December 26, 2010
On Wednesday, December 22 our team played some of our best ball of the year at Florida against the 20th ranked Gators.
We started out tentatively against Florida’s press and committed 6 turnovers in the first six minutes. We trailed 13 -1 seven minutes into the game. But we got more comfortable after that, played a smart and effective zone the rest of the half and trailed just 31-24 at intermission. Johnathan Edwards had a strong first half with 11 points making 5 of 7 shots including a dunk at the end of the half off a great pass from Jeremy Robinson.
Tolga Cerrah opened up the second half with an inside basket to make the score 31-26. But we committed seven turnovers in the first six minutes of the second half and Florida opened up a 15 point lead. We cut the lead to 9 with a minute to go but never got any closer. The final score was UF 66 – RU 55. We shot 50% and held Florida to 40% from the field but they made 6-13 threes in the 2nd half and also had 19 offensive rebounds and 19 second chance points.
Johnathan Edwards finished with a team high 15 points and 9 rebounds. Jareal Smith (11) and Gorkem Sonmez (12) had double figures as well. Freshman Martins Abele made all three of his field goal attempts and scored 6 points in 14 minutes.
We bused back from Gainesville after the game and arrived back in Radford at 7am on the 23rd. We gave the guys off the 24th and 25th to be with family and friends for the holidays and got back in the gym today, the 26th.
We are going to have some special guests visiting us this week. Johnathan Edwards’s parents are in Radford and the parents of Lukas Winegarner arrive stateside Monday from Sweden. Martins Abele’s parents and brothers are already in Radford. The Edwards live in New York so their trip to Radford is not as complicated as Martins’ parents who have traveled stateside from Latvia. I am excited for Martins and Lukas to be able to have their parents around for a few days.
Merry Christmas! It’s a winter wonderland here is the New River Valley so please be safe when you are driving. And Happy New Year.
Go Highlanders
Brad
December 19, 2010
Gainesville, FL
Fall semester is over, we await final grades, and our players now have the freedom to focus more intently on basketball for the next four weeks without the responsibility of classes. And we will be practicing a lot during winter recess. While we have shown some improvement in a number of areas, our staff and team know we have the potential to take a quantum leap both offensively and defensively. And we must make significant progress to break out of the losing streak we are mired in and become more competitive.
When you lose any game your initial emotional reaction is one of disappointment and frustration. For that reason I try not to react until there’s a chance to thoroughly review the game and accurately analyze team and individual performance. What we learned from the UNCW game is we are making some progress with our zone defense and offense. But we are still a long way from being the team we can become. With all due respect to a well coached UNCW team, we beat ourselves more than they beat us.
At UNC Wilmington we played pretty strong for 33 minutes. A one minute stretch that started with 7:49 left in the game did us in. At the time we were down 45-40. UNCW made a three and there was a whistle and foul called on Tommy Spagnolo in the paint as he was tangled up with a UNCW player. So UNCW retained possession and scored another three point field goal on the ensuing play. We turned the ball over on our next possession and UNCW shot and made a three on a fast break to stretch their lead to 54 – 40 having scored 9 points in less than a minute to effectively end the game.
Turnovers hurt us with UNCW scoring 24 points off of our 17 miscues. We forced UNCW into 18 turnovers and had 10 steals but only capitalized for 12 points. We need to do a better job in advantage situations off turnovers. Our 2nd half 6 – 13 free throw shooting hurt us and we pulled down 11 offensive rebounds but only scored six 2nd chance points. We have to be able to convert offensive rebounds into points against teams that are not very big. Some positives: we got to the free throw line 23 times, Tolga Cerrah had a career scoring night with 16 points, and Blake Smith had six steals.
Our 2nd half defense allowed them too many open three point shots and they made 6-12. We moved the ball pretty well at times and that usually resulted in good shots. But we are still not cutting hard enough and we are still not screening well enough to put greater pressure on the defense.
One thing coaches always worry about during a rough stretch with mounting losses is the mental state of the team. I think are players are pretty resilient. We practiced early Sunday morning in Wilmington before heading to Gainesville and it was a spirited practice with strong competition. That was great to see after a tough loss the night before.
Our routine during winter break will allow us the time to practice more and make a quantum leap in both our offensive and defensive execution. We are scheduled for two practices on both Monday and Tuesday in Gainesville before playing the Gators on Wednesday.
Hope everyone has a joyous and happy holiday.
Go Highlanders
Brad
December 12, 2010
One of the best things about a team is just that. It's a team. And the bond that is shared by team members and coaches is something uniquely great and special. The emotional highs of a rewarding win or the lows of a heartbreaking loss are intense. Players and coaches in the arena put themselves out there like few in the world outside of athletics. So when a team goes through a rough stretch, just as we are currently doing, teams with high character stay the course and remain industrious. They work each and every day to get better.
As a coach you feel deeply for your players and want badly for them to experience the joys of victory. And when it doesn't come easily, it's essential that coaches stay focused, positive, honest and persistent in analyzing and adjusting practice plans and game plans to keep quality of play moving forward.
I know as coaches we are doing that and I also know the team is trying very hard to improve. Our guys practice long and hard. And often with injuries that limit their ability to go at 100%. They sacrifice holidays with family, vacations with fellow students, weekends on road trips, and free time during the week to train and compete. They love playing and take the opportunity to do so very seriously.
