03/16/07 - Hard Work Continues …

We are hard at work preparing for our 2nd round NIT match up with Ole Miss. We played well enough to win on Wednesday night against ETSU, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I want to give ETSU credit, as they played extremely hard and did a great job of keeping us off balance all night.  We will need a much more consistent effort both mentally and physically against Ole Miss if we want to advance.

As a team, I felt our players needed some time away from the court to focus on their academics, so I gave them Thursday off from practice. With Spring Break starting today, many of our players had exams and papers this week as well as make-up exams to take from last week when we were away for 3 days at the ACC Tournament. I hope that this time off will give our players time to rest up and catch up on their academics before we re-focus on basketball this afternoon at practice.

We are going to work hard over the next 3 days to prepare our team to face a very talented Ole Miss squad. They are really playing solid, team basketball right now and we will need to elevate our play on Monday night to advance. As I have told our team, we still have a lot to play for this season, as we want to finish the season strong just liked we started the season strong.

I am also looking forward to catching a few NCAA Tournament games on tv over the weekend, as this is the best time of the year to be a college basketball coach / fan. I am pulling for the ACC to advance because this serves to solidify the ACC as the number 1 league in the country. I expect us to finish strong with an eye toward being successful in the ACC next year!

I want to personally thank all of the fans who came to the game Wednesday night, you all were very loud and provided a lift for our team at key times. I hope that all of you will continue to support us on Monday night as we take on Ole Miss at 7pm in Littlejohn! For all of you who cannot make it, be sure to catch the game on ESPN.

I hope that all students have a safe and fun Spring Break.

-- Coach P