The facebook comment reads, “Fabulous. But how did this posting support the basketball team today? All in or what?” Plainly, silence about Arkansas Basketball is not sufficient for some folks. Here it is. “All in.”
Arkansas Basketball is painful to watch right now and the attendance at last night’s game shows that I’m not the only one who thinks that way.
Control, cohesiveness, sense of purpose, and the spirit of a common goal are difficult to discern from this Team’s actions. These qualities are vague. The characteristics of what makes a Team, a Team are vague. How many different ways does this manifest itself?
Team suspensions are handed out like cards at a poker table, and they seem about as fickle as the order of cards in any hand. Only two possibilities exist here. The Coach has a short trigger and lack of ability to motivate or educate the player into the correct behavior, or the player has no desire to see it done right. The simple solution is that all Arkansas Razorbacks players need to waive voluntarily their rights under Federal privacy laws. If they have the full confidence that they are acting correctly, then the Coach needs to take the heat. If the Coach is being petty, it will show. On the other hand, the players need to stand up and take the criticism they deserve if they are wasting a scholarship.
A litany of this Coach’s recruits are no longer on the Team. Is any citation necessary?
The Basketball Team APR tanked into dangerous range toward the end of 2010.
Some have suggested that at least one player influenced another on the team not to follow during-the-game substitution orders by the Coach. Conversely, players who have hot hands have been benched.
Poor shooting from the field can happen, and it can be streaky. Solid, will-deny-entry-into-the-lane, defend-the-perimeter, smothering defense is a matter of will, and the Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team has rarely imposed such a defensive effort upon any team for a full game under this Coach. This kind of effort requires top physical condition, someone motivating the players, and the players willing to accept the challenge. When this team has played that way, even for a few minutes, good things happen.
The physical transformations can happen. In the course of one summer, the effort Michael Sanchez devoted to his physical health with the guidance of a top-notch basketball trainer showed from the minute he stepped into a pre-season exhibition game. He looked like he had been through boot camp. Otherwise, someone needs to swallow his pride and shadow Jason Veltkamp for a couple of weeks. It’s not taking years for either Sanchez or the football players to physically develop.
This team lack leadership structure among the players on the team and a lack of leadership from the coaches.
Along all those lines, closed practices be damned at this point. Whatever wrinkles are currently implemented secretly are responded to quickly on the court anyway. Otherwise, leads would not be blown as easily as they seem to be. Now is the time to worry about the House that Nolan Built and not worry about some perceived edge from secrecy of practice. The curtain needs to be drawn on the efficiency of practices, effort during practices, teaching methods and any other aspect which will allow the fans to understand whether this program is headed in the right direction and why it is or is not. Too, the information will filter better to Jeff Long if it does not already do so.
Why should The Coach open practices? If for no other reason, when people are watching, those who have a task to do are generally motivated to do it better when the cameras are rolling.
When things are going well, many Arkansas Fans will not insist on knowing how a University of Arkansas Team gets there.
However, when things are going poorly, Razorbacks Fans collective first inclination is to do anything we can to help the Team. If players aren’t getting the message that they need to set tight screens, then I promise they will hear about it in their dreams. The secrecy straps our ability to help.
Our second instinct is to keep those who exhibit and work consistently with the Razorback Spirit. As Fans, we can live without the best players or the best teams. We can’t live with failing to be proud of them or them failing to be less than a Razorback should. The problem is that when things are going badly, we don’t know and sometimes wonder whether those behind the curtain are making us Razorback proud for their efforts.
Thirdly, if there are repeated problems, then Fans want to lay the burden where it needs to be laid. We have no interest in throwing out the good with the bad.
If we do not have the information, then we cannot decide for ourselves, and in Arkansas, that only builds frustration which either erupts in rebellion or leads to apathy.
So what happens if there is continued refusal to open practices? Has anyone considered that practices for the Arkansas Razorbacks’ Basketball team may be opened under Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act? The Coaches are State employees, on State property, performing a State-paid-for function and doing something that is of public concern and do not concern individual, private matters. BUT, it never has to come to a head.
Until practices are opened and I, as a Fan, can perceive the situation differently, The Coach demonstrates all of the abilities of a top-notch assistant at a top-flight NCAA D-I program. Despite working tirelessly and achieving the commitments of the incoming freshmen recruits (for which he is commended), it is a good streak of One because it has not happened before. Only the future may tell whether The Coach has the ability to do anything remotely similar. The deficit in The Coach’s recruiting is not in the ability to assess talent, it is in the ability to assess the player’s willingness and ability to adapt to the scheme or University because a good percentage have not. Overall, the Head Coach duties appear to be too many and too varied for The Coach, and The Coach does not handle them with the ease necessary to focus on basketball. The result is merely adequate coaching, teaching, and game plans but sometimes devolves into apparent disorganization. Being the best is not a 80-90% proposition. Being the best is about mastering the basics and perfecting the little things in the upper 5-10% of the effort 52 weeks a year.
As for the Players, those who want to disrupt team unity and direction are welcome to hand their scholarship to some player from the Arkansas Delta or Hills who wants every loose ball, junk rebound, charge opportunity, screen set opportunity, free throw opportunity, and full-court press just because he feels blessed every day to have an Arkansas Razorback uniform on.
None of this is unsalvageable for The Coach or the Players. When headlines start to praise Team Effort, Unselfishness, and Unity, the Arkansas Razorbacks’ Basketball Team and The Coach will bring back the Fans, and it will only get better from there.
There you have it. I’m all in. — SharpTusk
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