Sports
by Mike Abshire
Rams Get Back To Hoops Basics
Every sport has its season, every season its transition into the next. At one time, the “big three” professional sports transitions translated to the World Series, Super Bowl, and the NBA Championship. In reality, the variety and number of popular sports abound, and the transitions are symbolic: the numerous sports seasons overlap to such a degree that at times it seems a single sport hardly takes a break before it resumes.
Of all (non-professional) sports seasons’ symbolic transitions, the most welcome to some of us is “March Madness,” that signals the end of regular season basketball. March Madness is that long and lovely drawn-out tournament play.
Among all this madness, what was the local basketball situation leading up to March? The status of Shepherd University’s basketball teams after the first week of February play reveals what most basketball teams normally face this time of year: the successes and struggles to achieve and maintain the best level of play throughout months of facing the opponent.
Nine days into February, the Shepherd men’s team record stood at 7–6 in conference and 13–9 overall. They had just returned after midnight from a game in Philippi against Alderson-Broaddus, a game Shepherd lost, 92–74. Early the next morning, head coach Ken Tyler pored over the game video.
After getting thumped by 18 points the night before, what would you—as a coach—say to the writer’s question: “What happened last night?”
“Not sure,” Tyler said motioning to the screen. Assistant coach Justin Namolik didn’t even look up. “We’re watching it now. Looks like we have to go back to square one.”
Likely, Tyler’s response was identical to that of hundreds of coaches all over the country that day. The mathematical, logical, simple fact is, not every team can be undefeated all at the same time in its conference, as Alderson-Broaddus (12–0, 16–4) was at the time. And revisiting “square one” is what teams often do: return to tuning up the basics.
On the same morning, same building, on the women’s side of the court, the breathing was a little easier: The Lady Rams had beaten Alderson-Broaddus, 66–47. Several days before, in a home game, they had trounced UDC, 99–69. But two games aren’t a season, and things haven’t been that smooth for the Lady Rams.
“We went through a two-week lull before we started turning things around,” head coach Jodie Runner said.
Runner believed the “key for us is turnovers. We’re killing ourselves with turnovers … they’ve been our Achilles heel, and now we’re turning that around.”
She pointed to the season low of 12 turnovers against UDC, which was then bested several nights later in Philippi when the Lady Rams allowed only 8 turnovers.
Runner is in her fifth year as head coach and in her tenth at Shepherd (she was assistant coach for five years). She alluded to the final two weeks of regular season play as “two big weeks.” But at the time of our conversation, she felt they were on track to having their best season in five years.
There’s always another “but” which was: Even though the Lady Rams were on the right track, “at the same time this conference has never been tougher than it is now.”
The women only have one senior (Danielle Costello), and the “biggest group is juniors. I’ve found, as a coach, the biggest growth year for players is between their sophomore and junior years. They’re used to me now and we don’t have to go back and keep going over all little things.”
Runner’s comment sounded in direct contrast to Tyler’s going “back to square one,” but she quickly added, “I’ll be honest, there are times when you have to go back … you pick a day and you have to go back and go over the basics, the small things.” It comes with the territory of coaching and playing. For a team to be good, it needs to learn and relearn the basics.
A Few Days Later…
A few days after the men were defeated by AB, the Rams hosted Fairmont State in a game that went down to the final minute. With less than four minutes to play, the Rams trailed, 73–64; Shepherd closed the gap to 79–77, but in the final 30 seconds, Fairmont hit four free throws and the game ended 83–79.
As for going back to the basics—all the return-to-square-one moves in the world can’t sidestep some situations: in a game that could have been decided on free throws, Shepherd’s Danley Shank, who at the time led the NCAA Division II in free-throw percentage (93.8), sat out the game with a knee injury.
As for the Lady Rams, they continued the journey toward the March conference tournament with their fourth straight win when they stormed past the Lady Falcons of Fairmont, 59–46.