NCDS: Jeff Boals, Assistant Coach - Ohio State
By: Jeff Boals, Assistant Coach - The Ohio State University
This is an extremely exciting time of year! It is officially basketball season. It's hard to believe another season is about to start. We had a great summer and are having a great fall both academically and athletically. Being on a quarter system has its advantages. We finished school in the middle of June; therefore we were able to do individual workouts with our team longer than most schools. This individual instruction was utilized to work on their skill level and shooting.
One great thing about our team is that they all put in the work it takes to be successful. We have what you would call "gym rats." On top of the individual skill instruction our players were able to play pickup games with the likes of many former Ohio State players (Greg Oden, Michael Conley, Scoonie Penn, Ron Lewis, Terence Dials, J.J. Sullinger and many more). Also there were NBA past and current players that stopped by as well.
Summer school and workouts take up primarily most of our team's summer. However, this summer was a little different than most. Dallas Lauderdale was able to travel to Boston for six weeks to work out with a "big man" coach, former NBA player Bobby Martin. Dallas was taught nutrition, and continued to work on his strength and conditioning along with his basketball. Zisis Sarikopoulos went home to play for his country Greece in the U18 and U19 National tournaments. Along with seeing his family, Z was in training camp and then traveled to Australia and New Zealand to play in the U19 International Tournament.
After finishing in New Zealand, Z travelled back to Greece to play in another tournament for his homeland. William Buford travelled to Orlando to participate in The NIKE Vince Carter basketball camp as a counselor. Evan Turner participated with Team USA in the World University Games. First he went to Colorado Springs for a training camp, and then it was off to Serbia to compete for a Gold medal. To say the least Evan said it was very "interesting" over in Serbia. He played in front of hostile crowds, many resenting the fact that they were Americans. They won a Bronze medal defeating Israel. After Evan came back from Serbia, he had one more stop to San Diego, Calif., to work as a camp counselor for The LeBron James King's Academy basketball camp.
When summer school was finished and everyone was back on campus we began our 10 days of practice for our Canadian trip. Having 11 returning players is a rarity among college basketball teams. The 10 days of practice were priceless. We developed chemistry and a great bond. The practices were intense and competitive which in turn made the practices a lot of fun. While going on the Canadian trip (we travelled to Windsor, Ontario Canada) Coach Matta wanted our guys to "rough it." No nice hotels. We stayed in three cottages that were more than 80 years old on Lake Erie-Pigeon Bay Cottages http://www.pigeonbaycottages.com/index.html in a town called Kingsville http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsville,_Ontario (the tomato capital of Canada! It was amazing how many tomato stands were on the roadside).
Coach Matta wanted our guys to appreciate each other and continue to develop the strong bond they had for each other. Mission accomplished! We arrived around 10 p.m. and it was pitch black out. Coach Matta had a flash light and let the seniors pick the first beds, then juniors, then sophomores. They actually loved it!! The cell phones were on roaming, text messages cost a lot so they relegated to playing cards, board games, football, corn hole, fishing, capture the flag, and our version of American Idol- "Buckeyes Idol." It was a great time. Windsor was about 45 minutes away. We played Friday and Saturday against the University of Windsor and then played Western Ontario University Monday at noon before heading back to Columbus. On our off day, Sunday, we took the team to the Detroit Tigers- Tampa Bay Rays game http://mlb.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20090830&content_id=6696528&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&team=home&c_id=det
We received a great welcome when our bus was pulling up to the Tigers stadium ;). For many of our guys it was their first major league baseball game. The game was entertaining and we were going to leave a little early to beat the traffic. When the second out happened in the top of the ninth inning we all got up to leave. At this time, the fans warmed up to having The Ohio State University basketball team there. As soon as we got up at the second out, the fans (36,067 of them) gave us a standing ovation! It was a great sight. ;) When we returned Monday night our players were able to go home for a couple weeks. All in all we had a great summer.
The fall has been great and practice is going well. We lost Dallas Lauderdale for 4-6 weeks with a broken hand. Although we were disappointed that it happened, it was better to happen now than later. He is doing well and hopefully we have him back soon. Our first exhibition game is Nov. 4 against Walsh University and our season opener is Nov. 9 in the 2K Sports Classic benefitting Coach's vs. Cancer Tournament against Alcorn State. Another important date we are excited about is Nov. 11th- NATIONAL SIGNING DATE!
I'm looking forward to an exciting season. GO BUCKS!!
