July 15, 2008

RECRUITING DIARY - PART 2

July 9 - Up at 7am. No workout, body feels like a pretzel. Whoever designed those regional jets did not like people over 6’3” and was a sadist. Games today are at a new facility, simply called Hoops, about 10 miles outside the city. Eight courts, all with wood floors, in a spotless facility with a food court and a sports shop. Only in Kentucky could you find such a building dedicated strictly to basketball. It’s just one of the reasons I have a great affection for the Commonwealth and its people. Watch some good games with good players who I think are recruitable for us from a basketball and academic perspective, but we’ll have to examine the academic side deeper in the upcoming weeks to make sure. Call it a day around 6pm. Grab some dinner and go back to hotel to initiate and answer emails. Call it a night around 10pm as the tooth picks will no longer keep the eyes open.

July 10- Up at 6am for a workout in hotel fitness room. Got a great 45minutes in. I have four main addictions I have succumbed to over the years. Adrenalin, New York pizza, the need to laugh hard every day by busting shoes, and exorcise endorphins. On days I do not have the opportunity to exorcise, I feel somewhere between a slug and a caterpillar larvae. Today I feel great.

Today’s games are in the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center. It’s a huge building with 8 wooden floors that are side by side so you can actually watch 2 games at once, which is neat because there are over 80 teams in the tournament. The only negative is the building must also double as a morgue, because the temperature is so cold that after standing for a couple of hours, you can no longer feel your feet. It makes it necessary to go outside for a while in the 89 degree heat to see if your feet are still attached. Still saw another group of good players , some of which we were already recruiting and some we hopefully will start. Lots of parents and families traveling with the teams. AAU tournaments have really become family affairs. Called it a day around 5pm. Grabbed a sandwich for dinner. Made some phone calls, did some emails and hit the sack around 10pm. Have a 6am pretzel flight back to Philly in the morning.

July 11- Get up at 4am. I have not set an alarm for over 25years. Can’t trust them. I have an internal body clock that will always get me up prior to my wake up time. My wife calls it an amazingly accurate neurotic type A personality trait and she is probably right. However I actually sleep better knowing I am depending on me rather than a mechanical gadget or a hotel clerk who is probably asleep when they are supposed to call you. Get to the airport around 5am. Flight uneventful, but I keep thinking of songs from the Steely Dan album Pretzel Logic throughout the flight. I also can’t stop thinking about a chiropractic adjustment, and how good it would feel. Get to the car rental counter and my car not available. I wonder if it could be another convention of nuns. Finally get the car and drive the 60 miles to Lawrenceville and the AAU event at Rider College. I am there about 5 minutes when I meet my son Kevin, the head coach of Iona. He is also the proud new father of a newborn son, Chase Michael, born last month. His other son, Colin will turn 2 in early August. I told him he ought to consider watching more game films in the pre-season.

About ten coaches including, my assistant Geo, commented about my bloodshot eyes and unshaven appearance. When I use the rest room I am incredulous when I see the guy who’s looking back at me in the mirror. I watched the next four sets of games and tell Geo I’ll see him in he morning. Am really excited about 4 of the players I see. I have a 30 mile drive to my hotel. Take a shower. grab some dinner and do the emails and hit the sack. Promise to get up at 6am for a workout before I meet Geo at the Trenton Airport where I will drop my car off , and ride with him for the next two days.

July 12- Great workout at 6am. Drop the car off and head to Rider with Geo, After watching games till noon, we get in Geo’s car and head up the Jersey Turnpike to Newark for a tournament at FDU on Sunday. Watching the games today reinforces my feelings about the players we liked yesterday and we leave very sure about the players we have seen. Geo is a multi tasking driver who makes calls, looks up recruiting lists, and listens to the lady in the GPS, all at the same time. Telling him those white lines are there for a reason makes no impression at all. During the trip I am desperately trying to think of the patron saint of the open road. I am a passenger who is constantly slamming my foot on an imaginary break on the passenger side. Check into the hotel and immediately head for another workout to try and get rid of the tension caused by Geo’s driving. Am still very excited about the players I saw and the way they play the game. Grab some dinner and answer a whole lot of emails. Lights out at 11pm.

