B-RadHoops - January 2008

January 27, 2008

UNC Asheville’s 7-7 center, Kenny George, is the largest player I’ve ever seen.  His combination of height and eagle like wingspan enable him to dunk without jumping.  While he can’t move as quickly as some guys, he has very good hands,  huge ones.  He also has good vision and a nice feel for the game.  You have to root for this guy.  He can’t drive a regularly sized car because he doesn’t fit in one and the driver’s side floorboard can’t accommodate his feet.   

Asheville leads the Big South with a 5-0 league record.  A 15-7 run with about 9 minutes to go in our  game against them last Monday put the game out of reach. George’s 17 points led a balanced UNCA attack that had 5 double figure scorers.  We have to keep working to improve at the defensive end.  Teams are shooting too high a percentage against us.  Containing a dribbler, not allowing opponents to catch the ball in a good scoring area and contesting shots has been a focus in all our practices in hopes we can see more carry-over in our upcoming games. 

Martell McDuffy had a game high 19, Joey Lynch-Flohr had 13 and Amir Johnson had 10 points, six assists and seven rebounds.    Thursday, I was in Ft. Lauderdale to watch a high school prospect.  At 6 am Friday morning, I was in the airport to return home and bumped into Doug and Cathy Collins.  Doug is a longtime friend, an award winning NBA analyst for TNT, and one of the very best basketball minds I know.  He was the #1 pick in the 1973 NBA draft and played eight seasons with the 76ers and also coached the Bulls, the Pistons and the Wizards.  He’s also the guy who made two key free throws in the final seconds of the Soviet/USA game in the 1972 Olympics, right before the US lost.  

We host High Point Monday night and it will be great to be back on our home court.  High Point was the pre-season pick to win the Big South and Arizona Reid, their leading scorer and rebounder was the pre-season Big South Player of the Year.  It’s a tough matchup against a very experienced and talented team.  We have played 12 road games this year but just 7 at home.  The most road games any other team in our league has played to date is 8.  We will try to put together a more favorable balance of non conference games for next season.  But that could prove problematic depending on how the proposed construction project for a new roof in Dedmon evolves. 

For those interested in what the future will bring for the Highlanders, here’s an update on two of the players who signed National Letters of Intent to play for Radford next year.  Aaron “Bleek” Austin, a 6-3 playmaker is having a solid senior year for MMA.  On Tuesday Coach Rick Hall and I will travel to Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, VA to watch Aaron play.  Artsiom Parakhouski, the 6-11, 260 pound center from the College of Southern Idaho is having a very strong year for the undefeated and #2 ranked junior college team in the country.  Saturday he had 13 points and 11 rebounds as CSI made a claim for a #1 ranking this week winning on the road against #3 Salt Lake Community College. 

Please mark your calendar for Homecoming, February 1 and 2.  Come for the pregame festivities at 5 pm and then for our game at 7 pm against Liberty.  To reserve Homecoming tickets, contact the RU Alumni Office by phone at 888-478-4723 or by e-mail at alumni@radford.edu. Registration deadline is Jan. 29.

Go Highlanders!
Brad

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January 20, 2008

The RU basketball coaches’ Sunday begins with offensive, defensive and game management reviews of individual player and team performance of the previous night’s game.  And it ends with a staff meeting to plan the next practices to ensure improvement the next time our guys lace ‘em up.  So tonight as Coaches Rick Hall, Ali Ton, Cedric Smith, and Director of Basketball Operations Ross Condon and I huddle to discuss and plan, we evaluate the team’s play this week. 

We had two bad shooting halves at Charleston Southern on Monday and they shot the lights out the second half.  Saturday, Winthrop was the more aggressive team and dictated the tempo and the physicality of the game.  And we played nice, like the nice kids that make up our team.  And nice just isn’t going to get it for us.  I don’t want our kids to play in an unsportsmanlike manner, but I do want them to be so aggressive they make other teams uncomfortable, annoyed and afraid.  We must play with ferocity and tenacity to establish the proper foundation while we’re building a program.  That’s been a coaching focus and will continue to be.  It’s a privilege to work and play on a Division 1 team in the Big South Conference and as coaches we owe it to the players to instill that value and to teach and reinforce the mental and physical behaviors that are key to winning. 

A Saturday highlight was having honorary coach and Radford alum Teddy Riche with us courtesy of Radford alum Jane Ayers’ winning bid at our Tip-Off Banquet auction.   Teddy was inside the action at our morning shoot-around, video scouting sessions, ate pre-game meal with our staff, was in the locker room with us before for the power point scouting presentation, at half-time and after the game.  Thanks Teddy for spending Saturday with us. 

This week we travel to Asheville to take on league leading UNC-Asheville.  They have Kenny George, at 7’-7”, the tallest player in college basketball.  He dunks without jumping!  And they run special out of bounds plays that are nearly impossible to defend.  They stand him directly under the basket and just throw the ball up high for him to catch and flush!  UNCA played at UNC a few weeks ago and he made Tyler Hansbrough look like a Pygmie.  Watching scouting video of him you would think he is playing Nerf Ball on a toy basket.

Please mark your calendar for Homecoming, February 1 and 2.  Come for the pregame festivities at 5 pm and then for our game at 7 pm against Liberty.  To reserve Homecoming tickets, contact the RU Alumni Office by phone at 888-478-4723 or by e-mail at alumni@radford.edu. Registration deadline is Jan. 29.

