FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University men's basketball team (5-5, 1-1 SSC) are set to travel up to Palm Beach County to face the Lynn Fighting Knights (8-2, 2-0 SSC) Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Boca Raton, Fla.
Q: Saturday's 73-70 loss at Eckerd was a tough pill to swallow after coming back from 19 down. After a couple days of reflection, what were the biggest takeaways from that contest? What can the Sharks take from that game moving forward? A: The way we started the game at Eckerd was very disappointing. There are no excuses for that. Four seniors and a junior were in the starting lineup, and those five guys were the starters for most of last year. They know the deal. A four-hour bus ride, a sandwich or two, climb off the bus and let's go to work. If we had three or four freshmen and sophomores in the starting lineup I could understand it. Maybe young guys making their first road trip will have 'bus lag' and not come out mentally and emotionally ready to compete. But this group has been through it enough that there are no excuses for the way we started the game. We came out with no energy and a half-baked effort on the defensive end. That's been our problem all year. One night we play hungry and determined and alert, and the next night we play fat and happy and lethargic. The only consistent thing about our team is our inconsistency. I don't care if you're playing home or away, it's very easy to get down 19 points to any team in this league. All you have to do is… do nothing. Every team in this league will get you down 19 if you don't compete. But coming back from 19 down in this league is darn near impossible. Not many teams can do that. I give our guys credit for making that kind of effort and showing that kind of heart. But we never should have been 19 down to begin with.
If we started the game the way we finished it we might be 2-0 in the league right now instead of 1-1. It's a 40-minute game and if you expect to win in this league you better understand that the first minute is just as important as the last minute. We talk about winning possessions and winning small segments of games –the first five and last five minutes of each half; the 4-minute segments between media timeouts – but we were sleep walking Saturday for the first 15 minutes. We don't have that passionate, vocal leader that everybody will follow. We have too many nice guys who like each other so much that no one will get on anyone for fear of stepping on toes. Sometimes I think our seniors are too complacent or too comfortable. Maybe we need to do something to shake that up. We'll see. I love my seniors but at some point you have to produce or sit, especially when young guys behind you are playing better.
By the same token, when four seniors are busting their butt on the defensive end and a non-senior is loafing, it kills us. We were able to come back at Eckerd because we had five guys on the floor committed to getting stops and rebounding. I don't care how many points you score, you win games defending as a team. We're learning. Hopefully Saturday was a good learning experience.
Q: NSU outrebounded a very big Eckerd squad and collected 13 offensive boards, which is now the team's average over the last three games. There has been a sharp improvement in this area as of late, what do you contribute this to? A: We tell our guys that games are not won at home or on the road. They are won in the paint, on the glass and at the foul line. Rebounding is not so much about size or talent as it is effort. In every game we play in this league we will be the smallest team. We will be the least athletic team. Those two facts are reality. Without a supreme effort to compete for 40 minutes every night, we are always on the verge of being man-handled by the more athletic, bigger, quicker, stronger athletes we will go up against. Our margin for error is so much smaller than most teams we play. Teams like Lynn, Florida Southern and Barry are so deep and so athletic that they can get away with not playing hard and still hold their own or beat you just on athletic talent and size alone. We can't do that. We have to grind on every possession, fight for our lives on every possession, just to give ourselves a chance. We have to scrap and claw for everything we get and when we focus and tune in, we can hold our own. I think our guys have a better understanding of that now than they did earlier in the year.
Q: Now in conference play, the Sharks will be playing every Wednesday and Saturday with one exception late in the year. Is the stable schedule helpful to the student-athletes or can two SSC games per week be a grind on the Sharks? A: It's nice to have the routine of playing Wednesday and Saturday, and also knowing that every game has meaning in terms of conference play. But it's a grind for coaches and as the weeks wear on, it becomes a grind for players. When you're missing two key pieces to your team (6-7 Casey Carroll [Jr., Youngstown, Ohio]; 6-6 Nick Rosa [Fr., Coral Springs, Fla.]), it puts even more pressure on everyone. When you're as small as we are, you have to grind so hard to try and stay competitive. It wears everyone down. There are no laughers in this league, no nights where we can just show up and win because we're going to out-talent you or out-run you, out-jump you or out-quick you with our superior athletes. We have to hope the game plan every night will be good enough to give our guys a chance, and we have to hope they are mentally and emotionally ready to compete at the highest level. If we fail as coaches or players in either of those areas, we will get our feelings hurt real quick.