July13- Workout at 8am when hotel health club opens up. Geo picks me up at 9:30am and we head to FDU. Watch games until 2pm. We decide as a staff that we have to cover an event at Quinnipiac on Tuesday due to some players changing events.. This will necessitate me not recruiting on Tuesday, as you can have only 3 people on the road. I am heading to WVU on a 6:45pm flight out of Newark for an AAU event that was supposed to keep me there both Mon. and Tue. but now will just be Mon. I will come off road on  Tuesday. Geo takes me to airport and goes back to watch more games at FDU. Meet up with Tom Moore, head coach at Quinnipiac and Sean Doherty, his top assistant, and my former associate head coach here. Quinnipiac has made a significant commitment to their program, building a really impressive new facility, and hiring Tom as their new head coach last year. Sean tells me they are building new housing that will be right behind the new building so that students can walk right out of their dorms to recreation and games. I have been to their campus and what they have done and are doing is really impressive.

Around 6pm and we find out flight is delayed to 7:50pm. At 7:50pm we are told it will be at least 9:30pm before we load. We finally board at 9:50pm and take off at 10:50pm. Arrive in Pittsburgh at 11:55pm. Wait for baggage, and go to rent a car. Head out for the ride to Morgantown, and finally arrive at the hotel at 2am. Clerk tells me there are no more non-smoking rooms. When I tell him I reserved a non-smoking room, he tells me again he has none, and that if I want to cancel good luck at finding another room. I relent and take the room which I now get to at 2:35am. As soon as I open the door I feel like I am at a Lucky Strike convention. Everything smells of tobacco including the pillows. The perfect end to another travel debacle. By the way the plane was another regional jet, and I will be checking out of this room ASAP as my throat is starting to close up.

July 10, 2008

2008 RECRUITING DIARY

At the suggestion of some fans I am doing a brief diary of the July Recruiting for 2008. I will not however be able to name any student athletes we are evaluating during this period due to NCAA regulations. It should however give some insight into the process coaches have to use to evaluate prospects during the period I like to call the “Mad Mad World Road Race”. Here goes.

July 5 - My wife drove me to the Providence airport at 4:30pm for a 6:55pm flight to Philadelphia. This enabled us to save money from the recruiting budget by not having to park my car for an extended time at the airport. It also enabled my wife to tell me once again how much she would miss me as she screeched the tires after an abrupt deposit in front of Southwest. She often jokes (I think) that the recruiting periods of April, July, and September, have given us the necessary respite from the things about each other that annoy us. After 40 years of marriage that constitutes a long laundry list.
Flight was uneventful. Stayed at the airport so I wouldn’t have to rent a car until the next morning. Only glitch was a convention of 177 nuns was checking into the hotel when I got there at 9pm. I immediately had flash backs to my days at St Dominic’s and the good IHM Sisters. “God Bless You’s were being thrown all around the lobby. Took an hour to check in. Cheeseburger I had in the hotel restaurant didn’t digest well at 10:30pm and I paid the price all night.

July 6 -Andy Sachs called me at 6am to tell me the outside games at Eastern Invitational Camp may have to be moved up from 10am to 8:30 because of rain. I took the shuttle from the hotel to the car rental at 7am and made the 50 minute drive to the College of New Jersey where the camp is held. The rain held off and the games started at 10am. Games at Eastern are held in the Rec Center and also on outside courts so often you watch half a game on the outside courts and then run in to watch half a game on the inside courts. Since academics at the Cross limits our recruiting pool ,we generally concentrate our evaluations on recruits we have tried to pre-qualify academically. We do have one of our coaches back at school to try get academic info on new recruits we like from a basketball perspective. This is a very time intensive process because we can’t continue to evaluate prospects that will not have a good chance of being admitted. It is often difficult to get accurate academic info at this time because a lot of schools are closed for the summer and you can’t contact parents while the prospect is at camp. This can really get frustrating but we do the best we can. After the morning and afternoon games our staff went to Boston Market for a turkey sandwich dinner. Back at 6pm for the night games which were delayed because of rain. We left for the hotel in Trenton at 9:45pm to check in and get a chicken Caesar at the hotel sports bar.