Go Highlanders! Brad

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January 13, 2007

This past week started in the comfort of the Dedmon Center in a record setting 124-109 win over Emory & Henry.  We shot a sizzling 75.4% from the field.  Individual career highs included: Kenny Thomas - 32 points,  Eric Hall - 24 points, 13 rebounds and 6 blocks,   Martell McDuffy - 14 assists and 9 rebounds, Alex Gynes - 14 points, and Phillip Martin - 10 points.

Sunday, Roanoke Times sportswriter, Mark Berman's Press Box blog coverage of the VT Hokies 67-66 win over the  Maryland Terrapins touched on the dramatic range of emotion coaches subject themselves to in games decided in the last seconds by quoting my brother quoting me. Brad [Greenberg, Seth's' brother and former assistant}, the philosopher of the family, would always say that it's one play, the difference between actually tasting your food tonight and wanting to throw it up," Greenberg said. "You get a stop at the end and life is good. He makes that shot and you're sick. There's nothing that can get you of that funk."

The week ended with the beginning of Big South play on the road at Coastal Carolina and one of those "last play" games that sits in your stomach the wrong way.   We took a 74-73 lead on two clutch Kenny Thomas free throws with 3 seconds to go.  After two timeouts emphasizing a "stay in front" mentality   (coach speak for maintaining defensive position between your man and the basket), Mario Sisinni slipped free heading up court and made a high arching floater at the buzzer to beat us.  That one play did not erase the fact that Joey Lynch-Flohr had a career high 22 points,  we shot .81% (22-27) from the line, outrebounded Coastal 39-28, hustled our way to 14 offensive rebounds, and handled their full court pressure with solid poise for most of the game. 

But when the last play doesn't turn out your way, one tends to instead harp on all the defensive miscues that enabled the home team to come back, the mental mistakes on defensive rotations and scouting report, the failure to communicate late game defensive switches and the poor decision making with the ball in crucial possessions.  Hey, that is what most coaches do.  We strive for balance and try to avoid over-reacting to a single play opting to use plays like the one that did us in as a teaching moment.  

After busing to Charleston, we ate at Outback Steakhouse (it made our own Aussie Alex feel at home).  The highlight of the meal was not my Ahi tuna chopped salad.  It was our team singing Happy Birthday to Phyliss Johnson,  Amir's Mom, who traveled from Pittsburgh to see us play in Myrtle Beach and be with Amir on her special day.  It's great to see how so many of our players' families attend our games both home and away.  Richard and Martha Kleckner are at just about every game.  Alan and Kim Wilder haven't missed many.  And Edinbur Valentine (Martell's Dad) has taken advantage of our South Carolina matchups on all three of our trips this season.

Back at the hotel we met as a team, watched the last 10 minutes of the game and talked calmly about some situations that occurred.  Every league sees games go down to the last play.  And opening night in the Big South was proof positive of this.  VMI beat Charleston in OT by a deuce, High Point won by 1 over Winthrop and UNC Ashville trounced Liberty by 4.  Next up for us is Charleston Southern.  I wonder if CSU Head Coach Barclay Radebaugh had much of an appetite today?

Go Highlanders.
Brad

P.S.  Mark your calendar for Homecoming, February 1 and 2.  Come for the pregame festivities at 5 pm and then for our game at 7 pm against Liberty.  To reserve Homecoming tickets, contact the RU Alumni Office by phone at 888-478-4723 or by e-mail at alumni@radford.edu. Registration deadline is Jan. 29.

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January 6, 2008

We had an important team meeting and a spirited practice today.  It was encouraging to see our guys in anticipation of a home game against Emory & Henry tomorrow and the beginning of Big South action this coming Saturday at Coastal Carolina.  Radford alum, basketball historian and free-lance basketball writer Mike Ashley and I spoke earlier this week and he commented that our non-conference schedule was perhaps the most difficult in Radford history.  I do know it has been mentally tough on our players since our last win on December 8th over Campbell.  There have been some bright spots since then: a sellout Dedmon Center entertaining West Virginia, a tough road loss in the last minutes at James Madison and last Wednesday's game at South Carolina where we played 35 solid minutes against the SEC Gamecocks.  That's still a long time without the feeling of victory.  To remind our players how well they have played, I asked Ross Condon, our Director of Basketball Operations to put together a highlight reel from our non conference games for our players to watch.  I want to remind them they are capable of doing some very good things both individually and collectively.

At South Carolina, four players had very strong games--  Eric Hall had 9 rebounds.  Joey Lynch Flohr had 17 points on 8-12 shooting.  Martell McDuffy had 19 points, made 4 threes, and had 4 assists.  Kenny Thomas had 17 points on 6-9 shooting with 4 threes.  And Monday night, we'll need all the three pointers we can muster.  Emory and Henry have a unique style of play and come to Dedmon averaging 120 points per game.  One of their goals is to shoot 50 threes each game.  They substitute a new unit of players every few minutes, press all over the court, and try to impose their style on you and wear you out.  They pretty much allow you to score two point field goals while playing a mathematical gambit shooting for triples. 

If anyone out there knows of an outstanding potential recruit who also happens to have some musical talent, please bring him to our attention.  We have a few pianists on our squad and whether it's in our hotel lobby  or the main concourse of the Charlotte Airport while waiting for a connecting flight, it is fun to watch our guys crowd around Colby Trent and Phillip Martin as they tickle the ivories.   

If we can find a drummer and bass we could field a jazz trio!

Hope to see you at Dedmon tomorrow.

Go Highlanders! Brad