12/2: 78-67 over Texas Southern. We led all the way, by as many as 21. Sub PF/C Gary Owen led us with 22, 7, 4, and 3 steals. He's going to start beginning with our next game. Lots of balanced scoring and good D from the other guys who played. Only 9 TOs.
6-0. We're really putting it together. BUT, 7 of our next 8 are on the road so that may slow us down some.
Recruiting Coach Ben Flet: I've been around college basketball fo a long time and I've never seen anything like this. KSU had become so used to losing over that past few years that it was kind of an expectation. Coach Nom turned that attitude around almost from the first day he arrived. He started emailing kids in May. When the kids came in for summer school he started bringing them into the office one or two at a time to talk with them, get to know them... He was all positives, all about how we were going to do great things here. He started to get the kids to believe so quickly. I could see it at the first practice. A team that kind of went through the motions in years past was practicing with their heads up, running drills with enthusiasm, practicing plays and sets with their minds and bodies focused. They made LOTS of mistakes at first. Coach would stop and correct a given mistake and tell them to focus on not making the same mistake again. More often than not they didn't. He rarely yelled at kids but instead explained things, taught them how to do better, praised them even when correcting the mistakes. And they responded. They got better every day and they're still getting better every day, and just about every one of these guys would try to run through a brick wall if Coach asked them to.
We're going on the road now, and that means we'll most likely lose some games. We'll have to see how that affects the kids, but I'm guessing we'll get through it and be just fine.