July 7 - I got up at 6am for a workout in the hotel fitness room. Met Geo Sanchez at 8am to go over morning schedule. Andy left for Philadelphia airport and a flight to Ohio and another camp. Got to camp at 9am for stations and 10am games. Watched games until 1:50pm and went with Geo to a diner for lunch. Back to watch afternoon games at 3pm. Watched games until 5:30pm. Grabbed a couple of slices at 2Brothers Pizzeria and headed back at 6:15pm for the night games. Once again had rain, which messed up the schedule. Saw some new players w really liked and called back to Mark Daignault at school .Gave him the task of trying to find out academic profiles. Often we find out the prospects are good students but probably would not have a good chance of being admitted and we have to move on. This creates a fluid if not somewhat chaotic situation, in terms of allotting time to evaluate basketball potential. Went back to hotel around 10pm and made myself quickly pass the gift shop where they have those irresistible Haagan Das ice cream bars. Sat up till midnight trying to cull our recruiting list based on who we liked and didn’t like and also on academic info we had uncovered.

July 8 - 6am workout in fitness center. Geo would spend the day at Eastern and I would drive to Philly U for the Reebok Camp. Lot of god players there and a lot of high profile recruits so all the BCS coaches were there. One of the good things about this period is you get to see a lot of friends that you hardly ever get to see because of the schedules that college coaches have. Usually a lot of light banter but also recruiting info that will help the other guy is often shared. This is helpful. Rick Barnes first told us about Nate Lufkin, because although he wasn’t going to recruit him, he thought he could help us and knew he was a good student. Having friends in the business and knowing each others needs often will give you a lead on a recruit you otherwise never would have had the resources to have discovered. Watched games till 6:30pm. Left for airport for a 9:30pm flight to Louisville for the Hoopsfest. Dropped rental car off and got to terminal at 8pm Got a call from USAir that flight was delayed till midnight. They told me I could go out the next morning but I already had a hotel booked in Louisville and after 6pm you can't cancel. Also the hotel at the airport would come to $200 at the last minute. So had to wait the four hours. Emmett Davis was on the same flight so we at least had each other to tell tales to. Got into the hotel in Louisville at 2:30am. Andy picked me up at the airport so we could save money by only having one rental car. Hated to get him out of bed to come pick me up but such is the reality at a mid major. Hope there are good players that we can recruit here.

May 30, 2008

INAUGURAL HOLY CROSS BASKETBALL GOLF OUTING

The inaugural Holy Cross Men's Basketball Golf Outing recently took place. It was great to hit the links. Everyone had a great time. We look forward to making this an annual event. Be sure to check out the photo gallery.

Pictures from the inaugural Holy Cross Men's Basketball Golf Outing

February 5, 2008

NAVY RECAP

The Navy game was the last game of a three game road trip that had encompassed 7 days as a result of the Army rainout. I was concerned about mental fatigue going into this game, especially with all the papers, and tests this time of year. At the shoot around on Wednesday morning Alex was hurting, and Anthony Cerundulo, our trainer spent the whole time working on his back. Pat was also visibly sore and I didn't know what to expect from either. This wasn't unusual though because this situation has become the norm for us. For the past two weeks we had been emphasizing developing a mental edge in order to try and get ready for a three game run in March. We have made some good progress but with Alex and Pat's situation it has not been a smooth progression

We got off to a tough start and found ourselves down 7 early. We fought back and actually went up one at half. Once again guarding the three was a focal point of our defensive strategy, and getting the ball inside to Tim was a focus on the offensive end. We have had good mental focus on the defensive end over the last two weeks and have done a real good job of guarding the three point line. Around the 9 minute mark we were up 6 and then we made four bad turnovers in the next five possessions. By this time I knew both Alex and Pat ere hurting and had to shut down Alex and once again ask Pat to try to gut it out. This seemed to energize Navy and they went on a run that eventually put them up 6. Once again we fought back, but missed an important 1 and 1, and committed a bad back court foul, down two with 1:19 to go and Navy made all their free throws to come away with a win. This was a disappointing loss, because we really competed, guarded the three well, and wasted a great effort 34 point effort from Tim. The one area, besides valuing the ball, that we did not do a good job in, was defensive rebounding, as Navy had 16 offensive rebounds. This was as big a factor as any in Navy coming away with the win.

