Much like the football team breaking down and building back up over the summer, the basketball team is doing Navy Seal Training. Hoping the results are close to football. A new attitude and closer bonds formed.
Mens basketball off season training.
- Thread starter pittstoner74
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Donnie promised us a full-court pressing defense and a fast-break offense from day one (like he had at Marshall!). Every time we ever pressed, we were more successful but he kept saying we didn't have the personnel or the depth or whatever to. We supportive fans waited and waited and never got it.
Johnny Wooden, when he won his first two national championships, kept saying how on paper, a full court press shouldn't work -- but it does. It forces you to have the best conditioned athletes on the court, enervates your team, creates camaraderie, dictates the pace of the game, demoralizes the opponent, and revolutionized the game. Last year we had tons of depth and the big centers to prevent easy layups down court, and we still didn't use it.
Johnny Wooden, when he won his first two national championships, kept saying how on paper, a full court press shouldn't work -- but it does. It forces you to have the best conditioned athletes on the court, enervates your team, creates camaraderie, dictates the pace of the game, demoralizes the opponent, and revolutionized the game. Last year we had tons of depth and the big centers to prevent easy layups down court, and we still didn't use it.
DJ was full of promises. I didn't really see why we hired him in first place. Wasn't even successful at Marshall.
Isaiah Sykes sat with us at the Michigan game for a while. He really opened up to us about Donnie and the regime. Donnie could not get McBride in Shape and would ask others to do so. He also mentioned how Donnie would never stand up for the team with bad calls (We all witnessed that). He would never take one for the team. He also mentioned that Donnie would treat all the players very differently....not a real standard. Not breaking news, but it was interesting to hear this from a former player.
Well, he did get us nationally ranked after winning our first 14 games one season. And he did give us almost all our big victories the school has ever had against P-5 conferences and ranked team. Beating defending champ UConn and Memphis when they were still good. So there's that. The days of Marcus, Keith, and Isaiah packed the house. But nothing since joining the AAC.
Yes that 1 year we started off year well. UCONN wasn't great the year before and started the year off slow. But then started rolling. So his best year was NIT? Not really exciting to me. Was a good first step. But never took a 2nd step.
And proceeded to lose to Harvard by missing a couple dozen FT. But UConn was the defending national champ. UCF did make a worse also-ran post-season tourney, too. The good thing is that Jones left the cupboard with some quality players to work with right from the get go, with departures being our slowest regulars. I predict a surprisingly successful season, our first upsets in conference play, and perhaps a post-season tourney (though nobody else here agrees).
Things were trending positive till probation hit (UCF did get negativery recruiting while investigation was on going too) with scholarship (loss 6) and recruiting sanctions came about (no off campus evaluation recruiting g for DJ and top asst coach for 2 years), plus post-season ban.
Add in moving up to a much tougher AAC during all of this, it was bad timing all around.
Was actually looking forward to whoever was the coach this year with BJ coming back and being at 13 full scholarships but now with the loss of McSpadden for the season (ACL) and all the scholarships just on transfers who can't play this year...this could be a tough season to get thru as many players will have to play extra mins (not go 100%) and hope Taco and AJ don't get I to early (or even late) foul trouble.
KL: All good points. But recall how Donnie had half a bench full of transfers in street clothes early on, too? And he did get a 5-year transfer he can plug right in this fall plus a couple frosh. So we could be well off from the get go. And everyone back loves to run, along with a coach who knows about winning. Could finally get UCF respect in the AAC.
I think we are on our way...just don't see it happening much this season just due to lack of depth...and thats with no one in foul trouble or anymore injuries. (Hope I am wrong).
NEXT year we are set to be pretty well stacked with experience all over the place with experienced transfers who will have a year plus in our system (at least practice).
Yeah, but it was worth hiring him just to hear Marshall fans scream...
Like I said, nobody else seems to be excited about the hoops season the way they were for the football season despite a stronger core of returning players (and a good grad transfer). The proper read: Scott needs a year but Dawkins has a good team right now (and a proven quality coach who knows what to do with them). SMU could win last year with far less depth and not much more talent because their coach and his system was great. Also, we lose 4 seniors off this years team for next year! Your certainty just doesn't make any sense. And if we start off winning, that would help UCF recruiting for future years. Now is the time, so get ready to rumble.
UCF is basically losing Matt Williams (solid but streaky shooter) and Tanks (Efianayi), who was a role player off the bench who had a few good games...but too many bad games in his first year in Div I-A.
The best players for UCF this season (on paper...as you never know) all have 1-2 years more of eligibility (AJ Davis, Tacko, and BJ Taylor), plus McSpadden will have 3 years of eligibility when he comes back next year too...so its easy to be excited about the future, especially if UCF can have 12-13 eligible scholarship players for next season...as that gives the team options plus depth in case of injuries and/or other issues that can take a player off the court.
I hope this year's team can gain some nice non-conf wins in order to build up confidence for conf play as anything CAN happen and hopefully will.
