NCDS: Mark Pope, Asst. Coach - Wake Forest

(Courtesy Univ. of Georgia Athletics)

There are 10 minutes left in the game.  You are playing against a rugged, experienced, full court pressure NCAA tournament team and your eight scholarship players are fighting hard.  They are making a perplexing combination of bonehead and spectacular plays.  You are up by
four but your guys are fatigued, your bench is short, and you look out on the floor and see four freshmen and one sophomore.  How do you feel? As a novice coach working the sidelines as an assistant for Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest University I felt a little queasy, a little stressed, and extremely EXCITED! 

It was very disappointing but perhaps predictable that our young team succumbed to the pressure that night.   We ended up getting run off of our own floor.  There is nothing worse than losing... except losing at home.  Like all coaches and athletes I hate losing.  I hate the night after a loss.  I hate the day after a loss.  I hate the memory of a loss.  I hope we never lose again.  With all that said, I still walked out of the gym that night with some hope and excitement about how good this team can eventually become.

We have ten scholarship players on our roster.  Nikita Mescheriakov, a transfer from Georgetown is not eligible until the second semester. Tony Chennault, our freshman point guard is out for at least a couple of months with a broken foot.  Of the eight remaining players we have four freshman, two sophomores, one junior and one senior.  Gary Clark, our lone senior, saw limited action in his first three years.  Now he must function as a leader on and off the court.  Ty Walker, our junior center, played a total of 17 minutes in his first two seasons.  He played twice as many minutes as that in his first game this year.  Ari Stewart and CJ Harris are two talented sophomores with some experience, but they are both playing in new positions this season.  CJ is transitioning from shooting guard to point guard and Ari is transitioning from the small forward to power forward. 

All of that may sound like a recipe for disaster, but we see it as an incredible opportunity.  Our young team will take some beatings this year.  We are going to have to learn both basketball and life lessons the hard way.  Our focus, however, will be on ensuring that those lessons bring us together rather than divide us.  We need to frame these growth experiences as the refiner's fire rather than as the ultimate judgment.  Fortunately for us, our young players are not only talented, but they are good kids and they are eager to learn.  They have a chance to grow exponentially.  There will come a time when they don't even recognize the team that took the floor against VCU.  That will be incredibly rewarding for all of us. 

Coach Bzdelik has been through this process before.  In his first two seasons as head coach of the Denver Nuggets he guided his young team from 17 wins and last place to 43 wins and a playoff birth.  He led his Air Force team to a 50-16 record and in each successive season at Colorado his teams improved markedly.  Coach doesn't lead from out front.  He leads from the center.  He is as good as anyone in the business at developing players and molding a team.  I was a player on that Denver Nuggets team-so I had the opportunity to see him work his magic up close.  I am grateful to be on his staff now with an opportunity to help him do it again.  For us, there are very few things as gratifying as seeing young men grow up and reach their potential. 

Only time will tell if the excitement that I felt as I looked out on the floor the other night was well-founded or foolhardy.  I'm betting the house on it being well-founded.  That's what coaches do. 

Go DEACS!

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