Coming out of this game I was pleased with the continuing progress of the defense in getting back to our pre-season levels, but am concerned that because of Pat and Alex not practicing, that we have little offensive rhythm, and are making some bad turnovers. However this time of year great defense will give you the opportunity to win.

NORTHEASTERN RECAP

Mixed feelings about this game going in. We need to make continued progress going into the last two weeks of the season, but we also could have used the day off. Northeastern is a young team that was 8-8 in the tough Colonial Conference. They are athletic, and quick, and presented some difficult match-ups for us. I was interested to see how we would respond from the difficult Navy loss. I told our guys that this was a game where we had to have great focus on the defensive end in order to negate the obvious athletic and quickness advantages the Northeastern had over us. We also emphasized getting the ball inside to attempt to get their big guys in foul trouble. Well we played another outstanding game on the defensive end holding Northeastern to 28% shooting, Tim had another tremendous game on both ends, and we executed well on the offensive end down the stretch to come away with a satisfying victory. Once again the only negative was defensive rebounding, where we gave up 16 offensive rebounds for the second straight game. I know not having Alex was a contributing factor but we are simply not doing a good job blocking out, and this was an area where Northeastern really exploited their quickness advantage. We will be doing a lot of box out drills the next two days. Still came away with a solid win and made progress in several key areas going forward.

ALEX AND PAT

Have received several emails asking why I am not keeping Pat and Alex out until the playoffs. The answer is simply that after basically keeping them out and restricting their play for over a month our medical people have come to the conclusion that neither will significantly get better before the end of the season. So it becomes a situation of basically "managing" their situations for the next two weeks. Both feel ok some days and basically not able to go on others. In Alex's situation sleeping wrong can cause him to go into spasm as he has a disc problem. In Pat's, it is managing the pain caused when he tries to change speeds, and fatigue soreness. It is very difficult to play effectively when you don't practice, but that's the situation we are in for the rest of the year. I have been also been assured that neither will do any harm by playing. It's a difficult and frustrating situation for our team and for two of the best competitors I have had the privilege to coach. We are making progress to get through it, and avoid the "if only syndrome".

February 18, 2008

ARMY RECAP

I guess if you hang around long enough you'll have the opportunity to see it all. After a six hour bus ride through the snow Tuesday night, I woke up Wednesday morning to a torrential rain storm and a call from Army Coach Jim Crews. He said the roof in army's arena was leaking and they had plastic garbage cans on the court trying to catch the water. He asked if we wanted to shoot around in another gym. I told him no because I thought by 11am it would be fixed. When we arrived, sure enough there were the garbage cans at different spots on both ends of the court. Jim had come down to meet us and I said I thought this was just a ploy by him to find a way to set more screens. We started to discuss options if the rain didn't stop or if Army's facilities people could not fix the issues with the roof. He half apologized to me when telling that he had been told to ask me if playing it on the fourth floor of the recreation building on an intramural court would be an option. I thought he was joking at first but he then said again that he had been told to ask me. Begrudgingly I went to look at the court they were talking about. It was in a building that had a parking lot for about 25 cars. We had to go past a security desk and take an elevator to the fourth floor where there were four courts side by side with curtains. I told him that I didn't think this was a proper venue for a Div.1 basketball game and that there was no way family, alums and others coming to the game could watch the game.

We both decided we would hope for the best. Jim called me at 4pm and told me the floor was still covered with garbage pails and we reluctantly agreed to play the game Thursday at 7pm. I was concerned with missed class time and the fact that we would have to travel to Bucknell on friday for a Sat. game at 6pm. Some things in life are simply out of your control and a rainout in February is one of them.

We talked to our guys that this was another fitting obstacle for a season that had presented many. We knew Army would play with great energy (they always do) and that we would have to block all this out and match it. Well the first 17 minutes of the first half we played as well as we have all year on both ends and with 3 minutes left had an 18 point lead. Then Army forced some turnovers and made a run which left us with a 9 point half time lead. We were able to use Alex and Pat in this game (neither had practiced since the Lafayette game), and having them made a huge difference. Tim played well at both ends, Alex and Eric had 24 between them, and though Army closed the gap to 4 at one point we maintained good poise and sank our free throws to come away with a really good road win. It was right on the bus after the game for a 3 and one half hour bus ride to Lewisburg.

