I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

8/21 Fall semester is about to begin. Everyone is doing pretty well academically so there is no concern on that front at this time.

Rob Woods stopped by my office after a pick-up game.
"Coach, I think Godzilla ate Reggie Feeley."
"WHAT??"
"O'Connor," he says smiling. "He's too big to be just ONE person."

Recruiting is not going particularly well at this point. We are on the phone constantly, but it's proven very hard just to get the kids we are targetting to use one of their allowed site visits to come see our school. Our only chance to land ANYONE we want will be when the contact period starts and we can go to them.

[CoachC]

9/18 Very busy time of the year for us. Trying to finalize our schedule for this year, surrounded by a lot of traveling. Our home visits went very well, and we've sparked some interest in the kids we've been pursuing the heaviest. Keeping my fingers crossed we can land some of them.

[CoachC]

9/25

Excellent News! In the last 2 days we recieved verbal committments from 2 recruits:

Juco transfer 6'5 guard Ike Jeffers from Hillsbourough, NC.
A legitimate scorer with a great outside shot and the height to shoot over most of the other guards in our conference. The scouting service currently has him ranked 64th in the nation, and was high on our list of recruits from the beginning. He wanted to play close to home, and in the last couple of weeks we were able to win out over NC-Greensboro and Charlotte.

Juco transfer 6'7 forward Brandon Giesen from Beaver Dam, WI

Very athletic and a good defender. He liked the fact that we want to play uptempo, and was intrigued by the Amoeba Zone.

[CoachC]

10/4 Practice begins this week. Also conference predictions came out. We are picked 5th this year, with Campbell the preseason pick to win the conference.

[CoachC]

10/9

Recieved verbal committment from

6-0 Point Guard Michael Moore HS Sr. from Dolton, IL

Moore is a very talented point guard that we badly need. The scouting service currently ranks him as the 8th best Point Guard in this years pool of recruits, and is ranked 58th overall. We took a flyer on him. He has not been very highly recruited, because it's uncertain if he'll make minimum test scores to be eligible. With his talent level and our need so high, we decided to take a chance and offer him a scholarship, but will continue to pursue other options in case, Moore is unable to get himself eligible and needs to go to Juco.

That good news was tempered by some shenanigans in practice this week. 6'1 guard Robert Myers kept threatening to kick the ass of center Billy Sheals and wouldn't back down. I finally had to suspend Myers from practice for a week to prevent Sheals from slam-dunking him and give him some time to cool off and get some perspective.

Reggie Feeley was being a pain in the ass and annoying everyone this week, and I finally needed to suspend him for a week too. There's no need for that.

[Wayne23]

Great recruiting, Coach!

[CoachC]

We'll see! if Moore meets eligibility and can maintain it, it looks like a good recruiting class. I'm concerned about recruiting 2 juco transfers, but they were the only ones with the skill sets I needed.

[Wayne23]

With teams at low levels I think recruiting Jucos is the fastest way to build. It has always worked for me.

[CoachC]

10/16
Recieved our 4th verbal commitment this week from

6'2 Juco transfer guard Jermaine Felts from North Charleston, SC

Felts is another guard with a sweet shot and a scorer's mentality. A similar player to our other recruit Ike Jeffers but a bit more athletic. Felts and Jeffers should help fill the hole created by the loss of Woods and Porter after this season. Felts is currently ranked 64th over all by the scouting service, and 13th among shooting guards.

We will continue to recruit a couple of point guards in the event Michael Moore opts for junior college, or is unable to make eligibility requirements.

[CoachC]

11/1

We get our first outside competition tonight in an exhibition game vs DII Bellarmine.

The first exhibition is always about evaluating newcomers, and getting a feel for who may be ready to step into the rotation. The competition for those slots was pretty hot, and it's hard to say at the moment how it will all shake down.

Of the guys that we already know are going to be important parts of this team, Gregg Porter looked the most like he was ready to get the season under way. He had 7 pts, 3 asts, 4 rebs and a steal in 14 minutes.

The small crowd on hand oohed and aahed when they got their first look at Godzilla O'Connor about 6 minutes into the game. And the big guy did not disappoint, displaying his unique combination of strength and agility around the basket he scored 12 points in 14 minutes and was in fact our leading scorer. Just how big a role he'll play on this team remains to be seen, but he made a strong first impression.

Others who made a strong bid for playing time:
Brandon Kerr had 9 points in 14 minutes at the 3, and Brett Nielson had 7 ponts in 14 minutes also at the 3.

Of the candidates at point guard, Gilchrist had the most solid game with 5 asts and just 1 turnover in 14 minutes. Feeney played reasonably well too. Myers had an off night, but should compete fiercely for minutes with those 2.

Maybe the most impressive and unexpected player of the game though was newcomer walk-on Bobby Henry who displayed a pretty shot and a willingness to take the open shot, scoring 11 pts in his 14 minutes. He definitely earned a good second look in the next exhibition.

The score didn't matter, but I still don't particularly like losing exhibitions.

We lost this one 78-71