Let the Process Begin
October 31, 2006 09:17 AM | General
October 31, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - John Beilein often preaches about the process of building a successful basketball team. Like a sculptor that molds a piece of clay into a beautiful pot, a little tweak here and a slight adjustment there can make all the difference in the final outcome. With Beilein as the artisan, the young 2006-2007 men’s basketball team is being molded carefully to take its first steps toward another successful season.
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| West Virginia coach John Beilein is back to what he likes doing best -- molding a young basketball team.
WVU Photographic Services/M.G. Ellis |
The Mountaineers learned a lot about themselves in a scrimmage held this past weekend and as they prepare for their Nov. 5 exhibition game against Fairmont State, Beilein says the focus will stay squarely on his team and not the one that resides just 15 miles down I-79.
“We are trying to get some information on Fairmont but our focus right now is on us,” he said Monday afternoon. “We are trying to figure out what we can do better. We did have a scrimmage this past weekend and I think we learned an awful lot. We tried to fit everything we still needed to emphasize on one sheet of paper and we couldn’t fit it all so there is a lot to do.”
One of the things high on Beilein’s to-do list is making sure the team understands each other better on the floor.
“We have a lack of communication problem and it is not intended by the players … it is just that nobody wants to speak. Sometimes you get paralysis by analysis as we call it because they are thinking so much that they don’t know how to move or talk on the floor,” Beilein said.
Beilein used last weekend’s scrimmage to teach his team some of the finer points of what is expected of them when the games count beginning on Nov. 10.
“We had to go over what our warm up should look like, what time you should get to the game, how you should eat the day of the game, what time curfew is the day before the game,” Beilein said. “There is a lot to be taught and although it wears you out, but I really think that is what I like the best.”
With a young team that welcomes eight true freshmen into the fold this season, Beilein emphasizes just how important early exhibition games are in the development and maturation of his squad.
“You need games. You need that heart to be pounding before the game,” he said. “You need to go through warm ups and there is nothing like game speed. Game speed is much faster than any practice speed. I was glad to get our guys a lot of playing time in our scrimmage and it will be important now for us to take all that with us going into the game against Fairmont State.”
Beilein points out that having had only four weeks to practice before the Nov. 10 regular season opener against Mount St. Mary’s, his fifth Mountaineer team will have to face a challenging situation that his previous teams did not have to deal with.
“This is only the second time in our history we have started after four weeks of prep. That extra week like the Pittsnogle gang had four years ago makes a big difference but everybody is in that situation so we just have to adapt to it,” Beilein said.
Beilein says that naturally an early start date is advantageous to veteran teams.
“Last year it was perfect for us,” he said. “We had the two games here and then we went out to Kansas City and should have won the darn thing. So it varies from year to year and right now it’s way too early for us but we just have to do what we have to do.”
Much of the Mountaineer’s success in the Beilein era has been based on valuing the basketball and not having unnecessary turnovers. Beilein says the younger players are beginning to pick up on just how vital each possession is in his system.
“I told one young player the other day that we averaged seven turnovers a game in the Big East. He must have had seven turnovers in the practice so he had to learn right away that this is not the way we play. We don’t take big chances, we take small ones,” Beilein said.
With the abundance of mistakes that naturally comes with so many young players assuming vital roles, Beilein is trying to keep his player’s heads up when they commit an error in practice.
“Our young kids just have to stay with things. They have a tendency to have one mistake bother them a little too much,” Beilein said.
Beilein acknowledge the importance of Darris Nichols and Frank Young stepping forward as leaders and mentors to the younger players in the program.
“We are working right now to make sure Darris does more and Frank has to know that he doesn’t have to carry the team. He has to be the same Frank Young he has always been which is a very good basketball player and a constant on our team,” Beilein said.
Beilein says it has been a challenge for his upperclassmen to assume leadership roles because until this season there has always been an abundance of other players to fill that void.
“Our juniors and seniors need to do and are trying to do more but they are so used to Johannes, Patrick and J.D. pulling them aside and telling them stuff. They are in those shoes now and are responsible for passing our conduct and how we do things on to the younger players,” Beilein said.
Beilein has only a rough idea of who will be in his starting rotation for the season opener.
“It is a good bet that Darris Nichols and Frank Young will be involved in that somewhere. Alex Ruoff has looked very good as well. The other ones are still up for grabs a little bit because I want to make sure as we have done the last couple years that we have a quality player coming off the bench so that we don’t drop off immediately,” Beilein said.
Despite the overwhelming challenge of guiding a team with eight true freshmen through a rugged Big East schedule, Beilein is enjoying the process of building a new team just as he did four years ago.
“I like coaching new teams all the time. It is fun to watch the progress begin. There is a lot to this and every day we get a little bit closer to getting back to where we want to be which is in postseason play,” Beilein said.
The process has already begun.
