Originally posted by MikeBigg
But I play one on the internet. The two greatest weakness in the SWAC is the fundamentals of our players and depth. I'm not basing these comments on Alcorn, because for the most part Whitney does a better job than most.
The lack of depth is obvious in our inside people. We just don't seem to have the big stud physical specimen to compete in the paint for rebounds. The solution is simple===> Talk to the football coach and get you a couple of 6'5" tight ends to serve as the bangers/board crashers on your team. If nothing else, the physical attributes of these guys would make for some interesting practices. On a roster consisting of 12 players you are not going to tell me that I can't find 4 baddazz rimbenders to play center and power forward. Hell they don't have to be gazelles and run the floor, but just rebounders and spaceeaters who will lay some lumber on those who venture into the paint.
Fundamentals of blocking out, passing, dribbling, and shot selection needs to be worked on. I've noticed a tendency of the guards in the SWAC to dribble too much. Even when the other team is in a zone defense, you got some dude out on the perimeter practicing his AI crossover. Against a zone defense, once the ball passes half court, it should never touch the floor except on a bounce pass. On free throws, first of all make the dayum shot. When that fails crash the board (everyone except the shooter and the guy designated to be back on defense) and fight for the possession.
It seems that our coaches do a poor job of getting the guys to buy into the team concept. Too much one on one play. Let these players know that their chances of getting into the NBA is miniscule. They have to realize that they are playing for the name on the front of the jersey and not the name on the back.
A team of players that know their roles and play them well will beat "individual"play everytime.
Finally, we need to get better assistant coaches. Too often, our head coach will only hire recent former players with little or no coaching experience to sit on the bench and have little or no input. Give me a guy who has worked in the trenches on the high school level, is solid in his X and O's, and can help teach fundamentals. Don't worry about him taking your job, if he can coach, your team will win and he will get his own head job somewhere else. Then you hire the another high school coach who knows X and O's and can recruit and teach fundamentals.
Dayum...if it takes a rocket scientist to know this then what the hell am I?