Coaches Corner: Steve Curtis, Ladies Basketball
Coaches Corner: Steve Curtis, Ladies Basketball
1-16-08
Hello!
I'm sure you are familiar with the saying "it's a small world". We had living proof of that one day after practice last week. Michael Bastian, former softball coach at Centenary, is now coaching the Chinese National Softball Team. He was in Shreveport for a few days and stopped by the Gold Dome. As most of you know Sarah was born in China and lived there until she moved to California a couple of years ago. When Michael saw her walk by he said hello to her in Chinese. She stopped in her tracks and her face lit up hearing her native language. They began to talk about her home town, life over there, the Olympics coming up in Beijing, and even some people they both knew. She signed a media guide for him to take back to his team. They spent some time with Bojan in his office (when Bojan was in college his team took a tour of China). As I walked by listening to three people talk about their experiences on the other side of the world, in stepped Karolina �- from Poland! Five people, four countries, and one passion �- to compete in athletics at the highest level. I guess it really is a small world.
Friday was one of the typical Summit League travel days. We left the Gold Dome at 5:00 a.m. to catch a flight from DFW. We boarded our flight for Indianapolis a little after ten and flew to Indianapolis. After the usual wait for our luggage we got on a bus to Fort Wayne. We stopped for lunch at Culver's in Anderson, Indiana. When we lived in Nebraska, Culver's was one of Claire's and my favorite stops for ice cream on the way home after games. Of course, I had to call Claire to let her know the ice cream and pecans are just as good as ever (I know I shouldn't, but she really likes them and I couldn't resist the urge to rub it in a little) . The restaurant is only a couple of miles from Regan Seybert's house. Regan was an All-SEC player for us at Ole Miss about 15 years ago. Has it really been that long? It seems like yesterday Coach Chancellor and I were in her living room trying to convince her to come south for college. I guess I'm getting old. After lunch it was on to our hotel. We pulled in just before 5:00 p.m. �- which gave us about an hour to get ready for practice.
Saturday we had our first road game of the conference season. IPFW jumped out to a quick lead and was up by as many as 17 in the first half. I have to give our players credit though �- they came out strong after halftime and played a stretch of very good basketball. We took care of the ball, played excellent defense, and worked hard to get good shots. With ten minutes to go in the game we were ahead by three. Unfortunately Anne picked up her fourth foul on a block / charge call and we had to take her out. The momentum swung back to them and they went on to hand us another loss. I was very proud of how we fought back to give ourselves a chance to win. There were some bright spots; Anne and Leslie had very good grades, and we outrebounded them by a pretty wide margin. But we have to learn how to put 40 minutes together to be a good team.
Anyone who knows me knows what a big football fan I am. Practice was scheduled for 4:30 Sunday afternoon, which created quite a dilemma for me. The bus was leaving at 4:15, and at 4:10 the Colts had just stopped the Chargers to get the ball back. So here's the situation: Peyton Manning has two minutes left, four points behind, with a chance to pull out a win in defense of their world championship. Everything you want in a sporting event �- star players, drama, excitement, pressure. It was one of the great moments of the NFL season. Or so I heard.
Igor Kokoskov, a friend of Bojan's from Serbia, is an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons. He is the first full-time, non-American coach in NBA history. This fall the Pistons invited Bojan up to watch training camp for a few days. While he was there he met the owners of a local restaurant. They invited our team to have a traditional Serbian meal Sunday evening. So after practice we had a very special treat. There was chicken, pork, lamb, beef, fresh vegetables, great salads...I could go on and on. All of it was good, as was the hospitality. Earlier this year Bethany's family had us over for a Cajun meal on the way down to Nicholls State. It was excellent as well. So in less than a month we've gone from South Louisiana gumbo to European style buffets. Not bad, not bad at all.
