@Sean Hammond once again took in practice from inside the Cam. Here's his detailed practice report. Enjoy.
*****************************************************************************************************************
Today’s practice was more of a scrimmage. Dan started the practice with a little more intensity today; making sure the players understand the first scrimmage is next week and time is getting short to work some of the kinks out.
Team Black:
Jon Elmore, Stevie Browning, Austin Loop, Ryan Taylor, Terrence Thompson, Ky’re Allison, Aleksa Nikolic, and Ajden Penava.
Team Green:
Noah Frampton, C.J. Burks, Christian Theineman, Phil Bledsoe, Milan Mijovic, Jannson Williams, Rondale Watson, Jacob Kilgore, and Ot Elmore
There wasn’t much eventful activity to report on today, even though it was more of a scrimmage setting. However, Stevie Browning put on an absolute show. In my last report I said it looked like Browning was shooting with more confidence. Well, today that was on display. Last season Browning was pretty much a spot up shooter, where he got his shots off of Elmore’s penetration and the attention James Kelly drew. By what I saw today, Browning will become more of a scoring threat this season, whether he’s working with the ball in his hands or not. He’s shooting with Elmore-like confidence right now; pulling up from 4-5 feet behind the arc, letting it fly, and almost daring the ball to not go in. We all know Elmore doesn’t have much of a conscience when it comes to shooting, but it looks like some of that has rubbed off on Browning. He was super impressive in today’s practice.
Spurts. I think that’s a word you’ll be hearing a lot early this season. Basketball is a game of spurts anyway, where one team will go on a run, then the other team will go on one. Nobody in basketball sustains momentum throughout the game. The goal is to lengthen your spurts, while shorting the opposition’s. With the way we play offensively and with the way we’re trying to apply more pressure on the defensive end, I think you’ll see a lot of back and forth basketball during the month of November. We’ll go on a 16-4 run where we’re knocking down our shots and getting easy points around the basket because of the overplay outside, and we’ll also force teams into taking some bad shots and get some steals, which will open up the transition game for some more easy baskets. However, there will be times when it doesn’t work in our favor, when our shots aren’t falling, our defensive rotations are slow, and lack of communication leads to two guys rotating to the same man (leaving the next pass wide open) or two guys who could be rotating on the pass saying, “I thought he had it.” Like I said, spurts are going to happen, it’s a given in basketball. I just think it’s going to be a little more prevalent early in the season when we’re still learning this new defense.
Another factor that will play into the spurts I just talked about will be Dan mixing/matching and experimenting with our rotations. There’s going to be 4-5 new players being thrown into the regular rotation who weren’t in it last season. Allison, Nikolic, Theineman, Penava, & Bledsoe should all see consistent minutes, with Mijovic being sprinkled in a little. The freshmen will see their meaningful minutes grow as the season goes and they get more comfortable with the system. But I figure Dan is going to be toying with the rotations a lot early on to see what fits best together and that will lead to some inconsistent play.
Speaking of rotations, during yesterday’s practice, a lineup that really caught my eye from that Green Black was Elmore, Browning, Taylor, Penava, and Thompson. There’s offensive fire power there, Taylor is a tough matchup in the post for a 3 to guard, and there’s a lot of defensive length with that group. For the people who watched the NBA playoffs last season, the reason why Oklahoma City gave Golden State so much trouble was because they were able to “play small” (spread the floor & run), while being big. That lineup could give us that element.
Just a couple observations:
-I wasn’t able to attend practice on Wednesday, but word from the regulars is that Jannson Williams had a great day of practice. I’m still of the opinion that he’ll be a big time player for us down the road and was an incredible steal in this recruiting class. Which is why he’ll probably redshirt this season; setting up a future potential lineup of Allison (6’1), George (6’6), Bledsoe (6’5), Williams (6’9), and Bennett (6’9). And people are worried about our future size?
-At the beginning of practice, while the players were stretching and running to get loose, Dan pointed out to Ky’re Allison that he had a really nice practice on Wednesday. He then challenged him to put two of those together. In just about every practice report I written so far, I’ve mentioned Allison not quite playing at the speed he’s capable of because he’s thinking too much. In the scrimmage yesterday, Allison made a ¾ court pass to Terrence Thompson with pinpoint accuracy into a small window. He also came behind Rondale Watson and swatted a layup attempt that ended up in about the 4th row of the bleachers. Again, these freshmen are flashing a lot of ability and it’s a joy to see them progress as these practices roll along. I think they’re just now starting to catch up to the speed of the college game. The only thing holding them back is the lack of experience in our system, causing them to think instead of just reading and reacting. Once that barrier is crossed, we’re going to have three really nice players out of the 2016 recruiting class.
-Before the scrimmage, I was watching our players run through some ball handling/shooting drills. One of the things I appreciate most about our style of play is that we don’t split the court up and ask guards go to one end and work on a certain set of skills, while asking the big men to go to the other end and work on post moves. You see that stuff in every high school gym across America. All of our guys are asked to be skilled everywhere on the court. Terrence Thompson has to do the same between the legs, behind the back, in-and-out, and spin dribble moves that Jon Elmore works on. Stevie Browning has to work on cutting across the paint, sealing his man, working for post position, and do the same post moves Ryan Taylor has to do. It’s a joy to watch. And when you see one of our big men pull down a rebound and start a fast break right off of that without having to rely on an outlet pass to a guard, how we run our drills in practice is why.