Q: Those reading this column weekly know you've praised Lynn from the start. However, Lynn was picked last in the league, despite recently receiving national votes. What makes this team the surprise darkhorse in the SSC this season? A: I have known Lynn's coach, Jeff Price, for a long time. Anyone who knows Jeff as well as I do should have known that Jeff was going to turn that thing around in a hurry. Lynn finished last in the league a year ago because Jeff was in his first year, and basically had to play with the same team he inherited when he came there. Some of those guys were good players, but maybe not a great fit for how Jeff likes to play. He had a year to evaluate the team and to recruit some new faces. He doesn't have some of the restrictions and constraints that some others might have in recruiting junior colleges and transfers, and his team has a boat load of both. He signed some very talented, athletic players in the off season. He also brought back some talented guys. At the end of last season, Lynn was playing about as well as anyone in the league because he found five guys to buy into his system. Bringing all of those guys back – like Aaron Harrison, Kaleb Clyburn, Cory Thomas, Fred Landers, and Pavle Raickovic – and adding some athletic newcomers like David Johnson, Russell Wilson and Ben Berry to the group, well… that's a pretty formidable lineup. They are deep, athletic and talented. And Jeff has them playing the way he wants. Lynn is only going to get better as long as Jeff is there. He's a terrific recruiter and coach. And he's at a place where he can recruit the kind of athletes he loves to coach. It's a win-win for Jeff and for Lynn.
Q: Eckerd was last in the league in defending the 3-ball when the Sharks played them, but Lynn leads the league in 3-point shooting defense at 31.5%. Do stats like these affect the game plan going into game day or will the Sharks stick to what they're best at? A: Because of the way Jeff coaches defense, Lynn will always be one of the best teams in our league at defending the 3-point shot. His teams are built around long, quick, fast athletic defenders. His teams will always be very good at taking the 3-point shot away from you because they pressure you so hard on the perimeter and can defend you one-on-one in the post without having to give a lot of help in there. Cory Thomas, at 6-10, is a premier shot blocker and doesn't need help defending you inside. Pavle Raickovic is a strong, physical 6-8 and 250-pound center who doesn't need a lot of help defending in the post. None of his athletes need help defending the interior, so they can pressure that much harder on the perimeter. If you beat your guy off the dribble the others are quick, fast and athletic enough to get to the paint and challenge your shots. They are very good at taking everyone out of their offense and very good at forcing turnovers. Finding ways to score against them, especially when you are as small as we are, is a nightmare. It's hard running your normal stuff against them because they overplay everybody and sit on every pass. We better be very strong with the ball and very smart with our decisions.
Q: Speaking of defense, Kaleb Clyburn, Aaron Harrison and Russell Wilson average a combined 7.2 steals per game. You stated postgame Saturday that teams should get points for completing passes against Lynn. Will there be pressure on any individual student-athlete to run the offense efficiently or will limiting turnovers be an all-around team effort Wednesday? A: The first thing you have to do to compete against Lynn is handle their different full court presses. That takes a team effort. Fortunately we have some guys who can handle and pass pretty well, so then it comes down to making good decisions against their pressure. We can't simulate their pressure in practice because we don't have the same kind of athletes. We could put seven or eight guys on defense at once and they still couldn't simulate Lynn's quickness and pressure. We just have to be strong and smart and keep our heads up and keep moving the ball. In our offense no one player is asked to handle the ball or make decisions more than any other player. So it's a team challenge for everyone to be strong, be tough, be fearless and play together.
Q: After two games, three of the bottom four teams in the SSC preseason poll make up three of the top four in the standings. In two weeks, this could be flipped twice. Are we in for another roller coaster ride in the SSC? A: The SSC preseason poll should be abolished. Heck, all preseason polls everywhere should be abolished. So often they are based on last year's results, on history or tradition. I think 70 percent of last year's starters in the SSC returned this year, so I can understand how people might assume certain things going into the season. But anyone who took the time to see what Barry did in recruiting in the offseason should have known that team was loaded. Guys like Jeff Price and Butch Estes and even Palm Beach Atlantic coach Dave Balza, when he was the head coach at Florida Gulf Coast, these guys have always won. When they are in situations where they can get the kind of players they need to fit their coaching philosophies, these guys are going to win. They've always been winners. Florida Southern returned a terrific nucleus and added some very talented guys to their roster. Of course they're going to be at or near the top of the league again, based on what Linc Darner has done there in the past and based on the players he has returning and the players he signed. But Barry and Lynn brought back good players, too, and they both added even better players to the mix. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out those two teams were going to be very good. In the past we've had one of, if not the best, DII league in America because of the depth of the conference. From top to bottom everyone is good and everyone is capable of beating everyone else. But this year we have two, and maybe more, teams that appear to be good enough to win a national championship. Southern has already beaten Metro State, Southern Indiana and Bellarmine. I don't know if there is another team in the country – other than Barry – who could do the same thing. I think Barry and Southern have legitimate chances to win the whole thing. I think Lynn, Rollins, Eckerd, Saint Leo, Tampa and Florida Tech are as good as ever. Anyone of those teams could represent us in the NCAA tournament and have success. But I really believe there is a gap this year between the top two or three teams and the rest of the field. Not because the other programs are down. If anything, league wide, we're better than ever before. But Barry and Southern, at least at this point, look to be exceptional. I think the roller coaster ride is going to take place between the fourth and ninth place teams. I don't see the top two or three losing a lot of games or suffering many upsets.