Monday night against Oakland we played without a doubt our worst game of the season. They dominated us from the start and we never recovered enough to make it competitive. They have a very good team, as evidenced by their close games with Auburn and Georgia and their win over Florida State. But as I told our team in the locker room afterward this game was a lot more about us than them. We have to learn to play harder, smarter, and sustain our good play longer. After the game Igor was talking with us about their game against the Knicks the night before in New York. Even though the Pistons are one of the best teams in the league, and the Knicks are one of the worst, they lost by about 30. He told us Larry Brown always said you may not always win but you always have to try to get better. That's exactly where we are right now. We only have a few days to get ready for IUPUI Saturday and Western Illinois Monday. If you have a chance, come down to the Dome and see how we do. Talk with you again soon.
Go Centenary!!
1-9-08
Hello again from Centenary
We rang in the New Year with a steady dose of basketball practice. After our win against Sam Houston we took a day off and then settled back into the usual holiday routine. We talk with our players often about what a good opportunity this is for us to progress, and as a group they have been working very hard to get better. We are a little short handed �- Cierra had her ACL surgery and is going into her rehab full speed ahead. That means we are down to nine bodies in practice until Jasmine gets back at the start of the semester. Those nine are putting the additional time to good use though. Even with practices twice a day, some are coming by to get in a little extra work. That's a very good sign for our future.
When I walked into practice Monday morning Bethany asked "Where's your LSU stuff, Coach?" Her family has had season tickets to LSU football for years and she was ready for the big game. I'm sure she was worried when they were down 10-0 but she said she knew they were going to win all along. We are trying to schedule a game in the CenturyTel Center with LSU next season and it looks like it may happen. Hopefully we can get all the details worked out. Not everyone here was for LSU though �- Bill Ballard, Centenary's VP for Finance and Administration, is Ohio State through and through. His colleagues have been giving him a hard time since the match up was announced, and I'm sure it hasn't been any better for him since the game ended.
Monday was also Mattie's birthday. When the alarm clock went off that morning there was a tap on my shoulder as I hit the snooze button. My first thought was, "C'mon Claire, it's your turn to take the dog out." (We got the kids a seven week old Shih Tzu for Christmas). When I rolled over there was Mattie with a big smile on her face. Before I could say anything she yelled "Daddy I'm six years old!" What a way to start the day. I always say this but it's true - children are the best thing in the world.
One of the last things I do each night is log onto the Caring Bridge website (www.caringbridge.org) to see how Matthew Campbell is doing. When I first came to Centenary a lot of people were very helpful to my family and me. Claire and I decided we wanted to build a home but we needed a place to live during the construction. Centenary's Director of Facilities, Francine Campbell, went out of her way to help us find a faculty house on campus and was there right away whenever something needed fixing. That's just Francine, she is the kind of person you can count on whenever you need something taken care of. She was the recipient of the President's Excellence Award at Centenary in 2007. Her son Matthew, an eighth grader, has been very ill for quite some time. He recently underwent a heart transplant and is recovering at the Children's Medical Center in Dallas. He has a long, uphill, battle, and some days are better than others, but he seems to be slowly getting better. You can read about Matthew on the Shreveport Times website (search Matthew Campbell), or for more updated information you can read their family's journal at the Caring Bridge site. Either way please say a prayer for Matthew and his family - I cannot imagine going through anything remotely like what they are dealing with. Their strength is amazing.
And now for the basketball. Oral Roberts was picked to win our league this year and we knew they would be a big challenge for us. They play one of the most aggressive trapping defenses in the league but I thought we were ready for it. Unfortunately before we could settle down they were out to a 16-2 lead. We finally relaxed and played some good basketball, so much so that with five minutes to go we were within eight and had a chance to win. We didn't play well down the stretch and ended up losing 77-57. Our defense let us down, in fact it was one of the worst defensive performances we've had in a game since I've been here. Several Ladies played well - Bethany, Michelle, Ashley, Sarah, and Anne all had above average grades. We have to play better when the opponent has the ball to be successful however. We also have to become more consistent. We actually outscored ORU for the middle thirty minutes but were outplayed badly in the first five and last five.
