Oct. 27, 2009
After almost exactly seven months, fans of Old Dominion basketball are apparently starved for a little action.
More than 1,000 students and local Monarchs fans turned up at the Ted on Friday night for the annual Blue-White scrimmage.
The team was split into two sides and played 16-minute mini-games, with referees, cheerleaders, television timeouts and the band.
Tonight's game was less about the final score and more about getting the players a run in simulated game conditions. And also about giving fans a chance to see their team in action.
Keyon Carter looked agile and fluid, scoring 15 points, tied for the highest with Kent Bazemore.
Gerald Lee showed off his dazzling array of low post moves, shooting seven for 10 from the field for 14 points.
But the players could have done the Harlem Globetrotters' confetti-bucket trick and these basketball fans would have eaten it up.
"I love it," said Chontell Woolaridge, a freshman in pre-nursing from Suffolk. "I think we can win the conference championship if we play like we can."
Chris Koclanes, a junior in finance from New York City, agreed with the assessment.
"I've watched them for two seasons, and this is the best team they've had," he said. "I'm excited. Darius James looks great at point guard, and how can you not love Ben Finney? Finney's the man."
Donte Pitt and Darius Jordan, two 25-year-olds from Suffolk, made their way down to the Ted to watch the action as well. The two friends have known redshirt freshman forward Nick Wright since he was playing high school ball in Suffolk.
"I was eager for the season to get started. They look pretty good," Pitt said.
I asked Jordan what he'd like to see out of the team this year.
"I'd like to see them get in the tournament, and do some damage. Final Four, like (George) Mason did (in 2005)," he said.
Pitt looked at him, wide-eyed. "No pressure there," he said.
"What?" Jordan said. "They've got the talent. Look at them out there."
The play "out there" was athletic, but predictably, lacked polish. It was the first time the team has played under game conditions this fall.
Cal Bowdler knows that these games can be difficult. The former Monarchs center played in four Blue-White scrimmages back in the 1990s. He brought his two-year-old daughter Siena to enjoy the game.
"It's tough. The guys you're playing against know what you're trying to do out there. They know all the plays," he said.
"There's a lot of kinks to work out."
Bowdler likes the look of the team this year.
"They're big and athletic, and they're a group of guys that play well together. The sky's the limit for this team."
I asked him who he liked on the roster.
"I love, LOVE Kent Bazemore," Bowdler said.
A few minutes later, the lanky small forward validated Bowdler's faith, catching an alley-oop pass from Marsharee Neely for a dunk. That earned the second-loudest applause of the night.
The loudest came about a minute later, when Bazemore finished a fast break with a thunderous jam over forward Frank Hassell.
This summed up the competitive, yet laid-back atmosphere of the scrimmage tonight: Coach Blaine Taylor sat at the table between the two benches, overseeing the action.
He scowled visibly during one turnover-turnover-turnover sequence, but then turned, spotted a friend in the crowd and joked: "Hey, check his ticket stub. There's no way he's sitting there."
Right after the final horn, the players shook hands then went up into the crowd to slap hands with fans.
"I think one of the appealing things about this setting is that people get to know one another," Taylor said.
"We've got, really, a freshman based program. The kids are here for a number of years. I think it's important to get to know the fans, but I think the fans really like to get to know the kids."
Overall, Taylor was happy with what he saw in the games.
"All in all, good effort out there. The kids tried to share the ball. Both sessions were closer than the final score," he said. "I'm generally pleased that we're making progress. But we certainly haven't arrived anywhere yet."
He's the associate head coach, so of course the first thing Jim Corrigan wanted to talk about after the game was all the things the team needs to work on in practice.
But Corrigan said the progression in Bazemore's game between his redshirt year, his freshman year, and this year has been impressive.
I asked Bazemore about the work he's put in on his game.
"It's always good to see yourself grow," he said. "Watching on tapes in high school, and film last year, to know, I can feel myself getting better."
Then I asked him if he was going to pay at practice for dunking on Hassell.
"Frank's my boy. We always get into it. I just so happened that I got him tonight. He's going to be on my back for the next two weeks."
A few feet away, starting swingman Finney was standing by his locker, with a sour look on his face. Finney happened to be on both losing teams tonight.
I've watched him in workouts and practice for almost two months. He has one gear - full speed. Even if it's a game of H-O-R-S-E with one of the team managers after practice, Finney goes all out.
"You don't like losing at anything, do you?" I asked him.
"Nope" was all he said.
The battle resumes in practice this week.
Brendan O'Hallarn is an employee in the office of University Relations at ODU.
Blog Four: Twenty in 20 drill is as hard as it sounds, but the players fight through
Having already done the ODU men's basketball fitness test, with predictable results, one more athletic challenge awaited me, in my quest to prove that the Monarchs basketball players are great athletes ... and I'm not.
When I first started following the team for this blog, I promised Coach Blaine Taylor and the rest of the team that I would try to run the torturous 20 in 20 drill. The news elicited raised eyebrows and small smiles every time I mentioned it.
If you've played basketball, you know that a suicide is a run done in the gym. You start on the end line and run to the foul line and back. Then to the center line and back. Then to the far foul line and back. Finally, you run from end line to end line and back. That's one.Twenty in 20 is as gruesome as it sounds. It's 20, timed suicide runs in 20 minutes.
