Pre-practice notes
Jamual Warren was not at practice today. Mick Cronin sent him home with flu-like symptoms int he hope that he would rest up and be at full strength for Saturday's game against Pitt.
After watching tape of the ND game, Cronin said he found a lot to build on.
"My wife thinks I lost my mind because I got up at three," he said. "I was so excited from watching the Notre Dame film. I thought everything that we did wrong was correctible. I saw Kenny Belton rebounding, Larry Davis make some shots, guys making plays, players developing their confidence. It was just that our defense broke down and I thought our shot selection was poor. After looking at the tape, we shot too many 3-point shots. But I told the guys from looking at what we were able to accomplish in the first half of that game you have to see what we’re capable of."
11 Comments:
Mick's passion for coaching is going to yield some exciting results.
Maybe Mick thinks they played the first half twice and they won!
For those of us who allow ourselves to be objective, but not necessarily living in the past - CBS Sportsline ran a nice article by Gary Parrish on AK (15-1) and how very well he relates to the players. Watching the way they play, the fire under them is evident. Maybe, this team could use a little more itself and if so, they won't give up 64 points in a half to ANYBODY, regardless of being homered by the refs.
Exactly! Going into the game I thought ND would likely win by 8-10 pts if UC played very well. They were bigger, stronger, wider and more experienced based on the games i had watched ND play. that assumed a level playing field which only exists theorectally. After the first half it was evident that UC was much better than I thought and Belton was not the same player who showed up for the summer league and that was a very good thing. Last year Miamis coach remarked about the progress Mick was able to make with the jc recruits. He is doing the same with the frosh this year. He should get films of Belton in the summer league and films of the ND game and show them to prospective recruits and tell them "this is what i can do for you" they will say "where do I sign?"
Micks enthusiasm is evident and the results are starting to show. Insipid naysayers not withstanding, this team is proving fun to watch and is playing hard.
dont you wonder about the lack of intelligence of people who read other schools blogs and then send hate mail? get a life! why isnt the hate mail deleted? obviously they are trying to get the UC fans to stop reading the blog. is that not obvious?
9:11 - They are attention whores. They get little of it in the "real world" and fancy themselves as interesting and witty, and imagine that all get angry at their tepid drivel- so they come here for attention. Vacuous dullards, one and all.
Mick simply didn't make the second half adjustments
If you were able to put Eric Hicks at center with the rest of this team around him, I'm convinced this would be the second coming of that 2005-06 team. These kids are playing with that same guttiness. If they had a Hicks under the basket, they would be truly scary.
I think AK is working out beautifully at Ole Miss, but I for one was glad they passed on him here. Maybe he would have worked out here, maybe not, but there was a lot more they had to look at than just on-court coaching. And that's all they had to look at when considering Andy.
In fact, his recruiting had not been what it should have those last few years, so he had no strong record there for Thomas to consider. Add he had those ridiculous academic problems at the end, which WERE, in fact, his problem, and I think the right decision was made.
And with my hindsight glasses, I now can see where us NOT making the tournament that year helped and probably saved AK getting the Ole Miss job. To be embarrassed nationally by barely making the tournament and then not having two key players eligible because they just didn't go to classes at all that quarter...that would have made it much harder for Ole Miss to offer him that job, politically.
It all worked out, but we have no way of knowing how AK would have done. In fact, many did not want him, and we all just sat on our hands during all the "Hire Andy" chanting during the games. If you had objectively looked around at the time, you would have seen many of us.
Cronin is the man, I was thrilled with the hire, and he is twice (or more) the recruiter AK is. I am glad for Andy that he's doing so well in his home state, but I'm starting to get irritated with the constant references to his current success. AK would never have had a sniff at that job if Bob hadn't gotten himself fired, we all know that's true - none of Bob's assistants have ever done anything other than back into head jobs. So AK owes NZ a little for firing Huggs, too.
Things have a way of working out.
Nice to see Belton coming into his own. This is going to be a team that gets better and better. Big East tourney and maybe NIT this year and back to the Big Dance starting next year.
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