Inside Friartown - Volume IV - Providence College Athletics

Oct. 20, 2003

I'm not sure there are very many coaches who are fans of midnight madness festivities. The anticipation is great, but we are really excited about getting on the floor and working with our guys as a team when practice actually starts.

Every year I personally wonder whether or not we should just eliminate the whole thing and just get off to a quiet start on Saturday morning. And every year the students bring me back. Our students do such a great job with the excitement in the gym and our guys get really pumped up for it. It is great to see that many students fired up for the start of our season, and it makes it a great night for recruiting. You can't walk into that gym near midnight without being fired up, and it is why the students are such an important factor at our games. When the students are juiced, the other fans are juiced, the players are juiced and there is different electricity in the building.

There are two things we want to make sure that happen at every Late Night Madness celebration - that none of the rims get torn down, and that no one gets hurt. We got through this year's fun without any problems; although I'm pretty sure we are going to lead the country in missed dunks. It seems like you now get more of a reaction for just trying something stupid without actually putting the ball through the hoop.

Our guys get pumped for it, and that is what makes it great. It feels great for them to get that kind of support from fellow students. And a lot of talk in the locker room centers around two things - what each one of them is going to do, and what Rob Sanders is going to do.

Rob Sanders is a complete freak. There is no doubt he is the best athlete we have ever coached, and I don't think it is even close. I can't imagine there is a better leaper anywhere in the country. The stuff he can do with a ball when flying through the air still makes everyone's jaws drop. There were some guys busting chops on Saturday, saying stuff like "Next year, I've got Rob, I can take him," and all the other guys would just laugh. You may have some nice rise, but your not getting close to Rob. It's just not a fair fight (Although was that Herbert Hill and Donnie McGrath getting nasty in there, or did some people sneak into our lay-up lines?).

So a very busy weekend has come to an end. We always have recruits in for the weekend, and entertaining them is always very important. But we also have our first couple of practices to plan. Everyone is anxious to get started and we must balance that excitement with our teaching to make sure everyone understands what we are trying to do.

Practice is now the most important thing that we do every day until the season ends. It is where we establish who we are, and we are constantly telling our guys that. Susan Yow, our women's head coach, told me Friday that she just "gets a different feel" from our guys this year, like they are more mature and focused as a group. We have so many veterans that it should be the case, and I think she is right. But it is such a long season with a lot of ups and downs, so keeping that focus is always a challenge.

As a staff we've talked a lot about two things we need to see out of this team - competitiveness and unselfishness. Competing every day in practice is one of Coach Welsh's mantras, and that will never change. But with the amount of talent and versatility we have, everyone can look next to them and find someone who can take their minutes. So we shouldn't have anyone who feels comfortable going through the motions, because their minutes can be snatched up very easily.

If this team is going to go a long way we are going to have to be unselfish. We have a lot of veterans, a lot of guys who have started for us (9) and a lot of very talented offensive players. So there is going to have to be some personal sacrifice from everyone for the goals of our team. How much is each guy willing to give to help make our team better?

After two days, we are very happy in both areas. Practice has been extremely competitive, so much so that some of our veterans have talked to me about things being "different" than the beginning of last year. And guys have not been worried about themselves as much as they are their teammates. You can see it in the amount of talk on the court, with guys helping each other out, the way the ball moves on offense with the extra pass, and the way guys react positively with each other when someone screws up. As much as we talk about it as coaches, it is still hard for a 20-year old kid to commit to helping out a teammate who just might take his minutes.

Now comes the hard part. As Coach told the guys after practice today, everyone was fired up this weekend. Don't you think Texas just finished two great practices? I'm sure UConn, BC, Alabama and Illinois had great practices as well. But now the first weekend is over, they have to go back to class tomorrow, they will be a little sore, and they still have to bring the same energy to Alumni Gym.

With the number of guys who have been through this before, we are expecting a great level of energy at practice every day. For our staff, it is the only thing we do during the day - Providence Basketball. We meet to plan practice, we watch the tape of yesterday's practice, we plan drills, set our game plans on offense and defense, and talk about each individual and how they are doing. For the guys, practice is one of the things that takes up their day, something included in all of the pressures of going to college.

Just before the guys left, Coach summed it up very nicely. The games we want to win when the season starts - Alabama, URI, Virginia, Syracuse, etc. - are going to be won right now.

Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball versus Nebraska on November 7, 2026 at TBA

Providence College Athletics

Inside Friartown - Volume IV

Related News

Players Mentioned

Herbert Hill

Related Videos