We are on the road this weekend for the first conference road trip of the season. We fly to Fort Wayne, Indiana to play IPFW Saturday. Then it's on to Detroit to play Oakland University Monday night. IPFW is a new addition to the league and they are playing well. Oakland won the regular season title last year and is very good again. Both games will be challenging, but it is time for us to go out and get a league win. I'll be back next week to let you know how we did. Until then have a great start to 2008.
Go Centenary!!
1-3-07
Hello again from Centenary.
I often talk about the sacrifices college basketball players make to play the game they love, and another example of this is going on across America as I write. While 99% of college students are spending time between semesters with their families those who play basketball are hard at work. The Centenary Ladies reconvened on the afternoon of December 26th to begin preparing for the second half of our season. The first order of business was to make sure Santa had visited everyone. I felt like most of them were on the �'nice' side of the ledger but I was worried a couple may have been in the �'naughty' column. I shouldn't have been concerned, St. Nick made it to see everyone and they all enjoyed their Christmas. Centenary is very fortunate to have such an outstanding group of young ladies represent our school. As long as Santa doesn't consider defense or rebounding for the naughty file, they should be fine.
That first night went the way most do; not everyone was ready to put the holiday behind them and get on with the business of basketball. I always like to give the players five days off for Christmas �- the season is long enough and this gives them a chance to get away, recharge the batteries, and spend time with people they care about a great deal but don't get to see much during the school year. The flip side of this is it takes a little longer to work off the turkey and get back to the task at hand. We practiced Wednesday at four, Thursday and Friday twice (ten and four), then once Saturday and once Sunday to get ready for Sam Houston State. It's just our version of Holiday on the Hardwood. None of us were happy with the last game before Christmas, and the players put in a good week of work to make sure we were going to make things better.
Not everything during the holidays was good however. The MRI on Cierra's knee revealed a female basketball player's worst fear �- she had torn her ACL during the McNeese State game. C's year was off to a great start; she was in the top ten in the league in scoring, rebounding, and assists. Had she continued to play at this level, she would have been a first team All-Conference player for sure.
There are several things that are not fun for a coach but telling a player she's torn her ACL is right at the top of the list. She spent the fall waking up for conditioning at six in the morning. She fought through two-a-day practices, weight sessions, sprints, and everything else to be able to succeed at this time of year. With one sudden step her season is gone, and she will have to spend this winter and spring rehabbing her knee so she can go through it all again next year. But she is a terrific young lady, and I have no doubt she is ready to do what she has to do to join her teammates as soon as possible. More importantly, she will also continue to excel in the classroom and get a degree from Centenary that will make her life after basketball as good as it can be. Everyone knows they have to do a little more to make up for the loss of Cierra, but I am confident we are capable enough to get the job done.
On New Year's Eve at 2 p.m. we took the court for only the second time in 21 days to play a game. We had been through exams, holidays, and practices and were ready to see how we would do against someone else. I was optimistic since we had practiced pretty well at the end of the week. We also decided to start Bethany for the first time this season. She has been one of our most consistent and best players all fall but we liked the spark she could give us coming off the bench. After going back and forth it just came down to the fact she has earned the right to start. It turned out to be the right move, at least for now.
We got off to a slow start but hit our stride and managed to break out to a good lead (36-22) at halftime. The margin got as high as 27 and we ended up winning by the score of 74-62. Our defense was excellent for the first 32 minutes but not as good for the last eight. We have to learn to finish games off better, but figuring out how to protect a big lead is a good problem to have. Let's hope we have it more often. Several players had better than average grades led by Bethany (she also tied a school record for three pointers in a game with six), Sarah, Ashley, and Anne. As a team we had 19 assists on 21 baskets, which means we were sharing the basketball. That statistic (assists) is a pretty good indicator of how we are playing �- if we don't have many we are trying to do too much one on one.
Now it's on to the meat of the conference season. Preseason favorite Oral Roberts comes to the Gold Dome Saturday at three so we better be ready to go. They are big, they are strong, and they can shoot. This is the first half of a doubleheader with our men, so if you are near King's Highway come on in and see how the Ladies are faring. If not, as always, I'll keep you posted on how we do.
12-12-07
Hello again from Centenary
