FBCB - Jim Williams @ Liberty
 

I am going to start what I hope to be a long running report of the career of Head Coach Jimmy Williams. Coach Williams is a 21 year old coach from Tennessee who is taking the ultimate challenge of taking Liberty of the southern conference and trying to make something of them.

Jimmy's Coaching numbers:

I have simmed the game from 1936 at that point I have given 21 year old Jimmy Williams the job of turning the program around. Here is some background information on the team he is taking over:


As you can see this team has never made it to the first round of the NCAA tournament. One NIT appreance and two play-in games in the NCAA tournament. This will be a challege for a low rated coach....

*= Walk-on

You can see form the number of walkons on this team the recruiting has been tough here at Liberty.


Starters:
C Edwards - Averaged 5.2 PPG last year from the bench
PF Saunders - 2 year starter, Averaged 12.1 PPG and 4.8 RPG last year
SF McCullough - 5.0 PPG and 3.7 RPG from the bench last year
SG Abel - 68 career starts with 10.0 PPG this is the anchor of our team
PG Gish - 73 Career Starts 7.4 PPG last year

6th Man - Bowden - Starter Last season with 5.8 PPG

Those are the 6 players whom we are going to have to rely on this season. Parker, Jack, Howard and Cravens will see some time off the bench. While Timmons, Rasmussen, Tillman and Hudak will not see much time unless there are injuries during the season.

November 2003

What a start to Jimmy Williams career as a head coach !!!

Liberty starts the season 3-0 with 3 big wins on the road. The season started with Joshua Gish hitting 2 free throws with less that a second remaining to win the game at Long Island. Edward Abel led the way in game 2 with 24 points in a big 16 point road win against Loyola Maryland. In game 3, we held onto a 35-21 halftime lead to win by on a three against Central Connecticut.


The November ended with two recruits commiting to Liberty.

nice to see a new dynasty to read!

Looks like Poling might be a match-up problem for other teams, if he continues to develop that outside shot.

December 2003

December started out with two difficult losses. We got blown out by Cleveland State by 25 and then lost a heartbreaker to Appy State by 1 to drop to 3-2. The Senior leadership on this team refused to let the team fall into a major slump by leading them to three straight big wins all by at least 10 points. The guard combination of Abel and Gish combined to average 40 Points per game in those three victories. We finished the month out by winning two more blowout victories over Canisius and Army. Edward Abel is 3rd in the big south in scoring as december comes to a close with 18.9 PPG.

I did not expect to be 8-3 as we head into the new year. This team has not had a season with 10 or more wins since 1997.

We picked up out 3rd commitment at the end of december.

Jan 2004

We fell back down to reality a little bit in January as our two star guards struggled somewhat early in the month. We did manage to win three conference games this month including a big upset win on the road over conference leader Coastal Carolina by 20 points 85-65. Edward Abel scored 36 in the win including hitting 8-11 three pointers. We have seen the emergance of Dudley McCullough as a rebounding force over the last few games. He has grabbed 13, 13 11 and 12 rebounds in the last four games. Overall this month is more of what I expected from this team this season. Our fast start has allowed us to already win 11 games which equals the most wins for our program since 1997.




We pulled in another recruit at the end of the month. This guy is a bit unknown but we needed to take him based on his interest in our program and his performance on the court. Our staff as yet to see this guy play in person.

Feb 2004

This month was a total collapse. we won only two games and only one conference game. We lost out last six conference games to end the season in last place and out of the Big South Conference Tournament.





Overall, the season was a improvement from the past few years at Liberty. We managed to win 13 games which was the most since the 15 win season of 1994. I wish we were returning Gish and Abel as they led us the whole season. We pretty much won win they played well and lost when they had a off night.

We landed our last recruit this month and finally made it out to Italy to see out recruit from the previous month and here are there numbers.

