Friday, February 25, 2011

Re-Post....UW Basketball



Good posts all. I agree with what you said about Romar, chabby,
and would add that the list of talents a bb coach needs is much too
long for any coach to excel at everything....though maybe that was
Wooden's reason for such success. Players come and go, but the
coach is really the key ingredient in any program. I like Romar. I have almost no complaints. I do wish he would improve FASTER than his peers because that is what this is really about. Adapting, learning, changing, and rearranging priorities in a lot of different areas. 
 
The area which is hardest to measure is the people skills. Working with the players and relating to each of them as individuals to get the most out of everyone. Choosing assistant coaches, and then teaching them, and motivating them, and when necessary firing them. I have no knowledge at all regarding the assistant coaches, but if they were really great they would be making Romar appear better than he would otherwise. A great coach might have even greater assistant coaches working for him. Yes, they will leave and that is the testament to a coach outside of winning games. How well his assistants fare when they leave. So he needs to replace them, and how well he does that could cover up a lot of his own deficiencies.

What we are learning this year, IMO, is that the coaching staff needs to improve in many areas. If we take as a given that the Huskies have the most player talent in the conference, then we can grade the coaches high in recruiting and development of players' skills, but we might need to downgrade the game day coaching skills, the motivational skills, or even the game preparation skills of the coaches. My guess is that following the rules 100% has cost us some of the blue chip prospects. That's too bad, but I don't fault the coaches for that. Corruption exists in all endeavors and avoiding it is a choice that pays off in the long term.

Teaching maturity to young adults from various walks of life is possibly the most important skill a coach can be born with, develop over time, or recruit in assistant coaches. Few people really have this skill. Overall, all Romar teams seem to buy into his program and develop maturity as well as most programs. That could just be the result of a recruiting focus on maturity.

Mental focus is the most important attribute in any competitive endeavor. It is easier to focus when playing at home. IMO, that far outweighs the supposed assist teams get from the refs at home.

The mental state of a team is a moving object, and harder to predict than the stock market, but I get a good feeling about the direction our team is going. Taking an optimistic perspective, I like to think our early losses to good teams will give us the experience to finally turn the corner to toughness. Those losses were due to nervousness and lack of confidence. The middle season losses were due to a lot of issues. Arrogance, laziness, and consequently lack of focus.
We learned humility from those losses. From the recent loss at Arizona, I hope we learned the need to play all 40 minutes with intensity.

Unfortunately, it's a lot like Whack-A-Mole, what the next problem to pop up willbe is anyone's guess. That is another coaching job. Most coaches wilt under the pressure or die of stress related illnesses. My hats off to all of them that excel.
 
Soggyblogger

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