University of Tennessee Athletics
Mark Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 6
November 24, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 24, 2009
Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 5
Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 4
Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 3
Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 2
Pancratz: Virgin Islands Diary Day 1
Finally, a big game! Although there was a level of excitement within our program for each of those first four games, I'd be lying to you if I said it was the same facing a team such as UNC Asheville as it is facing a team like Purdue. At breakfast this morning there was just a different feeling in the air. Being Championship Monday (yes, I made that up and no, it's not very creative) this blog is going to focus strictly on our game.
The night pretty much ran into the morning for Coach Pearl, Jason Shay and Steve Forbes. After returning from watching Purdue's semifinal win around 1 a.m., their preparation for Purdue continued as they watched our game from Sunday night and then Purdue's first-round win vs. South Dakota State. When I say continued their preparation, please don't think we just started watching tape on the Boilermakers in the last couple days. Assistant Coach Jason Shay (better known as... drumroll please... Super Scout!!) has been preparing for these guys for a few weeks now. He's done so by watching every one of their games from this year, five games from last year against teams they lost to or that played similar to us, and believe it or not, our game from five years ago at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Watching all of this tape allows our assistants to develop a team scouting report and personal tendencies on each player. All of this allows the Coaches to scream out helpful hints to our players when they see a opposing Coach call out a play or when a certain player gets the ball. For example, if a Coach calls out "1" (a ballscreen play) the staff will start yelling out helpful reminders. Or if player #10 catches the ball the staff may start yelling "force him left" if he is better driving right.
Once the assistants develop these scouting reports, they present all the information to Coach Pearl so that he can then develop our specific game plan. Coach Pearl is really good about taking what the staff suggests into consideration because he has great trust in them due to their unrelenting work ethic. However, what makes Coach Pearl great is his ability to see every minute detail in a team's ability. I think a great example of that is how often we score on plays out of timeouts. His ability to take advantage of the way a team plays defensively is amazing.
Our first team meeting of the day was at 11a.m. Coach Pearl's initial message to the team was all about toughness: "If you think DePaul was physical with you last night, you haven't seen anything yet!" After watching Purdue play Sunday night and hearing our staff talk during film you could tell that they were going to be in our shorts ALL night! They are the definition of a physical, Big 10 team. They play hard, physical and tough. To be honest, even though I admire their physicality, I believe they foul on every possession knowing that the ref can't call it every time. One of their players, Chris Kramer, actually was second in the country last year in steals due to his ability to get into guys and force them into turnovers.
When Coach Pearl was done talking with the team it was Coach Shay's turn to break down Purdue's offensive and defensive tendencies even more. Once he was done talking, we then played the breakdown video on which showed exactly what Coach Pearl and Coach Shay were talking about. With numerous NBA-talented players on their team, everyone definitely noticed a major difference between the skill level shown on this breakdown compared to those of our previous four opponents. In fact, we got our first "ooohhhh" from the guys this year when a clip of Purdue's JaJuan Johnson's dunk off an inbounds play was shown.
After our first film session concluded the guys all stuck around for an hour-long study hall session monitored by our Academic Advisor Kelly Brock. Although we have a huge game tonight, Coach Pearl is always conscientious of the guys' academic growth, especially as semesters begin to wind down. Once all the guys had finished their studies they were provide a really nice lunch and then allowed to go back to their rooms and relax for a couple hours.
At 2:15 p.m. we gathered once again at for another film session. Like usual, I got to the meeting 15 minutes early just to make sure everything was ready to go. However, this time Coach Shay and Coach Forbes were already in there with the scout team going over Purdue's plays on our makeshift court we taped down earlier in the week. Considering we played Sunday night and this will be our third game in four days, we don't want to be at the gym long for shootaround to help save their legs for the game. Thus, having the Scout Team ready to go when we get the gym will help us get started right away.
Our second film session began with a breakdown film of good and bad clips from our game Sunday night vs. DePaul before switching gears back to Purdue. Coach Pearl, who has always believed it's about the process not the end result, thought that there was a lot that our guys could learn by watching some more of our game from Sunday. We as a program truly believe that if we all continue to get better each and every day (our staff included), while playing together, we have a chance to achieve all our season-long goals.
After we learned more about ourselves and hopefully improved our knowledge of what we want to do, we put the Purdue breakdown back in. While watching this tape you could tell Coach Pearl had officially grasped exactly what Purdue does. Unlike Sunday night's game, which was all about one-on-one defense and rebounding, this game is going to be about team defense, and matching Purdue's physicality. If we are able to do accomplish these things, it is our hope that our quick guards and up-tempo style of play can outlast them.
Once the shorter session was over we went off to shootaround. At shootaround we split the team up in to two groups (starters and second team). Coach took the starters first and put in a few new looks that he believed would expose Purdue's defense. A lot of them were designed to take advantage of their aggressive on-the-ball defense and denial of the wing entries. Meanwhile, the rest of the staff put the second team through some half-speed drills designed to help us defend their motion defense and a few set plays. Next, our scout team went through all of Purdue's plays against our starters and our second team. This was one of the more focused shootarounds we have had. As a staff we always talk about how energy, enthusiasm and communication is contagious. It only takes one guy to get the entire team going. Well today, a couple guys brought the talk on defense that is going to be necessary to guard the Boilermakers. Coach Pearl kept yelling instructions to help them defend that are common to our guys. Things such as "Build a wall," and "one guy on the ball, four guys in the paint." Coach Shay even chimed in with a "See this orange ball? Stay between it and the basket and our chances of winning go way up." Sure it was a half speed shootaround, but it was exciting to see the guys respond. Will they be able to bring it when the lights come at 9:30 p.m. for the Championship? We'll find out.
