I’ll start with the something that could be bad news, could be no news: Luke Kornet crashed to the floor after taking the ball to the hole and missing a dunk. He was down for a good 3-5 minutes; they dragged him over to the baseline and continued practicing while they looked at him, but it seemed to suck the air out of the gym for a few minutes.
The trainer was working around the area of his left knee. They took him to the bench briefly and then took him off the floor into the corridors, presumably to the training room. He walked off the floor under his own power, which was the good news. My uneducated guess is that it was a painful spill and not an injury, based on the way he walked away, but that’s obviously me speculating.
I think they know this is where their bread is buttered. No Luke, no NCAA Tournament, in all likelihood. If he’s healthy all year, I think they probably get there. But I know Luke already had tweaked an ankle earlier in a practice this fall (he was completely recovered from that) and has had injury troubles throughout his career. Even if he’s 100 percent okay, that was a solemn reminder as to this team’s margin for error.
I'm literally waiting in the gym at the moment for an update.
TEAM NOTES
The team did, indeed, beat Baylor in the weekend scrimmage. I think the score was 79-75. The rumor is that Fisher-Davis had 27 and Jeff Roberson had 20.
The mood is night and day what it was with the old staff. I had met some of the assistants before but eery single one of them (as well as Bryce Drew) came up and said “hello” whether they’d met me before. So, so different from the old staff where Kevin had control of everything and you really didn’t get access to his staff.
Bryce Drew’s dad, Homer, who of course was Bryce’s college coach, was there dressed in a Vanderbilt hoops t-shirt and shorts.
There was a lot of emphasis on individual ball-handling. Practice started with about 10 minutes of full-court ball-handling drills where players had to go the length of the floor against a defender and try to stay towards the middle of the floor.
Defense is obviously the emphasis here. I think it was 30 minutes before I saw anyone shoot a basketball.
If a player goes to the floor, every teammate is expected to rush over and help him up. If they don’t respond quickly enough, they run.
The staff couldn’t be nicer based on what I have seen, but make no mistake, they practice hard and they’re intense. Rap music plays over the PA. They don’t yell at players, but they will very quickly get on them and tell them what needs to be fixed. There’s a lot of attention to detail, but nobody seems uptight. It seems like it’s a really balanced approach on the whole.
They spent some time in 2-3 zone today.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
Jeff Roberson spent some of practice riding a stationary bike. I think there may be a minor back issue in play. Matthew Fisher-Davis joined him later. Other than that, everyone was a full go.
Roberson’s probably the team’s best all-around player at this point.
I thought Cameron Justice looked lighter but in a good way. He’s pretty well put together but not quite as stocky as he was a year ago. I thought he was really fluid with the ball in drills.
Nolan Cressler had probably lost 8-10 pounds and looked a bit quicker and better with the ball. There’s a role for him on this team as a contributor; how big, we’ll see.
Riley LaChance is running the point, and he’ll start there. Not an ideal situation defensively; my understanding is that Peyton Willis isn’t going to start there (at least for now) because he’s not ready defensively. So if LaChance is more ready defensively, that tells you something about where they are at that position right now.
Willis looked a little raw offensively; of course what they’re mainly working on is one-on-one situations and so I didn’t get a chance to assess his outside shot.
Kornet flashed a slight spin move and a finish with his left hand from in close against Baptiste
They do one-on-one drills where the defender stays on the floor until he get s stop. Clevon Brown was on the floor for what seemed like an eternity at one time; even LaChance beat him off the dribble for a layup. Offensively, he bricked his first 3 badly. He’s super-athletic and a quick leaper, but he’s still very much in the development stage from what I saw today.
Larry Austin Jr. is one of the more athletic guards they’ve signed in some time. Obviously, he’ll redshirt and because of the nature of practice, I don’t know what kind of shooter he’s become (I know at Xavier, it wasn’t pretty judging by the stat line). At one point, he took Roberson one-on-one to the hole and rattled in a dunk over him, which is saying something because he did it against probably the most sound and versatile defender on the team.
The trainer was working around the area of his left knee. They took him to the bench briefly and then took him off the floor into the corridors, presumably to the training room. He walked off the floor under his own power, which was the good news. My uneducated guess is that it was a painful spill and not an injury, based on the way he walked away, but that’s obviously me speculating.
I think they know this is where their bread is buttered. No Luke, no NCAA Tournament, in all likelihood. If he’s healthy all year, I think they probably get there. But I know Luke already had tweaked an ankle earlier in a practice this fall (he was completely recovered from that) and has had injury troubles throughout his career. Even if he’s 100 percent okay, that was a solemn reminder as to this team’s margin for error.
I'm literally waiting in the gym at the moment for an update.
TEAM NOTES
The team did, indeed, beat Baylor in the weekend scrimmage. I think the score was 79-75. The rumor is that Fisher-Davis had 27 and Jeff Roberson had 20.
The mood is night and day what it was with the old staff. I had met some of the assistants before but eery single one of them (as well as Bryce Drew) came up and said “hello” whether they’d met me before. So, so different from the old staff where Kevin had control of everything and you really didn’t get access to his staff.
Bryce Drew’s dad, Homer, who of course was Bryce’s college coach, was there dressed in a Vanderbilt hoops t-shirt and shorts.
There was a lot of emphasis on individual ball-handling. Practice started with about 10 minutes of full-court ball-handling drills where players had to go the length of the floor against a defender and try to stay towards the middle of the floor.
Defense is obviously the emphasis here. I think it was 30 minutes before I saw anyone shoot a basketball.
If a player goes to the floor, every teammate is expected to rush over and help him up. If they don’t respond quickly enough, they run.
The staff couldn’t be nicer based on what I have seen, but make no mistake, they practice hard and they’re intense. Rap music plays over the PA. They don’t yell at players, but they will very quickly get on them and tell them what needs to be fixed. There’s a lot of attention to detail, but nobody seems uptight. It seems like it’s a really balanced approach on the whole.
They spent some time in 2-3 zone today.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
Jeff Roberson spent some of practice riding a stationary bike. I think there may be a minor back issue in play. Matthew Fisher-Davis joined him later. Other than that, everyone was a full go.
Roberson’s probably the team’s best all-around player at this point.
I thought Cameron Justice looked lighter but in a good way. He’s pretty well put together but not quite as stocky as he was a year ago. I thought he was really fluid with the ball in drills.
Nolan Cressler had probably lost 8-10 pounds and looked a bit quicker and better with the ball. There’s a role for him on this team as a contributor; how big, we’ll see.
Riley LaChance is running the point, and he’ll start there. Not an ideal situation defensively; my understanding is that Peyton Willis isn’t going to start there (at least for now) because he’s not ready defensively. So if LaChance is more ready defensively, that tells you something about where they are at that position right now.
Willis looked a little raw offensively; of course what they’re mainly working on is one-on-one situations and so I didn’t get a chance to assess his outside shot.
Kornet flashed a slight spin move and a finish with his left hand from in close against Baptiste
They do one-on-one drills where the defender stays on the floor until he get s stop. Clevon Brown was on the floor for what seemed like an eternity at one time; even LaChance beat him off the dribble for a layup. Offensively, he bricked his first 3 badly. He’s super-athletic and a quick leaper, but he’s still very much in the development stage from what I saw today.
Larry Austin Jr. is one of the more athletic guards they’ve signed in some time. Obviously, he’ll redshirt and because of the nature of practice, I don’t know what kind of shooter he’s become (I know at Xavier, it wasn’t pretty judging by the stat line). At one point, he took Roberson one-on-one to the hole and rattled in a dunk over him, which is saying something because he did it against probably the most sound and versatile defender on the team.