2004 Post Season Review

Conference Tournament:
UNC Asheville Over Elon

NCAA Tournament Results
(14) UNC Asheville 79 (3) UNLV 90 (1st Round)

Final 4
(1) Utah over (7) USC
(4) St Johns over (2) Virginia

(1) Utah wins National Championship over St Johns

Liberty Graduating Players

Joshua Gish - 6th in Career Assist
Edward Abe - 5th in Career Points, 1st in Career 3 Pointers

Nice start. I'll be reading!

PRESEASON 2004


Freshman class has came in here as a talented group and will be used heavly this season. It would be better is Goldberg and Poling were better in the classroom. I am going to redshirt both of them since I have some players who can play their position available and maybe they can work on their classroom abilities. Right now I am sure they would be suspended for part of this season if I didn't.

Our starters :
C Edwards - Started last season at C, 6.7 PPG 5.2 RPG
PF Saunders - Returning Starter 10.1 PPG
SF Lance - True Freshman - 6''6" can jump out of the gym
SG McCullough - Returning Starter 8.1 PPG and 8.6 RPG (played SF last season)
PG Smith - True Freshman Great defender and very quick

We are not very deep this season at all we need lots of playing time from our starters. I must find someone to balance the time out some.

November 2004


Not a good start to this season. It is could be a tougher year than last. These true freshman guards are having real problems on the road. I did make one change to the lineup after the second game of the season with McCullough and Lance switching starting positions. Lance responded to the move back to SG with 22 point while McCullaugh had 16 in their first game with the new roles.



We got out 1st commitment of the season at the end of the month.

December 2004

We have the ability to play pretty well at time but we also can play as ugly as any team I have ever seen. Examples just this month are a great win on the road 62-47 over East Carolina then there are two losses that were terrible a 74-27 loss to Chattanooga and a 43-30 loss at the College of Charleston. There are some good signs. Freshman Terrence Lance is going to be fun to watch for the next 3 1/2 years. He could break a lot records here at Liberty.





We got another big man in recruiting at the end of December.

Jan 2005

We made a major change in strategy starting with the Coastal Carolina game. We turned up the defensive heat and started running with the ball more. The team has responded pretty well. I am not sure we won any more game than we would have with the slow down game but we were in every game since we made the change. Terrance Lance is scoring 19 points per game since we started running so I know he likes the change.


We completed our recruiting class for this season wiht out final commitment.

Feb 2005

The running game continues to work as we were 5-3 in February to move from last place into 7th place heading into the conference tournament. It all came down to the last game of the year between us and Charleston Southern. We won an ugly game 53-49 led by Edwards and Lance with 12 each.

Big South Tournament

We played another close game with Elon but just didn't get over the hump. We lost this one by 4 points. We lost three games to Elon by a total of 8 point this season.





Coastal Carolina defeated Birmingham southern in the Big South Championship game 46-47.

NCAA Tournament

Big South Results:
(3) #6 USC Defeated (14) Coastal Carolina by 5, 71-66

Final 4:

#23 Temple Defeated #14 Ohio State 78-58
#4 Syracuse over #1 Missouri 70-68

Championship Game:
#4 Syracude Wins the National Championship with a 20 point blow out of #23 Temple.

Liberty Season Review

Overall we were pretty much equal with our previous years performance. The biggest difference is last year we were going to have to replace our top players and this year we are keeping our better players and can look forward to a much better season next year.

Graduating Players

We only have one player leaving the program this season. Pedro Saunders will leave as the 9th highest scoring player in liberty history. Pedro was a 4 year starter.

Player Awards

Charles Smith and Terance Lance were both named to the Freshman all-conference team.

Preseason 2005

This group has a chance to be much improved over our last two teams. This is the first season since I have been here that I will be able to get some backups some playing time and not feel like it is killing me when they are playing. I will be redshirting Joe Santacruz this season unless we have some injuries that require him to play. The Athletic Director sees our improvement and has raised his expectations of me. He now expects at least a .500 conference record and I think we have a good shot at doing just that.



