Post by Trojan Warrior on Mar 15, 2014 7:38:06 GMT -6
COMMENTARY
By Jeremy Wise jwise@dothaneagle.com
When a player is a junior college transfer to a Division I school, often he has to make several adjustments.
First, a player must adjust to a new level of competition. With that usually comes a new level of physical training, practices and film study.
Then a player often has to learn a different coaching system or at least different terminologies and different styles.
Let us not overlook that a player often has to uproot from one area and move to the next.
If things go well, a player makes those adjustments by the midpoint of his first year at the Division I school. Sometimes things take longer, but most players have their senior seasons to play at a high level after the adjustments.
For Troy’s six basketball seniors, though, they had an additional hurdle to clear – a new coach with a new style and likely new terminology in their final year.
Those six – Hunter Williams, Antoine “Fresh” Myers, Josh Warren, Tevin Calhoun, Jeff Mullahey and Westley Hinton – may have adjusted well to former coach Don Maestri by the time he retired. Those six also had to start the process anew when Troy hired former Western Kentucky assistant Phil Cunningham to lead the program.
Those six were called upon to set the stage of the first year of the Cunningham era. They were asked to lead the underclassmen in buying into Cunningham’s philosophy and style. From what I saw, they performed admirably.
Several accepted greater roles in Cunningham’s system than they had previously.
Mullahey became a major scoring threat on any given night. Mullahey and Myers became more aggressive in attacking the basket.
Calhoun became a nice complement to junior Kevin Thomas inside as the Trojans tried to replace Ray Chambers in the paint.
The season had its ups and downs, of course. Troy lost five Sun Belt games in a row at one point and had to scrap for the last seed in the conference tournament against Texas State in the seniors’ last home game. (Full Article)
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By Jeremy Wise jwise@dothaneagle.com
When a player is a junior college transfer to a Division I school, often he has to make several adjustments.
First, a player must adjust to a new level of competition. With that usually comes a new level of physical training, practices and film study.
Then a player often has to learn a different coaching system or at least different terminologies and different styles.
Let us not overlook that a player often has to uproot from one area and move to the next.
If things go well, a player makes those adjustments by the midpoint of his first year at the Division I school. Sometimes things take longer, but most players have their senior seasons to play at a high level after the adjustments.
For Troy’s six basketball seniors, though, they had an additional hurdle to clear – a new coach with a new style and likely new terminology in their final year.
Those six – Hunter Williams, Antoine “Fresh” Myers, Josh Warren, Tevin Calhoun, Jeff Mullahey and Westley Hinton – may have adjusted well to former coach Don Maestri by the time he retired. Those six also had to start the process anew when Troy hired former Western Kentucky assistant Phil Cunningham to lead the program.
Those six were called upon to set the stage of the first year of the Cunningham era. They were asked to lead the underclassmen in buying into Cunningham’s philosophy and style. From what I saw, they performed admirably.
Several accepted greater roles in Cunningham’s system than they had previously.
Mullahey became a major scoring threat on any given night. Mullahey and Myers became more aggressive in attacking the basket.
Calhoun became a nice complement to junior Kevin Thomas inside as the Trojans tried to replace Ray Chambers in the paint.
The season had its ups and downs, of course. Troy lost five Sun Belt games in a row at one point and had to scrap for the last seed in the conference tournament against Texas State in the seniors’ last home game. (Full Article)
iconTroy3