I write all of the above to make sure that if there are any fans out there who are disappointed by our record to date, please understand that we will always strive to do our best. And the best is yet to come. And what a new group of players needs from fans, alumni, and fellow students is a keen eye to understand the growth process of young players. There are times when I look out on the court and see four and sometimes even five freshman in the game at the same time. In our game at Virginia we played seven freshmen in the first half. Don't mistake this for an excuse. We don't intend to make any and don't want anyone to make excuses for us. As Hall of Fame coach Al McGuire used to say, the best thing about freshman is they become sophomores, and juniors and seniors. And our play will continue to improve as it has during the last three games despite the losses.
Our defense is getting better with each game. We have made a commitment to playing zone defense along with pressing 3/4 court after scores and our defensive field goal percentage has improved dramatically as a result. We held a Virginia team that had won on the road at Minnesota scoring 58 points in the 2nd half of that game to 27.7% for the game and 16.7% and just 4 field goals in the second half of our game in Charlottesville last Tuesday. Our defensive field goal percentage in the last three games is 37.3%. But we are nowhere near being the type of defensive team we hope to become. We need to become a better defensive rebounding team, a more consistently active team in our press vs. teams that aggressively attack pressure, we need to better contain the ball and contest three point shots in our zone, and we especially need to do a better job of getting back on defense when we miss a shot and a team tries to fast break on us.
Our biggest issues are at the offensive end of the floor where we have not played with the confidence or discipline needed to create and make more shots. We are taking too many low percentage shots and need to be more patient. Our team field goal percentages (36.4% from the field, 28.5% on threes, & 62.2% free throws) need to improve. We need to get better offensively and I know we can. We must to become more successful.
I am encouraged by the spirit of our group. They like each other and they are proud to represent Radford. And I am proud to be their coach.
This is finals week and our guys are off from team practice until Wednesday. We will have some individual workouts with small groups of players who feel they are already prepared for any upcoming finals or papers due. At the conclusion of finals we travel to Wilmington, NC to play next Saturday at UNCW and then we are off to Gainesville, Florida to play the Gators - pre-season favorites to win the SEC.
Thanks to Dick Harshberger, our honorary coach Saturday for our JMU game. Dick brought along RU VP of Student Affairs Mark Shanley to observe our game day shoot-around, film session, pre-game and post game meetings with the team.
Go Highlanders
Brad
December 5, 2010
No competitive player or coach likes losing. All competitive coaches continually strive to get his or her team to play up to their potential. Our team is getting noticeably better in some areas, but we are not yet where we need to be to give ourselves a better chance to win league and out of conference games. We were disappointed with how we played this opening weekend of league play. And the guys were visibly hurt after being in position to win with less than two minutes left on Saturday night. But I am not discouraged because I know our team has the potential to play better basketball than we are currently playing. Here are some thoughts about the UNCA and Gardner Webb games from this past week:
In the first half against UNCA Thursday night, we did not play that well, yet the score was 27-28 with three minutes left in the first half and we trailed by just seven with 13:22 left in the 2nd half when Evan Faulkner missed an open three pointer that could have cut the UNCA lead to 4. Our 6-23 shooting in the second half did us in. We were 14 – 51 (27.5%) for the game. It’s very tough to win shooting such a low percentage. A bright spot was the shooting of sophomore Gorkem Sonmez who hit 5-6 three pointers and scored 17 points in 22 minutes before fouling out. Defensively we wanted to limit the outstanding three point shooting of UNCA’s guard tandem of JP Primm and Matt Dickey. We guarded them closely and only allowed them to shoot a combined 4 threes. They came into the game making over 40% of their 3’s and averaged about 12 three-point attempts per game prior to our matchup. However, by guarding them aggressively at the three point arc, we committed too many fouls and UNCA shot 39 free throws in a tightly called contest.
On Saturday we played our best defensive game of the year using a 2-3 zone. We held Gardner Webb to 39% shooting in the first half and led 28 – 24 at intermission. We shot 50% from the field in the 1st half – our most efficient offensive half of the season. We struggled offensively in the 2nd half making just 34.8% of our shots. Our 3 point and free throw shooting really hurt. We made just 7-17 free throws in the 2nd half and just 2-12 threes in the game. Despite those shooting woes, we were at the free throw line shooting two with 1:53 and the score 50-50. We didn’t convert either and on the next possession a Gardner Webb player made a contested three pointer late in the shot clock to give them a lead they never relinquished. Junior Johnathan Edwards had a solid game with a career high 13 points and 9 rebounds in 26 minutes of action. Our frontcourt combined to shoot 10-14 from the field, their most efficient shooting game of the season. We missed a lot of shots from the field which gave us opportunities to offensive rebound and we were pretty aggressive pulling down 14 offensive rebounds.
It is not my approach to re-invent the wheel. Basketball is a game of fundamentals. It’s a game of passing, catching, cutting, screening, awareness, alertness, movement and intelligence on defense, dribbling, shooting and rebounding. Above all, basketball is a TEAM game where players have to be unselfish at both ends of the floor. Good defenders not only work hard when guarding the ball but they work hard when guarding a man or area away from the ball. That’s TEAM defense. Good basketball players work hard on their individual offensive skills, ALWAYS try to hit the open man and realize that a lot of being a good offensive player is moving without the ball.
We will continue to work hard on improving each and every day. Our schedule doesn’t get any easier the rest of December with upcoming games against @ UVA, @ Florida, vs. James Madison, @ UNCW and @ Coastal Carolina. But our players have good attitudes, are coachable, and want to win. We are getting better, and will continue to do so.
Happy Birthday to Radford Board of Visitor and friend Nancy Artis.
Stop by BT’s tomorrow night at 7 for B-RadHoops on the air.
Go Highlanders
Brad
