Today's post is written by Assistant Coach Marcus Moeller:
With October 15th arriving on Thursday, the question that everyone asks is, “Well Coach, are we ready?” Assuming that “we” encompasses the 14 athletes on our roster, myself, Coach Jones, Coach Hubbard, and Coach Mitts…I will address that question.
The theme of the preseason is “Break it down so we can build it up.” There are 2 breakdowns happening simultaneously throughout the preseason. We have 10 new girls, from 10 different programs on our roster. Each and every one of these athletes has been taught a completely different philosophy on the game of basketball. We must break it down. We MUST teach these athletes our system. We must break it down. The preseason gives us the opportunity to break down our system in to its finest parts. As we teach and break down our system we are in turn breaking down the systems of our 10 newcomers. We MUST break it down, so we can build it up.
The coaching staff is ready! There is nothing more exciting for our staff than to finally have the opportunity to work with all 14 players at once, on the same floor, and working to build on the floor cohesiveness. Our team has done a GREAT job of building an off the court bond, now we must actively pursue an on the floor cohesiveness that never waivers.
Our 14 players our ready! There are 2 different ways to look at this phrase. A better way to put it would be, “our team is ready for preseason to be over!” :) Our team is definitely ready for practice to be here. The beginning of practice means that 95% of everything we do involves a basketball. There is no doubt that our players are ready for the conditioning portion with Coach J of the preseason to be over :) The second way to look at it, “Is the team ready to perform at the level necessary to have GREAT practices?” One thing that I have always found interesting is when I correct a player in the midst of a drill and their answer is, “I know coach.” My natural response is usually “then why didn’t you do it correctly?” It has often been said that “knowledge without action is meaningless.” Another way to put it is “the proof of understanding is in the application”. October 15th is start of the application. Our team must now begin to apply everything they have been taught!
I honestly believe that the 2009-2010 Lions are ready to begin practice. We are excited about the work that we put in during the preseason and we believe that we have prepared ourselves to have a GREAT year.
Until next time…it’s a GREAT day to be a LION!!
Marcus Moeller
Assistant Coach
