Coach Aura
When I decided to take Donald Brown out of the starting lineup, I sat down with him to let him know what I was doing.
Donald played 2 years of JC ball and did very well. He transferred to us as a junior and started all but one game for us last season. He had some very good games last year and was overall a solid performer. He averaged 6.7 ppg and 5.1 rpg…and shot well, hitting 43% of FG’s, 47% of his 3’s and 81% of his FT’s. We were counting on him to have an even stronger season for us during his senior year.
This past summer, even though Donald wasn’t willing to go into any details, I understood he was having family problems. With fall practice about to begin, he was still extremely stressed but said he wanted to play ball. After discussing it with him, I told him to step away and focus on resolving the family issues. Reluctantly he left the team for a month and came back just a little while before we were to kick off our season. I was surprised at how difficult it was for him to work back into the team and play with confidence. Instead of shooting as well as he did last season, he was tentative and when he did shoot that translated into his missed shots and the more he missed, the worse things got.
During our meeting, I told him that my decision to replace him in the starting lineup with Richard Lawson wasn’t that I felt he couldn’t do the job. But it was to take the pressure off of him and let him reestablish his confidence. I was still going to play him about 20 minutes a game because I know he will be an asset for us. But to just come into games off the bench and play good defense, attack the boards, make good moves and handle the ball well…and let his offensive game redevelop at whatever rate it takes…we’d not be counting on him pouring in points, but being the solid performer he is elsewise.