Inside Friartown - Volume II - Providence College Athletics

Oct. 6, 2003

With less than two weeks until our first practice, we can feel the force of another season coming quick. It's amazing how fast the time goes by, and it is why we are constantly on top of our guys about not wasting opportunities.

Every time they step into the gym, into the weight room or out on the field to run it is an opportunity to get better. Before you know it, if you've wasted one day it turns into a week, and you never get that time back. And I'll guarantee you someone else is getting better somewhere, which means you are falling behind.

One thing coaches always talk about having is competition in practice to really drive players to get better. Nothing will make you work as hard as knowing that the guy next to you is good enough to take your minutes or your spot in the starting line-up. The best team we had at Providence College, the 2000-01 NCAA Tournament team, had 10 guys that all played between 12 and 29 minutes per game, and if you remember that team the 5 guys who started the game weren't always the 5 who finished it. We had 10 guys we really felt we could trust and Coach had no problem with any of them in the game at crunch time.

So this year we are really looking forward to the competition that we will have at each spot. Of the 12 guys on our roster, there is probably only one guy (Marcus?) that can only play one position. It seems like every other guy can play at least two positions and we have some guys who we play all over the place.

Of those 12 guys, 3 have never played a game for us - Dwight, Jeff and Herbert. The other 9 guys have all started games for us, and I'm not talking just one or two in a pinch. All 9 of them have been regular starters at some point during their career. Add to that the fact that we've had one freshman in the starting line-up in 4 of our 5 years here at Providence, and it looks like the battle for minutes will be very competitive.

As a coach it is great to use for motivational purposes. When we have individual workouts our guys are usually grouped together by position and we can have no more than four at one time. So when Sick, Ab, Dwight and Donnie work out together, it's pretty easy to get the competitive juices flowing. If somebody is struggling or not giving a great effort, it's pretty easy to say "Hey, Sick, look at Ab, I'm sure he plans on starting this year, and those are your minutes." Or just look at the four of them and say, "You all want to start, and you all want to play 30 minutes per game. Well, the truth is, probably only two of you will start, and maybe two of you will get to play that many minutes. So you guys have to figure that out on the floor."

One of the things Coach Welsh has always been great at is letting guys compete in practice for minutes. He never says, "Well, we should start this guy, he's a senior" or anything like that. The guys that are playing well, playing hard and playing together find themselves in the line-up, so they know that on the practice floor is where they have to compete for minutes. And the good news is, with so many guys who can play so many positions, there are a lot of ways for guys to find minutes.

Versatility is a great asset to have, but it also makes you work pretty hard as a coach. We love having guys that can play different positions, but you also have to worry about finding a rhythm with the group on the floor. We like to play a lot of guys, but we also realize that last year we played our best ball when we shortened the bench and left the same group on the floor for extended periods of time. How will we play this year? I think it would be nice to get everyone regular minutes, but it won't be easy to do. The players will really dictate how many of them get to play by what they do in practice every day.

Having guys that can play a lot of positions gives you a lot of options, but also gives you a lot of decisions. We have always felt it is a great asset and have always recruited versatile players and found a way to put the best ones on the floor. One of our teams that won the MAAC at Iona started basically 5 forwards, ranging from 6-4 to 6-8 without a true point guard or a power post player on the floor. And they played over 30 minutes per game, all of them.

Versatility can make you very tough to match up with, and allows you to do some different things on defense. Do you realize that Tuukka guarded both Marcus Hatten and Mike Sweetney last year? So the line-ups are fun to kick around, but hard to figure out. Can we play a small team, with Donnie, Sick, Ab, Rob and Ryan? Or can we go big with Dwight, Chris, Tuke, Maris and Marcus? You will probably see a lot of combinations in the middle of those two.

The good news is we have 5 weeks of practice to compete for those minutes. Those 12 guys know the minutes are out there, and they know what they need to do to get them. It should make for some very competitive practices.

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

Providence College Athletics

Inside Friartown - Volume II

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