The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Basketball Blog - Donnie Marsh
11/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 16, 2010
It sure feels good getting that first win of the season under your belt. Trust me after 30 years in this business, it never gets old. We did enough good things to feel good and to be encouraged, but enough "bad" things to give us plenty to leeway to teach and improve. As the saying goes, "coaches accuse, but the videotape prosecutes". We have their attention! I mentioned in my last blog that the most important thing for this group of players is to get better each time out. I think that may have gotten misinterpreted. This group has a chance to do some special things this year, but it is going to be a process it's going to take some time to pull it all together.
That's not a bad thing. Our goal on Saturday night Vs SEMO was to be better than we were the previous Friday against West Alabama. This team had a lot of ground to cover in several areas in that seven (7) day span. I think we bit off a large chunk of that, and we know we still have a big portion left to digest. But in the meantime we were able to get the first meaningful college-level game under the belts of Robert Williams, Quincy Taylor, Preston Purifoy, and Beas Hamga, and all of them brought something positive to the table. They all also made their share of mistakes. No one knows that better than me. But I think we all felt that each of those kids was better Saturday, than they had been at any other time during our pre-season preparation. Now it's our job to get them to take another step on Wednesday as they face their first road test of the season. That process began today as we broke down film and then worked on the floor to correct and improve a number of areas on both offense and defense.
The newcomers aren't the only ones with areas that need improvement. Our "veterans" had spotty season debuts as well. Even the guys who's numbers say they played well, have to learn how to back those performances up - become consistent - when there is more and more videotape available for teams to use to try to stop them. Our job as a staff is to continue re-enforcing the concept of working to get better every day and not settling for a decent outing. I think they got that message at today's practice. We'll continue driving that point home tomorrow in practice before we head off to Murphreesboro. Then on Wednesday we'll look to be better than we were last Saturday. That again is the most important thing for this team as we push towards becoming the team that we believe we can become. After all, we can't expect to be playing at January and February levels in November. But we will get there.
I hope to see many of you out on Wednesday night. You all have a way of taking over a few venues not named Bartow Arena each season. Might this be one of them? I know the guys would love to see that!
GO BLAZERS!
