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I know most of you will probably not agree with me, but I thought I would raise some other points here. Yes Dement is the Head coach, but he is not the only coach working with the team. There are three assistant coaches, one of which was suppose to be really good at working with the big men. When every one talks about what if any thing these guys are being taught or if they are being developed, the assistants are the ones really working with these guys one on one. I haven't seen many practices, but I've seen the coaches working with these guys on positioning themselves around the basket, which I'm sure includes blocking out and being in position to rebound, and in other areas of the game. I do think you can see improvement in our big men over past years. I didn't see the Hawaii game, but at the App. State game, I thought our team looked just plain lethargic...why they were is a question I can't answer.

Many of you have complained about us not playing man defense enough. The fact is that our bench is not very strong and you can not run your starters in a man defense for 40 minutes. Hence, using a zone allows your starters to play more minutes.

The team has shown the ability to play with and beat very good teams, but they are very inconsistant and sometimes don't seem to have the fire or drive to play all-out for the whole game. I'm not sure what the answer would be, but with our bench, you can't take a lethargic starter out and make him ride the pine as an insentive to do better because the bench can't carry the load.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth and maybe a little food for thought.

Well, Pearson seemed to be the Mustang who came off the bench energetic and ready to play against UH - played good D, boxed out, and rebounded fairly well. He showed me some hustle unlike the rest of the team.

<small>[ 01-17-2004, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: Pony_Fan ]</small>

PK: I agree there is a pretty significant drop off in talent once we go to the bench, but I also think Dement should be giving Pearson, Bennett and Rack in particular more minutes and should be encouraging those guys to be a part of the offense when they are on the floor. This team needs 8-9 guys scoring and hustling on defense if we are going to be a factor in the WAC.