The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Donnie Marsh Blog
12/15/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 15, 2009
Our guys have completed finals and we have returned to preparation for our game next Wednesday against nationally ranked Cincinnati. This will be the final game in the four (4) game series that came about as a result of the C-USA exodus a few years back. It has been an interesting, competitive and entertaining series. I would hope that we could continue the series but we'll see what the Bearcats think about that. Having 12 days in between games presents some advantages, but also some challenges. We gave our guys three days away from basketball to focus and prioritize their preparations for final exams. Our academic advising office, tutors and mentors were in place to assist in that process. This group of players has been extremely conscientious in handling their academic responsibilities throughout the semester. Now our goal for them is to finish the job much like we teach them to do on the court.
After the 3 off days we brought the guys back for short 90 minute sessions to re-condition them; to re-focus them; to re-enforce the things we had done to that to get out to the 8-1 start. That's tougher than you might imagine. You can lose quite a bit of conditioning after 3 days away from the court. Their minds are still a bit scattered as they haven't completed all their finals and papers, so it takes some time to re-focus them. And they forget more than you might think as well so we spend time piecing things back together for them. Our preparations take a bit of a twist as well because we are not able to use Bartow Arena or Wallace Gym because of graduation set up and ceremonies. Thanks to Samford and Birmingham Southern for giving us access to their facilities for a couple of days so we could work on regulation size courts. We returned to Bartow on Sunday and have begun full-blown preparation and installation of both the offensive and defensive game plans for Cincinnati. The flip side of the long lay-off between games is of course the rest your team gets - especially AJ who has logged some serious minutes; the opportunity for some guys to heal their bumps & bruises; and the opportunity to add a wrinkle or two that perhaps some teams haven't seen. There is always some concern about rust because it's hard to simulate game intensity and speed, but the positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion. In addition we have gotten a chance to watch and scout two additional games that Cincinnati has played since they returned from a 9-day break for their exams.
For all the speculation and theories this one will be settled inside the rectangle and that's how I like it. We'll need a packed house full of zeal and enthusiasm to help us pull it off. I hope I can count on you to be in that number.
GO BLAZERS!!
