McMaster/Lakehead weekend

Was pretty happy with how we played for 7 of 8 quarters on our last weekend of the season. The McMaster game was a game I was worried about as they have a lot of young talent, but I thought my guys came ready to play and for 3 quarters we did a lot of good things. The fourth quarter was a bit of a sideshow, but hopefully we learned from it. The Lakehead game was probably our most consistent effort this year. We defended very well for the most part and kept a very good team off balance. We now have a lot of time off and an opportunity to get much better over the next 5 weeks. We leave for Florida on Dec 27th to do a 7 day training camp, before we get back and get started with the 2nd half of our season. We start the second half against 2 very good teams in Ryerson and Toronto. Both teams give us problems for different reasons and we need to use our training camp properly to be as prepared as possible. It will be an interesting second half of the season as most of the games are rivalry games.

Western/Windsor weekend

We had one of the hardest road trips you can have this weekend. Playing Friday night in London against Western and then travelling to Windsor to play the next night against Windsor. This was follwed by the 8 and half hour drive back home to Ottawa. We did some good things and bad things this weekend. We really seemed to struggle in transition until the second half of the Windsor game and didn't seem to be comfortable offensively most of the weekend. But to come out with 2 wins against two very good teams is definitely a positive. We are still very vulnerable, but the guys are playing hard and trying to play together, so from that perspective it was very positive. It's only November so wins and losses don't really mean very much, it is more about improvement. Hopefully we are moving in the right direction in that respect. This weekend sets up to be another tough weekend as McMaster and Lakehead come to Ottawa. Both teams present problems for us and we will need to do a good job at the defensive end to get the tempo where we want it. Both teams have been playing very well with MAC having won 3 in a row and Lakehead 5 in a row. Hopefully we can find a way to slow them down a bit and put ourselves in a position to win. I'm pretty happy with our effort level so far, unfortunately we don't execute very well, which is obviously a product of some questionable coaching. Hopefully I can find a way to better communicate the things we need to do to be successful. These two teams will test us.

Laurier/Waterloo weekend

We had a tough trip to Waterloo this weekend and played two very solid teams. Laurier gave us major problems as we had a tough time getting them under control on the offensive end. We built up a 21 point lead and gave it all away, before finding a way to get some stops down the stretch and won by 8. If they stay healthy they will be tough all year and be dangerous for anyone they play. We really didn't defend very well all weekend and hopefully we can fix that for this week. This coming weekend is the toughest road trip of the year, for a number of reasons. The first being that both teams are ranked in the top ten in the country and could easily end up in the top 5. On top of that we have to go to London for Friday and then on to Windsor for Saturday night, so the travel is difficult. This is a great test for us and will definitely show some major holes in what we are doing, which is a great thing in November. We need to realize where we are and start improving on the things that we aren't doing well. I feel we have kind of stagnated in terms of our development over the past 2 weeks, so hopefully we will either have shown some progress from this weeks practices or we learn from these games what needs to be done. We have a long way to go and hopefully we realize that we have a lot to improve.

Guelph and Brock weekend

We had two home games this weekend against Guelph and Brock. We did some good things in both and some very bad things. We really struggled covering the 3 point line in the 1st half against Brock and our best 3 shooters struggled to 0 for 12 from the 3 point line for the game. We did some decent things defensively in the second half, but really showed some holes in the first half. Full credit to Brock, as they played extremely hard and were more physical than any team we have played in the past 2 years. It took us a while to adjust to how agressive they defended us, but it should help us moving forward. This weekend we travel to Waterloo to play Laurier and Waterloo. Laurier has been playing extremely well of late with blow out victories against Queens, UQAM and National Championship contender Cape Breton as well as an impressive win against a very good Dal team- a team I feel has top 5 potential. This will be a great test for us and should expose more holes, which only helps in November. Waterloo seem healthy again and with 4 5th year guys will pose some problems in their gym, always a tough place for us to play. Hopefully we learn some more this weekend, we certainly have a long way to go as shown by our performance the past 2 weekends.

Buffalo/Cincinnati

Good weekend for us in Buffalo and Cincinnati. The scrimmage against Buffalo was very good as we got towork on some things that we've been struggling with. They were very athletic and play extremely hard. They took us out of a lot of the things we wanted to do and it was good to see how we responded, both good and bad. We then went to Cincinnati and were a little undermanned, with no Mike or Kyle, plus the 36 fouls we committed didn't help our depth either. I thought we did some very good things. We were down 10 with a little more than 10 to go, which was much better than when we played them in Ottawa. We struggled the last 10 minutes, but in fairness to the guys on the floor at the end, it was for some of them their first real game experience and it had to come against a Big East team at their place.
We are still a long way away from being a good basketball team, but I still think the kids are playing pretty hard and although we are going to have a number of setbacks this year, I do think we could compete at the end of the year. This week will be a good test as we get Guelph and Brock and Guelph is finally healthy and they always give us major problems. Hopefully we can do what we need to defensively and find a way to win a tough game.

Laval Tournament

Had a good time in Quebec City this weekend. Always great seeing Jacques Paiement(both Sr and Jr), but especially great to see how well Jacques Sr seems to be doing(although I don't buy the golf scores). The team played hard all weekend and although we were really exposed in the 1st half of our game against Laval, I'm generally happy with how hard we play. We still make a lot of mistakes at the defensive end, but the effort seems to be there. As a group we seem to be a little more comfortable at the offensive end then a week ago, as evidenced by the 95 points a game we averaged. We have a great test this weekend as we scrimmage the University of Buffalo and then have a rematch of our summer game with the University of Cincinnati. Hopefully we don't get hammered again. I think we are better than we were then, but now we get them on the road as opposed to at home, so it will be tough. Trying to clean up some things before league starts on November 5th.

House Laughton Classic

The games this weekend went better than I expected. The tournament was very well run and I want to thank George House and Bob Laughton for their incredible support of our program and continued involvement with the annual tournament. We played very hard again this weekend. We still have many holes and we are doing our best to fix the problems, but I am generally happy with the effort level we are putting out. We have shot the ball reasonably well recently, so that has also helped hide some of the technical mistakes we continue to make. This is going to be a long process with this group, but they certainly have responded well in terms of effort so far. Sustainability is always a question and we will see this weekend if we are at that point yet. This weekend will be a tough test even if we play well. St Mary's and Laval will both spend time in the top 5 this season and UNB has already beaten the reigning AUS champs earlier this year. If we struggle we could easily come home without a win. Really interested in seeing how we respond to playing on the road. Hopefully we will be at full strength, so we can start figuring out playing time rotations a little easier.