IS ON THE TRADE RUMOR TRAIL
Opening our Temple basketball season at the Charleston Classic allowed our program the opportunity to play three games in three days. That is great in one sense and hard in another. It gives our team an early sense of what a tournament will be like, with three quick games. The players have to make adjustments, which will help them later on in the season. It is a great learning experience. No coach really likes playing three games in three days. As a coach, you would like to space the games out a little more. For example, we had an injury Sergio Olmos. We ended up losing him for three games due to the setting, where, in a normal three-game stretch, he misses just one game.
Overall, though, I think the Charleston trip was a positive experience for us. I think we played fairly well to start the season. We will look at the Clemson tape and learn much about ourselves that will help our program grow. We just didn’t finish some of the plays that we should have finished in two specific stretches of the game; otherwise we would have come out with a victory. But overall I think Charleston is a terrific city, it’s always nice to be involved in an ESPN-sponsored tournament, and it was a positive experience for us.
The biggest benefit we got out of it as a team was that we now know that we can count on a guy like Ramone Moore coming off the bench and providing some scoring punch, much like Ryan Brooks and Chris Clark did for us last year. We also got some valuable minutes from Mike Eric. He needs to play. That’s the biggest thing for him right now. Craig Williams actually did some good things against East Tennessee State, and also a couple things not so good against Charleston. Both players are learning. Also, T J DiLeo saw time against Clemson and Scootie Randall got a run against East Tennessee State. We need to get these kids in the game and see what they can do in pressure situations.
Go Owls
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FRAN DUNPHY, Temple
He begins his third season on North Broad with nearly 350 career victories after a long tenure at Penn. The Owls won the Atlantic 10 Tournament last season and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
BRUISER FLINT, Drexel
He begins his eighth season with the Dragons after returning to the city where he played collegiately at St. Joe’s. The Dragons have advanced to the postseason in four of the last six years and have won at least 17 games four times under Flint.
DR. JOHN GIANNINI, La Salle
He begins his fifth season at the school after successful tenures at the University of Maine and Rowan, where teams made two trips to the Division III Final Four. At LaSalle two seasons ago, he engineered an 18-win season and third-place finish in the Atlantic 10, the school’s best finish since joining the league for the 1995-96 season.
PHIL MARTELLI, Saint Joseph’s
He begins his 14th season on Hawk Hill, having won more than 250 games. He is a four-time Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year and has taken the Hawks to the postseason in seven of the last eight years.
GLEN MILLER, Penn
He begins his third season at the school after moving within the Ivy League from Brown. In his first season, he led the Quakers to an Ivy League championship and their third consecutive NCAA Tournament bid.
JAY WRIGHT, Villanova
He begins his eighth season at ‘Nova, having amassed 148 wins at the school. Villanova has made the NCAA Tournament for the last four seasons, including three trips to the Sweet 16 and an Elite Eight appearance. Wright came to Villanova following his tenure at Hofstra and has 270 career victories.
