AN EYE ON '05
Stitt will be entering final year of his contract at Winston-Salem State
By John Dell
JOURNAL REPORTER
Friday, February 27, 2004
This was the final game of the season for Alleggrie Guinn and his WSSU teammates.
(AP PHOTO)
RALEIGH
With about a minute left in a 67-58 loss to Virginia State on Wednesday in the first round of the CIAA Tournament, Coach Philip Stitt of Winston-Salem State couldn't watch anymore.
His Rams, who had tried to crawl out of a deep hole, had expended so much energy they had nothing left. So Stitt sat down on the bench, folded his arms and had a look that seemed to say "this season is finally over."
It's hard to pinpoint just what went wrong with the Rams, who finished 16-12. They had three seniors - Jay Maynard, Vince Sessoms and John Adams - and plenty of inexperienced underclassmen. Fans might have expected more when the Rams reached mid-January with a 14-4 record, but the reality was that the team suffered from inconsistency at nearly every position.
Stitt just completed his third season and next season will be in the final year of a contract that pays him about $75,000 a year. And he has heard rumors about his job status. The Rams went 3-8 in their last 11 games and lost in the first round of the tournament for the first time since 1996.
"To tell you truth, I don't concern myself with it," Stitt said of the rumors. "This season ended, so now we have to start working on next season. So that's all I'll concern myself with is trying to get us better for next year.
If something happens beyond that, whether I stay or go, it's out of my control. I just want to try to make this next team the best possible team."
WSSU went 22-7 and reached the Division II playoffs in Stitt's first season, when he was the interim coach. Last season, an obvious rebuilding year, the Rams pleasantly surprised their fans with a 15-14 finish.
So expectations for this season were high, especially after WSSU defeated seventh-ranked Queens in early January.
Stitt couldn't pinpoint what went wrong, but there were plenty of tough times late in the season.
The most disappointing for Stitt came when players questioned strategy in a 97-65 loss to N.C. Central in Durham. But even through that, Stitt has maintained a positive outlook.
"That's part of the deal," he said about the nature of coaching.
As for fans who wouldn't mind a coaching change, Stitt said: "I don't know, nor do I care. All I care about are these 12 guys, and I feel bad for the way it ended for them, but at the same time, I'm proud of them because most people didn't think we'd win 16 games."
When asked Wednesday about the status of Stitt and John Williams, whose WSSU women's team went 12-14 and also lost its CIAA Tournament opener, Athletics Director Percy Caldwell said: "I won't mince any words, I'm very disappointed about the seasons for both the men and the women.
"Again, I recognize we've got some young kids, so the coaches have got to step it up. We've got another year to evaluate very closely. I'm not discouraged about where we are going.
"I still think we are going in the right direction, but we won't have another year like this."
Caldwell, a former basketball coach who spent 21 seasons on the bench, said he knows how emotion can lead to hasty judgments. So as he has done after every season, he will sit down with Stitt and with Williams to talk about the season and about what can be done for their teams to improve.
After Wednesday's game, Caldwell said he decided to check his e-mail and found at least 25 messages about the men losing in the first round. "I stopped checking them after awhile," he said.
Caldwell said he will most likely meet with Stitt in the next two weeks. Stitt's immediate plans are to start recruiting and to attend some high-school playoff games.
"The worst thing you do after a disappointing season like this is make any emotional decisions," Caldwell said. "To me, it's too easy to make decisions on emotion, and this is business. So my philosophy is you take a step back, look at the overall situation, go back and see where the program is going."
Rashad McGee, a junior point guard, acknowledges that there has been plenty of talk about Stitt's status. "There's a little buzz about that," McGee said. "But I can't control that."
McGee, who struggled late in the season and looked worn out near the end of many games, said: "I'll play for whoever they bring in, if they do make a change. But Coach Stitt is somebody who brought me in, and I'll play for him any time. I would like to see him back."
When the Rams were playing well this season, the keys to their success were clear. They were one of the best passing teams in the CIAA, but the crisp half-court offense wasn't the same once the meat of the conference schedule hit.
"Communications and focus were the two things that we lacked the most," McGee said of the season's second half. "And we had a young team, and I think these young guys don't understand sometimes the severity of situations. You have to be ready for practice every day, and you can't have it one day and then don't bring it the next. With 12 guys, everybody has to be going in the right direction, and we didn't have that most of the time."
Even though Stitt will lose three seniors to graduation, he will still have plenty of firepower next season. Audly Wehner, the team's leading scorer and rebounder, was one of the bright spots and the CIAA rookie of the year. He played center, but at 6-6, he is probably more of a power forward. Alleggrie Guinn, who had plenty of disagreements with Stitt, is the team's best athlete and best defender.
Guinn, who will be a junior next season, was unavailable for comment after Wednesday's game. If he can establish some consistency, he could be one of the top players in the CIAA next season.
Roy Peake, a point guard from Thomasville who redshirted, should give the Rams some depth at that position.
"We've got to go out and try to find somebody at every position," Stitt said. "I think what we've got coming back, we've got a chance to make a run at this thing."
While Stitt is recruiting, Caldwell said that he and Chancellor Harold Martin will have a discussion about the basketball programs.
"What is the best interest in the university?" Caldwell said. "And Dr. Martin and I will have a very candid conversation between the two of us. We'll look at the direction and where we are going.... Until we find some other reasons, these are our coaches.
"And I'm going to evaluate, and they'll have to do some things that I will lay out if they want to continue to be our coaches."
? John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at
jdell@wsjournal.com
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