Oct. 22, 2008
Hello Tech Fans! – Our team has begun pre-season practice to get ready for the 2008-09 season, which is almost here. We open our season Nov. 14 against Winston-Salem State, and we have an exhibition game against LeMoyne on Nov. 7, both at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. We also hope you can come watch us scrimmage Saturday night at 7 p.m. after the football game against Virginia.
I want to start off by talking about our benefits from the off-season track workouts! I already see the difference in our team’s mental toughness. But the track workout did more than just help us with mental toughness. It also helped with us coming closer as a team. We had to motivate each other as a team and push each other to make it through the tough conditions of the track, which made us a lot closer with each other. This is actually probably the closest we’ve ever been as a team since I’ve been here, which really has made me excited about this upcoming season. I think since we’ve become more cohesive as a team, we will play that much better together.
I think the new three-point line, which is a foot farther from the basket this year, is going to make this a complete new game this year. Three-point percentages are going to go down, close outs are going to be different, and I think the big guys will have more room to operate being that the college offenses will be a bit more spread out.
The talk amongst our team has been what shooters will this affect? Will it affect the streaky shooters or the more consistent shooters? Ty (Anderson) and I came to the conclusion that streaky shooters are going to stay streaky regardless, because if they miss a couple, then they’re off; but if they hit two in a row, then they could hit ten. As for the more pure and consistent shooters go, I don’t feel like its going to really affect US! (hahahaha). As a shooter you have routines and rituals to keep you consistent, so a couple feet back won’t be to big a change. I think the number of threes attempted will go down just because of the space on the sidelines with the new line. We’ve had this problem in practice so far: Guys catch the ball in the deep corners and either shoot a two-pointer or step out of bounds. This new line is also going to open up more drives, because closeouts are going to be a lot longer. As a scorer, if I have someone running full speed at me, I’m going to give him a hard shot fake and blow by him for a mid-range jumper. With all this said, it’s going to be interesting.
Hope to see everyone Saturday at 7 o’clock, and GO JACKETS!
