Beilein Pleased
October 18, 2003 04:47 PM | General
October 18, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University basketball coach John Beilein was pretty pleased with his team’s effort in its first preseason practice Saturday afternoon.
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| Drew Schifino tries to get past freshman Frank Young during Friday's night's Midnight Mania scrimmage. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
“I thought it was pretty good because I thought there were times in there when we didn’t have to stop it too much,” said the coach. “Patrick (Beilein), Joe (Herber) and Jarmon (Durriseau-Collins) would correct things that Tyler (Relph) needed to see. There was a lot of help from the upperclassmen today and I think that was the difference to me. Not that the upperclassmen last year weren’t helpful but we were all in the dark last year -- including the coaches.”
This year Beilein and his coaching staff that includes former Penn State head coach Jerry Dunn have a much more experienced team to work with. Despite having all five starters back, Beilein isn’t quite ready to pencil in this year’s lineup after the first practice.
“If all five of those guys start again it would be great. But I don’t mind bringing experienced players off the bench either,” he said. “I’ve found that experienced players come off the bench much better than inexperienced players. I’ll look at the whole situation and within three or four weeks we’ll try to figure out what our rotations are. If it works great and if it doesn’t, we’ll change the rotation.”
Beilein welcomes a talented four-player freshman class that includes 6-foot-7, 250-pound forward Brad Byerson, 6-foot, 185-pound point guard Tyler Relph, 6-foot-5, 215-pound wing guard Frank Young and 6-foot-6, 210-pound forward Jerrah Young. In addition, 6-foot-11, 245-pound center D’or Fischer is eligible to play this season.
“I’ve been watching them here for a couple of months and it’s good to see them finally out here,” said the coach. “They made a lot of mistakes today and they’re going to make a lot of mistakes but I like their attitudes. I was making a lot of corrections and all I heard was, ‘Yes sirs.’ That’s good to hear. You want kids that don’t think they invented the game and we don’t profess to say that we invented the game, but we’ve all got to get on the same page and I thought they all did a good job today.”
The coach was also pleased with the fact that some key veterans stepped up and displayed some leadership this afternoon.
“I saw Drew Schifino have several assists and I saw him make sure he rewarded everyone that gave him an assist. I saw the type of things that build team chemistry,” said Beilein. “Unity is important for us this year and you’ve got to have unity as a team. We’re going to make strides to improve that daily.”
The coach isn’t willing to compare his situation this year with that of last season when he took over a vastly young and inexperienced team. But he is hopeful that this year’s group shows the same type of intensity and desire.
“It’s tough to say how this year’s team compares to last year because we’ve got so far to go. If they can play as hard down to the last second like last year’s team did I’d be very proud. Hopefully we’ll be on the better end of some of those scores,” he said.
After just one day of practice, some Mountaineer players have already begun whispering the words NCAA tournament. Beilein simply smiles when that subject is brought up.
“I think we should always dream big as long as we focus small,” he reasoned. “You always want to dream and that’s what brings them to practice everyday and that’s why they’re basketball players dreaming of situations like playing at West Virginia. But we can’t worry about where we are in March just yet. We’ve got to worry about each practice and what we’re doing.”
For now, Beilein is more concerned about the ways in which he can piece this year’s team together. Forever tinkering, Beilein is anxious to begin moving around the pieces of this year’s puzzle.
“I am the guy who likes to build things and it was neat looking at those things last year and saying, ‘Okay, what do we have to do?’ It’s a puzzle that you try to put together. I wish I was a little better at it last year and now we have another puzzle and I like trying to solve those things,” he said.
West Virginia continues preseason practice Sunday with two workouts.
Briefly ...
“I strongly believe that you can lose the rebounding war and still win – you just can’t lose it by eight, nine and 10 all of the time. If we could just get about four rebounds a game that they didn’t then all of the sudden you change that number around real quickly. We’re emphasizing that more than ever.”