Starting Lineup:
C Poling - Redshirt Freshman, Needs to be a team leader this season
PF Edwards - Started 2 seasons at C, 6.5 ppg career avg.
SF Lance - Started Here last year before moving to SG need him to play SF
SG McCullough - Two year starter, 8.4 PPG and 8.6 RPG last season
PG Smith - Started Last season as true freshman with 6.1 PPG

Nov. 2005

Not exactly the start I have planned for this season. We start 1-4 and once again I have to move McCullough back to the Small Forward position. Lance even at 6'6" just does not play well there at all. He is a shooting guard and I am going to have to accept that. Despite the move of position Lance and McCullough are my leaders through the first 5 game both averaging just over 11 PPG.


We add to our list of guards again with another shooting guard commitment. I really need to find a way to get some big guys to come but I keep coming finding these guards that want to come play for us and I can't pass them up.

Dec. 2005

we managed to win our last two games to avoid what would have been a terrible month. We just are not playing well at all. We may be a little over scheduled with all the road games. I have always let me AD handle the scheduling but I may just have to veto his schedule next season and get us some easier games to build confidence.





This could be my worst year yet in recruiting. I am getting turned down all over the place. We just can't seem to get any big guys to play for us.

Jan 2006

The disappointing season is continuing. We only manage to be 3-6 in the conference at the end of January. Our offense is just terrible. We are ranked 312th in scoring even though I am trying to get the pace of the games up to enhance this offense we just can't get the ball in the bucket.

Feb 2006

We upped our scoring somewhat this month actually scoring 80 points two games in a row. We lost both games but hey at least we scored lots of points. We did win enough games this month to get the #7 seed in the conference tournament. We play UNC Asheville in the opening round.





On the recruiting front this is the worst year I have ever had recruiting. I still only have one commitment as of the end of the month and it is not looking good for any other recruits.

Conference Tournament Round One

Could we be starting to play like I thought we could at the first of the season. We hand UNC Asheville a 73-63 loss. The game was never really close as well led 41-27 at the half and the 10 point final score was the closest the game got. This team really seems to be responding better to Freshman Gerardo Sandy playing more at the point.


Other 1st round games:
Top Seed Birmingham Southern Advanced to round two over Charleston Southern
6th Seed Elon Upset 3rd seed Coastal Carolina
High point won the 4/5 matchup over Winthrop

On to the second round against fellow cinderella Elon. Can we make a run at the championship ?

Conference Tournament Round 2

Elon hit two free throws after a foul was committed by Dudley McCullough on a shot at the buzzer to win the game by 1, 58-57. We can't blame the loss on him however, he led the team in scoring, rebounding and Assist for the game.

Top Seed Birmingham Southern won the other simi-final game 80-70 over High Point




14 win Elon the number 6 seed in the conference tournament defeated 20 win Birmingham Southern 71-63 to get the automatic bid to the big dance.

NCAA Tourament

Elon with it 14-17 record is playing Robert Morris in the "play-in" game of the NCAA tournament...

Elon is now a 15-17 team heading to play the top seed in the West #2 Arizona....

Arizona blew out Elon 98-45 !!!

Arizona defeated Michigan State for the National Championship !!!



I did finally manage to get another recruit in 6'9" George Short from Australia. We couldn't afford to send a scout to Australia to get a good handle of George but we took a gamble on him anyway.

Player Awards

For the second year in a row we land two players on the Freshman all Conference team

Clifford Poling - Started all 31 games scoring 6.5 PPG and getting 6.8 RPG

Augustine Louie - Came off the bench to score 4.6 points and grab 3.8 rebounds per game.

2006 graduating players

Only Dudley McCullough is leaving the program this season. Dudley was a three year starter for us. He is the #2 all-time rebounder for us with 845 career rebounds which was almost 8 rebounds per game for his career.

Final 2005/06 Season Numbers

Not exactly what I had in mind when the season started.

Neat dynasty.... why'd you pick Liberty?