*****************************************************************************************************************
Today’s practice was more of a scrimmage. Dan started the practice with a little more intensity today; making sure the players understand the first scrimmage is next week and time is getting short to work some of the kinks out.
Team Black:
Jon Elmore, Stevie Browning, Austin Loop, Ryan Taylor, Terrence Thompson, Ky’re Allison, Aleksa Nikolic, and Ajden Penava.
Team Green:
Noah Frampton, C.J. Burks, Christian Theineman, Phil Bledsoe, Milan Mijovic, Jannson Williams, Rondale Watson, Jacob Kilgore, and Ot Elmore
There wasn’t much eventful activity to report on today, even though it was more of a scrimmage setting. However, Stevie Browning put on an absolute show. In my last report I said it looked like Browning was shooting with more confidence. Well, today that was on display. Last season Browning was pretty much a spot up shooter, where he got his shots off of Elmore’s penetration and the attention James Kelly drew. By what I saw today, Browning will become more of a scoring threat this season, whether he’s working with the ball in his hands or not. He’s shooting with Elmore-like confidence right now; pulling up from 4-5 feet behind the arc, letting it fly, and almost daring the ball to not go in. We all know Elmore doesn’t have much of a conscience when it comes to shooting, but it looks like some of that has rubbed off on Browning. He was super impressive in today’s practice.
Spurts. I think that’s a word you’ll be hearing a lot early this season. Basketball is a game of spurts anyway, where one team will go on a run, then the other team will go on one. Nobody in basketball sustains momentum throughout the game. The goal is to lengthen your spurts, while shorting the opposition’s. With the way we play offensively and with the way we’re trying to apply more pressure on the defensive end, I think you’ll see a lot of back and forth basketball during the month of November. We’ll go on a 16-4 run where we’re knocking down our shots and getting easy points around the basket because of the overplay outside, and we’ll also force teams into taking some bad shots and get some steals, which will open up the transition game for some more easy baskets. However, there will be times when it doesn’t work in our favor, when our shots aren’t falling, our defensive rotations are slow, and lack of communication leads to two guys rotating to the same man (leaving the next pass wide open) or two guys who could be rotating on the pass saying, “I thought he had it.” Like I said, spurts are going to happen, it’s a given in basketball. I just think it’s going to be a little more prevalent early in the season when we’re still learning this new defense.
Another factor that will play into the spurts I just talked about will be Dan mixing/matching and experimenting with our rotations. There’s going to be 4-5 new players being thrown into the regular rotation who weren’t in it last season. Allison, Nikolic, Theineman, Penava, & Bledsoe should all see consistent minutes, with Mijovic being sprinkled in a little. The freshmen will see their meaningful minutes grow as the season goes and they get more comfortable with the system. But I figure Dan is going to be toying with the rotations a lot early on to see what fits best together and that will lead to some inconsistent play.
Speaking of rotations, during yesterday’s practice, a lineup that really caught my eye from that Green Black was Elmore, Browning, Taylor, Penava, and Thompson. There’s offensive fire power there, Taylor is a tough matchup in the post for a 3 to guard, and there’s a lot of defensive length with that group. For the people who watched the NBA playoffs last season, the reason why Oklahoma City gave Golden State so much trouble was because they were able to “play small” (spread the floor & run), while being big. That lineup could give us that element.
Just a couple observations:
-I wasn’t able to attend practice on Wednesday, but word from the regulars is that Jannson Williams had a great day of practice. I’m still of the opinion that he’ll be a big time player for us down the road and was an incredible steal in this recruiting class. Which is why he’ll probably redshirt this season; setting up a future potential lineup of Allison (6’1), George (6’6), Bledsoe (6’5), Williams (6’9), and Bennett (6’9). And people are worried about our future size?
-At the beginning of practice, while the players were stretching and running to get loose, Dan pointed out to Ky’re Allison that he had a really nice practice on Wednesday. He then challenged him to put two of those together. In just about every practice report I written so far, I’ve mentioned Allison not quite playing at the speed he’s capable of because he’s thinking too much. In the scrimmage yesterday, Allison made a ¾ court pass to Terrence Thompson with pinpoint accuracy into a small window. He also came behind Rondale Watson and swatted a layup attempt that ended up in about the 4th row of the bleachers. Again, these freshmen are flashing a lot of ability and it’s a joy to see them progress as these practices roll along. I think they’re just now starting to catch up to the speed of the college game. The only thing holding them back is the lack of experience in our system, causing them to think instead of just reading and reacting. Once that barrier is crossed, we’re going to have three really nice players out of the 2016 recruiting class.
-Before the scrimmage, I was watching our players run through some ball handling/shooting drills. One of the things I appreciate most about our style of play is that we don’t split the court up and ask guards go to one end and work on a certain set of skills, while asking the big men to go to the other end and work on post moves. You see that stuff in every high school gym across America. All of our guys are asked to be skilled everywhere on the court. Terrence Thompson has to do the same between the legs, behind the back, in-and-out, and spin dribble moves that Jon Elmore works on. Stevie Browning has to work on cutting across the paint, sealing his man, working for post position, and do the same post moves Ryan Taylor has to do. It’s a joy to watch. And when you see one of our big men pull down a rebound and start a fast break right off of that without having to rely on an outlet pass to a guard, how we run our drills in practice is why.
