My Take on Wake - Bzdelik Building Team From Ground Up

Bzdelik Building Team From Ground Up

Made it by basketball practice yesterday and talked with Coach Bzdelik. He declined to shake my hand, but I didn’t take it personally. He said he’d picked up a bug and didn’t want to pass it on. We talked some about the Bob Dylan concert he and his wife attended Saturday night at Joel Coliseum, while I was riding back through Fancy Gap on my way back from Wake’s football thumping at Virginia Tech. He said he and Nina loved the show, but he admitted they couldn’t really make out the words. Sounds like the same Bob Dylan I’ve known and loved since flipping out over Like a Rolling Stone Bob Dylan*** back in 1965 as a seventh grader at Franklin Elementary School.

Long time ago.

We also discussed one of the real issues he faces as he builds this team pretty much from the ground up, that being who is going to run the point. I’ll write about it for tomorrow’s Journal.

Tony Chennault was still in his boot, J.T. Terrell had his cast on his right thumb and Ari Stewart was still being held out of contact drills while recovering from what was a pretty nasty concussion he sustained on Sept. 24. He said he took a nasty enough spill that an ambulance was dispatched to haul him to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. But basketball trainer Greg Collins assured me that all are rapidly on the mend. Stewart was to be re-evaluated after yesterday’s practice, Chennault will be checked out Thursday and Terrell will have a follow-up on Monday.

It’s a great courtesy to be able to attend practices, one that few college coaches extend. While there I follow the same rule that has been in place since Dave Odom was head coach, the one that Skip Prosser put most succinctly.

“Practices are open until I get burned,’’ Skip said. “When I get burned, they’re closed.’‘

As informative as they are, the practices will get better as the Deacons get closer to the Nov. 12 opener against Stetson. Right now most of the time is spent on installing schemes and concepts and working on fundamentals. I saw first-hand something C.J. Harris had observed last week during media day.

“He’s really calm,’’ Harris said. “He really likes to explain what he’s teaching, and he has the patience to explain. I think that’s great, given how many freshmen we have. We’ll go through something and he’ll stop and explain it and give everybody a chance to catch up.

“It might be different because last year we had (four) seniors and with seniors you don’t have to explain everything. But that’s the biggest thing that I’ve noticed.’‘

***I love this version of Like a Rolling Stone because that’s the Band backing Bobby D up during his early days of going electric. But if you notice, that’s not Levon Helm on drum. As Levon wrote in his bio This Wheel’s on Fire he couldn’t stand all the booing Bob and boys were getting at the time from the Folk Music purists. So he headed back to Arkansas, knocked around in Mexico, bussed some tables and ended up working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, before re-joining the Band in Woodstock after the tour was over.

Back to the main page.

By Dan Collins on 10/20/2010 (11:26 am)

Comments

Thank you very much, Dan.

Having not played any AAU myself, I am not quite sure how it impacts young players. I think that competition against high quality players is a good thing overall. But if all you do is play games, then there isn’t as much time for drills on fundamentals, nor is there as much time for explanation of various schemes and Xs and Os.

These are the types of things that big-time college basketball players need to really learn. And players can’t learn it the way a students learn the material for a midterm and then forget it for the rest of their life after two beers at the next party they attend. Our players need to learn this stuff so well that when the opposition switches up their defense in the second half of an NCAA tournament game, they know how to react without having to temper their competitive instincts one bit. In fact, the knowledge of the scheme and the fundamentals has to become instinct.

I think that if Coach Bzdelik turns out to be that kind of teacher, we’ll be in really good shape. Thanks again for the great insight, Dan. It is much appreciated. I’m looking forward to more articles/posts. Take care.

DC on 10/21/2010 (9:27 pm)

DC, the thing is I don’t see as much improvement in basic fundamentals as one might expect, given how much basketball these guys play before they ever get to college. Perhaps the emphasis in many AAU programs is not fundamentals. I don’t know. But I just got through watching another Wake practice and Bzdelik is a teacher. That appears to be his strength as a coach. But we’ll see as the season progresses.

Dan on 10/21/2010 (6:53 pm)

Dan,

In terms of just basic fundamentals, do you see a significant difference between incoming freshmen now versus ten, fifteen and twenty years ago? There seems to be potential for the benefits of the AAU circuit (i.e. great experience competing against high-level competition) to take away from a developing player’s foundation of basketball skills.

If that is indeed the case, then it would seem even more important for a college basketball coach to be adept at teaching fundamentals and schemes. Coach Bzdelik’s more cerebral approach to the game would be a good fit. The basis for mental toughness in critical situations is preparation. This is the time of year when post-season collapses are averted.

Thanks as always.

DC on 10/21/2010 (10:20 am)

It sounds like we have a coach now. Teaching players how to behave in certain situations is what a coach is paid to do. Let’s hope that the days of watching pick-up style basketball are long gone. If Coach B can recruit ACC caliber talent we could have competitive teams in the future.

MikeB on 10/20/2010 (6:39 pm)