After I simmed the league from 1936 they were the worst team I could find. They had a prestige of 2 the next lowest was 8.

Ah... I was just wondering. I have a few siblings that live in Lynchburg, VA, and have attended Liberty. :)

Govols, I like the idea of simming some seasons to get some history in the game. What's the easiest way to do it? It may be set up in the game, I'm pretty new to it and haven't really looked yet.

Within the game there is an option from the season menu to sim multiple season. I usually setup new league then sim lots of season over night. Then add my coach and pick a team.

Preseason 2006

I really think this could be the year we start to turn the corner. We are still very young with no seniors starting but we have quite a bit of experience for a team this young.


Starting 5
C Clifford Poling, So - Starter Last Season 6.8 RPB and 6.5 PPG
PF Augustine Louie, So - Played in all 31 games averging 4.6 points in 15.8 minutes per game
SF Terence Lance. Jr - Two year starter 12.7 PPG career average.
SG Alberto Coia, Jr - Needs to step up play to keep the starting role
PG Gerardo Sandy, So - Replaced Charles Smith as the starter, Charles will be the 6th man if Gerardo has trouble Charles could start soon.

Nov 2006

This is our best start since I have been here. However, a lot of that could be that I took over scheduling and the schedule as easy as I could make it.

Dec 2006

We go 4-4 for the month. of December. Nothing special about the month we pretty much just need to get to the conference season to see what kind of season we are going to have.



We landed out 1st recruit of the season...

Jan 2007

We started off the month 4-1 and led the conference. We collapsed towards the end of the month losing three straight including at Charleston Southern on a three pointer at the buzzer...We lost Chris Goldberg at the end of the month with grade problems.

Feb 2007

We got hot this month winning 4 of our last 5 games to move into 3rd place in the conference. The month got with a 3 pointer at the buzzer to force OT with Radford and ended with a three pointer at the buzzer to win the game against High Point. We are 9-7 in the conference for the first time since 1993.

Conference Tournament Round 1

We start out the tournament against 6th seeded Radford. We split two close games with the during the regular season. The third game this season was never close we jumped out to an 8-0 lead and never trailed in winning 80-61

Top Seed Coastal Carolina struggled in winning 79-76 over High Point
#2 Seed Birmingham Southern took care of Winthrop 85-65
#4 UNC Asheville completed the favorites winning streak with a 76-63 win over #5 seed Charleston Southern

Big South Simi-Finals

We play #2 seed Birmingham Southern in the simi-finals. We split the season series with Birmingham Southern each team winning on it home floor during the regular season. We were never really in this game as Birminham won 80-69

Coastal Carolina defeated UNC Asheville in the other game 68-60.

Remaining Tournament Games


Big South Conference Finals:

Coastal Carolina wins the conference Tournament Championship

NCAA Tournament:

Coastal Carolina get a #15 seed and plays #2 seed UNLV. UNLV wins 91-41.

UNLV goes on to Win the National Championship

2006/07 Post Season

We pickup several awards this season:

C Clifford Poling - 1st Team All-Conference (9.7 PPG & 9.3 RPG, 2nd Big South in Rebounding)
SG Terence Lance - 1st Team All-Conference (15.5 PPG, 4th in Big South Scoring)
SG Albert Coia - 2nd Team All- Conference (16.9 PPG, Led Big South in Scoring
C Joe Santacruz - All Freshman Team (2.7 PPG & 2.8 RPG in 11 Min per game)

Final Season Stats:



Overall this was a good season for us. It was the best season since I have been here and the best season since the 1989 17-14 record. We have laid a solid foundation for a run a the Big South title next season. Let see how we handle expectations now.

2007 Graduating players

SF Nathan Jack - Nathan was a walkon player who never really broke into the full time rotation. While he played in 94 career game he only scored 92 career points with a high of 8.

SF Albert Tillman - Albert was another walkon player for us. Albert played 7.4 MPG for us this season scoring 3.7 PPG.