When we got back to the hotel the guys had some free time before we met to finish the breakdown tape, walk through defending Purdue's under-out-of-bounds plays once more and eat a team meal. The meal looked awesome! Steak, pasta, mac and cheese, salad, rolls, peas and carrots and fruit! The guys were talking about how good the steaks were. I was just hoping they didn't eat too much! Actually, whether they ate too much or not enough, I'm hoping some of them did the opposite of how they ate and how they prepared for the DePaul game!
With it being a 9:30 p.m. game, Monday was the longest day ever! Since we are on Atlantic Time it starts getting dark here around 5:30 p.m. This makes it seem like it's midnight to me when it's really only like 9 p.m. The worst thing about it is that it's cost me about $20 throughout the week because I've gone to the hotel convenience store a few times to buy a can of Diet Coke that costs $2! At 8:00 p.m we finally loaded the bus and were off to the game.
When we walked in the gym the atmosphere was totally different. It was an NCAA Tournament environment. The stands were packed, the band was playing local music and the people were sitting on the edge of their seats in anticipation of watching two highly ranked teams go at it. Once in the locker room in our Tennessee orange for Coach Pearl's pregame speech, the guys looked completely focused. Coach went over our game plan one last time. His closing motivational comments to the team were "I'm proud to be your Coach. I'm proud to be representing the University and that orange that's on your backs tonight. For all that we've been through together there's nobody else I rather go into this game with then you guys! Let's go get this 'W' that will serve us well all the way through the NCAA Tournament! Lets go!!!" The guys all jumped out of their seats and we brought it in for a "1, 2, 3... Together!"
What a tough loss it was. But what a great game! We learned so much about our team. Although their physicality did bother us at times, we thought that our guys handled it very, very well. Unfortunantly, we just made some losing plays that ended up costing us the game. Unforced turnovers, missed layups and poor inability to get through some screening action physically ended up costing us. However there were some bright spots. But Coach Pearl absolutely conveyed his unhappieness to the team at half time. I thought we gave more effort then we had in a really long time from start to finish. Sure there were mental lapses that resulted in mistakes, but improving our defensive consistency is going to take time. By the way the guys played you could tell they really wanted this win. The great energy and effort we played with is something that we need to try and build on each and every day. If we do so, we will have an opportunity to move past the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in school history.
After the disappointment of losing, we stayed on the court to congratulate Purdue for winning the Championship, receive our second-place trophy, and hear the All-Tournament Team selections. It was tough for a lot of our guys to see Purdue celebrate, but it's supposed to be that way. If the loss didn't bother them then I'd be worried. However it was great seeing Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism, our two leaders, being selected to the All-Tourney Team. Both of these guys clearly deserved it.
When we finally got back to the locker room. Coach Pearl took a second before addressing the team. Although completely devastated after any loss, this loss didn't upset Coach Pearl like ones in the past have. He wasn't angy with our guys because he knew our guys gave unbelievable effort. He was proud with the way we defended for the most part. He pointed out some of our mistakes and then told the guys that right now we are not a Final Four caliber team. But, what are we going to do to change that? Many teams don't get better throughout the season. Will we? Will we get better at executing our offense, guarding the ball and attacking the rim.? It seemed as though Coach Pearl didn't have the chance to complete his statements before Tyler Smith politely interrupted him. Tyler said, "Two years ago we sat in the locker room all mad in New Jersey after we lost to Texas, but then we went on to win 10 in a row and eventually get ranked #1 in the country. We can do that. We got the pieces to make it to the Final Four. We just got to keep staying together and get better every day."
Sometimes there's nothing we as Coaches can say that will ever have as much of an impact on a player or a team as the words of a team leader can. Hopefully Tyler's leadership qualities can help us continue to improve and his legacy can always be the player that led our team to its first Final Four ever!
After the game we all just headed back to the hotel for a late night snack (it was about 1:15 a.m. by the time we got back to the hotel). Nothing is worse after a loss than hearing supportive people tell you things such as"Good Job." (no, pretty sure it wasn't a good job because we lost). "You'll get em next time" (No, can't do that either because last time I checked we aren't playing Purdue again this year). Well, what's even worse than that is coming back to a lobby filled with screaming Purdue fans. Someone please spare me! I, like everyone else, went straight to the room after eating. There was definitely no celebrating, no moral victory and no content thoughts going through anyone's head. To be honest, I think this loss only got us excited about the caliber of team we could be if we continue to get better. Anybody can be all excited to play and get better when everything's going well for them. True character is revealed when you're facing a little adversity. I'm intrigued to see how our guys act come practice on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I'm going to learn from watching the game tonight and then relax for a couple hours on the beach Tuesday morning before we leave. I can't wait! A few good hours out on the beach will be a nice relaxing moment before a long travel day kicks in Tuesday afternoon.
EDITOR'S NOTE: (Ok so you've busted me. I really don't have an editor. Well unless I need to give Spell Check some editorial recognition.) After reading my earlier blog, Mike Hubert came to me Monday morning flaming mad that I had not given him the credit he deserved for inventing Skylar McBee's, "Sweet-Tea McBee" nickname. In fact, he said he already has the naming rights to that phrase.
Thanks again for reading today's blog! I hope it gave you some insight on the day's activities. Please look for the last one of the trip tomorrow!
Mark