"It's about toughness. What you've got in here," Taylor told me, pointing to his chest.Toughness is a specialty of junior forward Ben Finney. I've found myself watching the six-foot-five Portsmouth native when the team does its battery of conditioning work. When the drills are the hardest, Finney claps his hands, seemingly in glee. He loves the pain."Ever since I was little I just like stuff like that. It makes me feel like I'm getting better, I'm accomplishing something," Finney said. "When times get hard, that's when I feel like my leadership comes out."
For those players who don't draw enjoyment from inside during the pain of a drill like 20 in 20, assistant coach John Richardson is there for a little subtle encouragement."GET YOUR BUTTS DOWN!!! WORK!!! DON'T CHEAT THE DRILL!!! YOU'RE QUITTING OUT THERE!!!"That's Richardson's typical refrain of encouragement. The team assistant coach acts as a bit of an enforcer during drills, making sure players are giving their all."It's kind of a microcosm of the game," Richardson said of 20 in 20. "When you get down to the last two minutes of the game, or the last two runs in 20 and 20, it's more of a mental ability than a physical ability.
"You've got to be able to push through that wall, push through that pain."Coach Taylor said he learned 20 in 20 from itinerant basketball coach John Calipari, now at the University of Kentucky. Calipari used it with his players at the University of Massachusetts."The interesting thing is, I talked with Kenny Gattison, who played here," Taylor said. "He was an assistant for Calipari with the Nets. Kenny said the Nets refused to do it. Egos too big."ODU's players haven't had that luxury. Taylor brought the drill here after he used it at the University of Montana, and the team does it every year. "My first year here, only two guys could do it."
Now, completion of the drill is a rite of passage for ODU players. Taylor said late in last year's CollegeInsider.com tournament final at Bradley University, which ODU won, the players reminded each other of the effort required to do 20 in 20, as proof they can tackle any challenge.I watched the team do the drill a few weeks ago, and soon realized how evil it truly is.Running a single suicide doesn't take a good athlete anywhere close to a minute. But the players don't have a minute.The first four of the 20 runs, the forwards are allotted 45 seconds, the guards 43 seconds. The balance of the minute, the players get to rest.Then after four suicides, time gets taken away.The next four runs, the players get 43 and 41 seconds respectively. Then 41 and 39 for runs nine through 12.For the final eight suicides, when legs are rubber and lungs are burning, two seconds are taken away every two runs. Guards must run the final two suicides in 31 seconds apiece.Like I said. Evil.Nevertheless, I volunteered to take my medicine on the first Friday in October, one of the last times the team would run 20 in 20. But late the day before, I found out from head strength and conditioning coach Paul Helsel said the team would be doing another drill. I went home thinking I was off the hook.No such luck. I arrived that morning and found out I'd be running with the two players who hadn't completed the drill, junior forward Frank Hassell, and freshman center Anton Larsen.A few stretches, and I'm suddenly standing on the end line in the gym, hearing "Start the clock!" from assistant coach Jim Corrigan.I looked over at the other players, who were getting ready to do their own drill. Silently, Keyon Carter gave me a little nod.And we were off!
I was pleasantly surprised at the first one. Forty-five seconds was longer than I needed. Finishing in plenty of time, I stood on the end line, hands on hips, feeling very jock-like.
Note: Although I'm only six-foot-four, and shorter than Finney and Kent Bazemore, who run the drill as guards, I arbitrarily ruled myself a forward, because I needed those extra two seconds per run.
Two more suicides down, breathing a little harder, but still comfortable.After number five, the first one with 43 seconds to finish, I found myself hunched over.
"Hands on your knees already, Brendan? A long way to go yet," Corrigan said.One thing I noticed right away - the players change direction way faster than I do. After every reversal, and there are seven per suicide, I found myself having to catch up to Hassell and Larsen.
"That's the key. This is a change-of-direction drill," Taylor told me.Number six down. Then seven. Really blowing hard now. I glanced over at Anton and Frank. They didn't seem to be in any kind of difficulty. I looked at the clock. More than 12 minutes left. Uh-oh.
I pushed through number eight, the last 43-second suicide. Two fewer seconds for the next one.I fought back in the last length of the court to make number nine, but my luck ran out on the 10th. I had fallen too far behind the pace, and I was about five feet from finishing the sprint when my time ran out. I was done, and the drill was only half over.
So I stepped aside and watched the other two players keep fighting, and a wonderful thing happened.Frank missed one in the high teens and was eliminated. However, Larsen, who's struggled with the speed of everything since arriving in Norfolk a few months ago, kept knocking them out.Sixteen. Seventeen.
"C'mon Tonn! Get it done. This is it." The rest of the players started shouting encouragement. Eighteen - two runs left.Now Larsen teammates had come over to the end of the gym where he was running.
Nineteen. There was a din in the gym as Larsen's teammates exhorted him. For his last one, senior Marsharee Neely joined him on the end line to run it.With a half-second to spare, Larsen flung himself across the finish line, colliding heavily with the wall. The rest of the Monarchs crowded around the freshman center, giving him high fives and hugs.
At the end of practice, Coach Taylor looked Larsen in the eye and shook his hand, something he does with every player who completes the drill."How does it feel?" he asked."Awesome," Larsen said.
I asked the big Dane about finishing the drill which had wiped me out halfway through."I had never heard about such hard drills before. I know a guy who had played over here, he told me about it, but I didn't really believe it," Larsen said."I've never worked hard like this, but the whole team was around helping me out, so it was easier to do."Easy isn't the word I'd use. Congratulations Anton.
Brendan O'Hallarn is an employee in the office of University Relations at ODU.