Pregame Practice?

[coachamb05]

I brought this up in another post, but thought I would try to give it more attention here.

Does anybody know if they had their notorious pregame practice today with having an early game?

If they didn't, maybe this is the adjustment that everybody has been looking for. They looked sharper, quicker, and less mentally fatigued.
I know they had walk-throughs and shoot-arounds, but that doesn't take anything out of you like his full-out practices do.

[BamaCat86]

I think that these pre-game full practices have had a lot to do with the effort shown by the players over the last 11 games. After looking very sharp against Texas Southern, the guys looked very lethargic against Gardner-Webb.

BCG's system has been proven, so hopefully the conditioning will improve and the guys will have enought stamina to compete at full speed throughout the game. I hate to think what we will see when we hit the SEC tournament and play 3 or 4 days in a row.

[The Goose Was Loose 78]

They probably did a walk through for sure........nothing wrong with practicing day of game....in this case, the game was at Noon so they probably did not do much.

[pjquirk]

There is nothing unusual about a 6 am practice so I don't see why a noon tip time would impact the normal game day routine?

[coachamb05]

No, I don't see anything at all wrong with going through a walk-through, and discussing game-plan. I do however think that his 100% speed practice does affect their legs. Because, if they're stretching to go full speed, even if it's just for an hour, does take a toll on the body.

And no 6am practices aren't unusual, but that's on non-gamedays. I would say a good schedule would be breakfast @ 8, walk-through/shoot around @ 9:30 for 45 minutes, then review in locker room before warm-ups. Work their basketball minds, not their bodies.

Just my opinion, not trying to tell coach what to do, just seeing what you all think.

[The Goose Was Loose 78]

As a former collegiate athlete, I loved to have same day practices for primarily two reasons: 1) to get away from Family, friends and girlfriend and focus one more time on the game plan, and 2) to break a solid sweat....the one thing I hated was to break a sweat ONLY just before the game....especially if the game was at night.......if you are in shape (and these guys are in shape!), you don't lose your legs.....you actually gain stamina. Focus, focus, focus......most great coaches do this.....in the old days, the "walk through" was something teams did in a hotel ballroom or just before getting on the bus and they literally "walked plays through." The term has stuck, but now the walk throughs are really practices.......I would certainly do it as a coach and as a player, I learned to really like them.

[coachamb05]

When I coached, I used to practice after the games when we sucked! No, I know breaking a sweat is very good, as a former athlete and coach myself, my teams did play better when allowed to break away from everything and break a sweat a couple hours before the game. I have just heard on radio/TV that it is a full practice which that BG has been given. Of course, I don't know what takes place so it, in all probability has been blown out of proportion on TV as usual.

There is however, a fine line that you can cross as to what is too much before a game, even with these guys that are in tremendous shape.

[UKBOO]

Coach thinks that it is best to always go full speed. So instead of "walking" through the game plan, the players go full speed. This is for an abbreviated period. They probably use slightly more energy as other teams. These are young, talented athletes who can get used to this routine. I think this will really pay off during tournament situations.

We also must consider that the kids may just now be getting used to this routine. It is understandable that maybe early on the kids may have held back some, since they didn't know how much they had in the tank. There is nothing worse than losing, and realizing you had a 1/4 tank left. Hopefully, the kids will learn their tanks are larger, and they will be able to read the gage better. I used to really like RP's policy that as long as a kid went full speed, then asked to come out, he could put himself back in when he got his wind back. I'm not sure he is even doing that any more but I can see a major advantage to it.