NCDS: Mark Vanderslice, Assistant Coach - Furman
By: Mark Vanderslice, Assistant Coach - Furman
It's hard to believe but the anxiously awaited college basketball season is upon us once again. The excitement is in the air and the anticipation of our first scrimmage has the players' and coaches' enthusiasm at its peak.
We have been able to take full advantage of the 2 hours of skilled instruction per week in the preseason after September 15th by taking the option of designating more time towards team workouts. This extra little bit of time has been helpful considering we only have 2 weeks from the start of practice to our first scrimmage and 3 weeks until our exhibition to implement our base offensive and defensive packages to the team. This often can become somewhat challenging at times but forces us as a staff to prioritize our main points of emphasis more efficiently.
Considering our first scrimmage versus Charleston Southern is only days away, it will be interesting to see how we have developed over the past 2 weeks since the start of the season. It's also a breath of fresh air to finally transfer the physicality of practice on each other to an opponent. The guys have been playing at a high level of intensity in practice and have displayed a tremendous amount of work ethic.
The bulk of our roster rests on juniors and sophomores, so solid leadership has been key for the two incoming freshmen that have been thrown into the fire. It is always encouraging to find your guys taking initiative by getting shots up and coming in to watch film on their own accord. As coaches were always cognizant of players that continue this trend of self-motivation although game time minutes are not being distributed in their favor. Hopefully, our guys are mature and hungry enough throughout the course of the year to find a way to accept this as a challenge.
Over the past couple of seasons we have taken our fair share of bumps and bruises in the Southern Conference. However, this was to be expected with such a young program. Two years ago we had a stretch though out the course of the season where we started 4 freshmen and looked to them to handle the load. Although this year provides no seniors on the roster, we have a number of experienced battle-tested veterans that have been thru the wars. We're looking forward to turning a number of heads this season with hopes of convincing the nay sayers of what we as a program already knew and that is to compete for the Southern Conference championship. Here we go!!
