Page 2541 of 2957

After last weeks loss to Grand Valley State (kudos to former Missouri State assistant Rick Wesley) Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo banned his team from the lockerroom. He was trying to send a message that they had it too soft….If I had done that to one of my teams they would have jumped for joy. At St. Francis College in New York, where I got my first head coaching job in Division I, the lockerroom was so small that we had all of our meeting in the weightroom….Michigan State on the other had has flat screen televisions, an x-box and even toothbrushes for their players…We used to have soap night where fans brought in bars of soap for the price of admission so that the players would have soap in the lockerroom.

Izzo is not the first coach to throw his team out of the plush surroundings, but rather the latest. Coach K, Roy Williams and a list of other Hall of Famers have done it…I guess I should have. Who knows we may have won a national championship!

This is just one of the coaching ploys that have been used to motivate players through the years. It dates all the way back to the “Win one for the Gipper” speech courtesy of Knute Rockne. (That speech must not be working for the Irish football team this year.)

A couple of motivational tools I have used through the years that have worked, but if viewed from the outside I might have been thought to have lost my mind. After closing the season with 4 straight losses as the head coach at the university of North Florida, I knew I had to do something dramatic to change our thinking. After instructing my Athletic Director to not look in the window during practice (I thought if he did he might fire me on the spot.), I had every player and coach put a brown bag over their head. For the first 10 minutes of practice that week we visualized all the bad going out of our heads and brought in positive karma…It worked as we upset two higher seeded teams on the way to the Sunshine State Conference Championship game. We lost in the final seconds, but it did prove what positive thinking could do.

A couple of years later my team was in a must win situation to qualify for the conference tournament (they had not made the last two years under the previous coach). I decided to paint a “W” on my chest and at the opportune time I would rip my shirt open and impress that they needed to play like warriors. I happy to say that it worked and we won the game. However, it took me a week to get the marker off my chest.

My point is this…Coaches are teachers and teachers need to get the attention of their students…Sometimes you have to go to an extreme!!

By the way Michigan State opened up with a 33-point win. Good job Coach Izzo!!!

All you Kansas State fans who think that Michael Beasley is a shoo-in for player of the year…take a look over in Bllomington where freshman Eric Gordon just had the biggest debut game in the history of Indiana basketball. Check out this line..33 points on 9-15 shooting that included 7-11 from the three point line. Oh yeah, and if you think all he can do is score, he added 6 rebounds and 4 assists just for good measure.

Credit Indiana’s persistence in recruiting as you might remember that Eric Gordon first commited to Illinois. Also, hats off to Assistant Coach Jeff Meyer who coached Eric’s father at Liberty University. I wonder if he scored as much as his son?

The ESPN Coaches poll had Kentucky and Southern Cal in their Top 25. It just goes to show you that polls in college basketball are all about hype and really have no bearing on how good a team is or will be. I was a voter for the last 5 years and I can tell you that most coaches just picked the biggest schools out there with the longest tradition. For me I wanted to look a little deeper and give all programs their due. With a new coach and a whole lot of new players both Southern Cal and Kentucky didn’t deserve to be in the top 25. How about someone like Southern Illinois or Butler. Both had great runs last year and return core players. They should be ranked higher than a team with a big name coach and a long tradition.

Oh, by the way, I think there is a good chance that Kentucky and USC will be heard from before it is all said and done. If I know Coach Gillespie they probably haven’t left the gym yet….