: Jay Smith, Asst. Coach - Detroit

Wow!!  What a ride up to this point-March Madness is just around the corner!  Everyone is getting ready for that "Miracle Mile" or "Home Stretch".  Some of us want to keep things rolling status quo, while some of us are still searching for the answers to problems that have plagued us all season!! 

Anyway, this is always an exciting time because we are dealing with young man, who in a moments' notice can surprise a whole college environment with an extraordinary performance or a dramatic ending, for these young men wear their emotions on their sleeves!!Unfortunately, we have found ourselves in a rough spot down the stretch and we find ourselves fighting to host a first round game.  Partly, due to one inability to execute at the offensive end-we have the pieces but they are not in harmony with each other!!  Or as we coaches like to say-we aren't on the same page!! 

When going down the home stretch, execution of sets, baseline out of bounds and situations are extremely critical and they take great focus and concentration from everyone.  Rehearsal of these things is of the most important-for repetition gives now a comfortable level of confidence!!  Also, it became the little things --free throw shooting, 50/50 balls, a charge, a deflection etc... that can help separate you from the other teams.  But these little things have been emphasized and practiced on a daily basis.  You surely don't want to leave things up to hope!! 

Lastly, the teams that make it through this March are the ones who have great chemistry-care about each other on and off the court!!  They usually have no distractions and are able to grow as a team daily.  It is a huge advantage when you like who you are playing with-it can become special!!! Finding young men who want to play to each other sometimes can be very difficult-we live in a fish bowl when we emphasize leading scorers and focus on dunk highlights and not on the player who set the screen to free that player up!!!  So the "Glue Guy" has to be someone who gets praised in our locker room.

Moving forward, I want to talk about one of our players Woody Payne!  Our starting point guard, Woody is one of the quickest and most athletic point guards I have ever been around!  He can put extreme pressure on a ball handler in the full court like nobody I've ever been around. He can turn you, spin you, and completely frustrate you before you can reach the half court line!!  When he eats the ball up, we become a special team at the defensive end!! 

But he has had his disappointments.

A broken foot over the summer really didn't give him the opportunity to progress with his offensive game-the one thing he needed was to develop the most was a consistent jumper from the perimeter!!  As a staff we felt like we have to recruit a point guard that could give us a scoring punch from the perimeter-we brought in a young man and played him ahead of Woody and for several games at the start of the season we had this player starting for us-but we keep going back to Woody for his defensive pressure and toughness he brought to the floor!!  He could have thrown in the towel and come up with excuses or could have been a huge distraction for our team.  Instead, he accepted the challenge of competition-and won back his starting job!!  I know if you asked him now, he may not have liked the situation but as time goes by he will realize that it made him focus and got him out of his comfort zone.  It will be a valuable lesson for him as he graduates from the University of Detroit Mercy and moves into the coaching ranks as a possible candidate for our Graduate Assistant position.

Have a wonderful March Madness!!

Go Titans!!

Coach Smith