BUCKNELL RECAP

The Around the World in Two Week Bus Tour continued on Saturday with an ESPN game at Bucknell. We watched film on Friday and waited for our managers to bring down books and papers from school so our guys could mitigate the damage from another day of missed class. We practiced at 7pm at Bucknell and then went back to the hotel to get more school work done. At the walk thru on Sat. Pat Flannery stopped by and we chatted for a few minutes about both our teams and how the kids from both programs look forward to the games. As I mentioned after the game in Worcester, when we're playing the game we want to kick each other's butt but afterward there's a great deal of respect between coaches and the players. This was a game where we emphasized poise to our guys. Playing in a great atmosphere on national TV, intensity would not determine the outcome, execution would. So we kept stressing the importance of enjoying the competition and staying focused. I felt that one of the keys was to guard their three point shooters better than we had in the last game and especially John Griffin who had been shooting exceptionally well coming into this game and who had made big shots against us in the past. On offense we wanted to throw it inside at every opportunity, while at the same time knowing we would have to knock down some threes to have a chance to win.

Well the result was a typical HC-BU game with great intensity. We were fortunate to make some big plays and free throws down the stretch and found a way to win. Our knocking down almost all our free throws, and Bucknell missing some critical ones, enabled us to get some separation in the last couple of minutes and we were able to get our first victory at Bucknell in four years. Again having Pat and Alex available, though not at full strength, made a huge difference, and our two seniors, Tim and Kyle really played well at both ends.

Right after the game it was back on the bus for another 5 and one half hour ride home. Ten minutes into the trip I got up to use the rest room and passed our guys with books open and computers out, trying to catch up on their work. I also took about five phone calls from friends who told me about Bucky Waters' comment during the broadcast about me playing at HC around 83 or 84. I immediately got on the phone to call my wife and inform her that she had become too old for me. She didn't react, just blandly told me she had figured out a long time ago that she had married a perpetual 16 year old. Win one, lose one. The tour continues on Tuesday with the trip down to Navy.

February 14, 2008

LAFAYETTE RECAP

Let me start by saying I started the day watching a really enjoyable alumni game, as a lot of guys who have represented Holy Cross so well while they were here, and so well since they left, came back to play in the annual Alumni game. It was great to see the friendship and competitiveness of the game, and it's an event that hopefully will continue to grow and get better each year. As they say some guys "still got game."

Guarding the 3 is essential if you are going to have the opportunity to beat Lafayette, so we again spent a good deal of our prep time working on guarding the perimeter and getting over the numerous fade and back-screens that Lafayette uses so well in their offense. This was Winter Homecoming so the crowd was good and I feel it really helped our team mentally. It was also good that Pat and Alex felt good enough to go even though neither had practiced before the game. I felt we played really good defense in the first half with the exception of allowing them to go out in transition for 10 points but offensively we missed a lot of open shots. Still we were down 9 early in the second half and we were approaching the portion of the game where we had not done well in the past. This is where having Alex and Pat back really helped as both contributed and their availability allowed us to play with fresh legs over the last 12 minutes of the game. This is really important against a team like Lafayette that plays a lot of players. We were able to control the last 12 minutes on both ends and came away with a real good win. Holding them to 36% shooting for the game and us shooting over 50% in the second half, were really encouraging signs.

Unfortunately as has been the case for the past 6 weeks, Pat and Alex did not come out of the game healthy and neither has practiced since the game.

I am sitting here at West Point, the game having been cancelled due to leaks in the roof of their arena. We are facing a decision on whether to bus back after the game tonight (170 miles), getting in probably sometime around 1:30am, and going to school on Fri and then turning around for a 350 mile trip to Bucknell, or to leave for Bucknell from here. There is no good decision in this situation . This goes back to the reality that as the school on the extreme outpost of this league, playing Wed-Sat rather than the travel partner Fri-Sun format puts our student athletes at a real disadvantage. I have felt strongly about this since I came here and watched our student athletes get in at ungodly hours while traveling through terrible weather every single year. It took us almost 6 hours to get here on Tuesday night, and now this trip turns into a real bad trip for missed classes. Personally I often wonder about the geographic sense of this league for us if there is going to be little attention paid to the stated philosophy of the league of putting the student first. I also realize that we are the unfortunate unique situation in the league, but that doesn't help our players any.