NCDS: Jay Smith, Asst. Coach - Detroit

By: Jay Smith, Asst. Coach - Detroit

I just want to welcome everyone to "Chalktalk 2009-10". To make a long story short, I was approached by Chris about contributing and it was recommended by one of my former players at Central Michigan, Jon Borovich (now at Dayton, who by the way was one of the hardest working and toughest young man that I have ever been around) . For example, he played a complete year with a torn ACL; now how many guys do you think could do that?  Its good to be here.
 
Anyway, it has been an exciting year already for the Detroit Titans. We completed a 10 day trip to Spain this summer, touring Barcalona, Valencia and Madrid. What a fantastic way to begin the year and it was even better because my son, Cooper, was able to go with me so we had a ton of father-son time and experienced some life long memories.

Like most teams this time of the year, we are battling some injuries that have affected our team - our back up post broke his hand and our back up two guard suffered an eye injury in the first exhibition game.

About two weeks ago, we traveled across the country to battle #12 Cal. We were all excited because we were taking one of our players back home in Eli Holman, who was from nearby Richmond. I will mention that his church put on a huge feast for our team. What a wonderful group of people that made us feel welcome and supported us at Cal, but we came up on the short end of things.

Then we went back to the "D" to take on the Western Michigan Broncos, which had defeated the Titans the last four opportunities. We came out and battled and took a 39-34 halftime lead, and would end up leading the remainder of the game for an 86-80 victory. It was not pretty down the stretch, but it was a win.

Just this past week, we took Monday off after Sunday's home opening win so our players could rest. We have three games this week in Albany as we play in the subregional of the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. If the Titans want to put themselves in position for a post-season tournament, we have to be able to play on the road.  I have always felt that you need to be healthy, defend, rebound and have a little luck to have a successful season. We have had two good days of preparation and a light workout when we got to Albany on Thursday. In my older days, I felt that the day before needs to be like the college football teams - just a quick shoot around with a no contact type of workout. It needs to be sharp with focus.

I am feeling that we need to keep players fresh, both mentally and physically, for 30+ games. I don't ever want to lose because we over prepared and wore out our players. I want them to compete with great energy!!!

We are going to find out this weekend with three games in a row starting with Robert Morris, Albany and ending with Alcorn State. This could really be a great opportunity and it is like a conference tournament with three games to win it.

I really can't wait to see how we play on consecutive nights!!!!