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.

Bishops Game

I thought we did some very good things against Bishops last Thursday. The guys played very hard and we are shooting the ball much better. Hopefully it is a case of getting used to playing that hard and being able to focus well enough to still shoot it well. This team is going to be a work in progress all year. I think we are capable of some very good things, but if we don't work at the level of intensity needed, it could get ugly quick. We have our tournament this weekend and that should be a real test. We have McGill on Fri at 8pm and they are in my mind as good as anyone in the Quebec league and I think will have a very good chance of being in Halifax in March. Windsor and Victoia-2 extremely good teams, probably top 5 and 10 in the country- play at 6pm.
Our games this weekend will be at 8 Fri, 8 Sat and 2pm Sunday.

St Lawrence Game

We did some good things on Saturday against St Lawrence College. Once again I felt the guys played hard and generally didn't take too many possessions off on the defensive end. It's early, so obviously there were a few energy letdowns, but overall for October the energy was very good. Offensively we are still a bit of a work in progress. We shot the ball solidly from the perimeter, but we were terrible from the line. Hopefully we can get a little more precise in transition and allow ourselves to get some easy baskets. We play Bishops this Thursday at home at 7pm and that should be a real test for our group. They are very good in the backcourt and will give us a lot of problems at both ends. I'm hoping we can be a little more consistent at the offensive end, but in reality, at this point in the year, I just want to keep seeing the same amount of effort from our guys that I have seen in our last scrimmage and our game Saturday.
 We are a long way a way from where we need to be and where we could be in late February. The good thing about it is, late February is a long way a way as well. If we can stay healthy and keep improving, I think this group of guys could be pretty solid.

Scrimmage

Scrimmage went ok. My assistants did a great job reffing. We kind of stunk in all facets of the game except shooting it and trying hard. It is amazing how many good things happen when you try really hard and shoot the ball well. Good to see us make some shots, hopefully it will help our confidence moving forward. Other than that we didn't do many things well, so we still have a lot to work on. But if we can keep competing at that level or higher and shoot it ok, at least we have a light at the end of the tunnel.
We have St Lawrence at our place tomorrow night at 7pm. That will be a solid test as they are always a solid CCAA contender. Hopefully we can improve on some of the ugliness of last night and maintain the positives that came out of it.
It's a little frustrating that the things that come from the players (effort and the ability to shoot it) are things we do well and the things that come from good teaching(execution and decision making) we do really poorly right now. Coach needs to step it up a bit. But better it be those issues than the opposite.
 Hopefully we get better at execution and decision making in the future.