Final adjustments

My first four years of coaching got me a little spoiled on the realities of our profession.  As an assistant at my old high school, we went 93-6, won two state titles and finished No. 4 in the nation in 1997.  The next year I was a GA at Stanford and was a part of a team that went 30-5 on the way to the 1998 Final Four in San Antonio.  I thought, “This is a pretty good deal. This must just be how coaching was supposed to go.  You show up, coach ‘em up, and win a bunch of games.”  The basketball gods brought me back to reality the next year with a 3-26 season during my first stint as a college coach at the Division III level. Despite the losing, it was the fact that I loved going to the office every day and the challenges of working to make players better at every practice that never got old.  My passion for teaching and coaching burned just as bright, no matter the wins and losses.  Working that season with former Richmond head coach, Bill Dooley, taught me as much about the profession as I have learned in any other season.  He was the consummate professional through all our frustrations and failures providing me so much insight into the importance of a coach's daily approach to his craft.

I have reminded myself of that experience often this year as the Pilots struggle to put up marks on the left side of the ledger.  Despite the appearance of our overall record, I love this group as they continue to work hard and improve every day.   Coach Reveno has done exactly as I would have expected with this group; challenging them to get better every day and focus on the things we can control today.  Losing can get to you but it takes a special toughness cultivated from hard work to push on and Coach Reveno won't let anyone think otherwise.  Quitting would be the easy road but nothing worth having is easy, otherwise everyone would do it. We all firmly believe we have yet to play our best basketball for a full 40min but we have shown the ability to play with anyone for extended stretches (Kentucky included).  We are committed to making a final push here and looking to make some noise in the WCC tournament.  Who knows, maybe we’ll be that 13-23 team staring back at someone from their bracket come March Madness as they ask, “How the heck did they get in….?”

The focus over these last few weeks has been on two key areas for improvement with this team as a whole and individually.  We are last in the conference in Turnover Rate (turnovers per possession) but have improved dramatically the last five games.  We must value the basketball in order to give ourselves a chance to make scoring plays.  In addition, many of our turnovers have lead to easy transition baskets the other way so we’ve preached that sometimes our best defensive strategy is “taking care of the ball on offense.”

The second area of focus for us has been rebounding.  In games where we’ve limited our opponents offensive rebounds and second shots we’ve not only reduced their offensive efficiency but we’ve given ourselves transition opportunities to attack on the break when we rebound and attack going the other way.  It has to be a collective mindset and we need great rebounding efforts these last two weeks from all five players on the floor.

This group of young players (nine freshmen and sophomores) have shown as much promise and potential as the nine who graduated before them and maybe even more.  What made that last group so special was their commitment to improve and develop as players, leaders and competitors.  Our 2007-2008 team went 9-23 before embarking on the most successful three year run in school history (60 wins between 2008-2011).  We firmly believe this group will do the same.  They came here to compete for championships and become the best players they can be while getting a first-class education.  Our commitment to give them all three of these things continues to be our focus every day, no matter what our record.

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