The Coaching career of Brandon Crawford(CH 2K7 360)

[Brandon 2006]

November 10, 2006

Howard 0-0 (0-0) VS Tennessee-Martin 0-0 (0-0)

HLF 1 2 OT T
TMU 47 51 - 98
HOW 27 47 - 74

My first NCAA game went from good to bad to downright horrible. We started the game with a 12-2 run but once the run stopped everything went downhill. We could not make shots, we could not rebound and TMU was making every shot they took. We were out rebounded 55-25 and had 19 fouls compared to their 6. We were down by over 30 at points in the second half and I was downright going ballistic on some of my players. Regis Barker, my so called team leader had 2 points, 1 board and a foul. Kurt Smith had 25 points but most of those came in the first half where he was making everything that left his hands, in the second half he was tired and could not make a single shot. After Smith our next leading scorer had 10 and than it dropped into single digits. I could really use that 6'10" Nigerian center right about now as my team can not rebound to save their lifes. After the game I did not address my team immediately, I went to the janitors office to tell him to leave the gym lights on. After I talked to him, I walked into the lcoker room, told the boys to put on their practice uniforms and get to the court. We did rebounding drills for a complete hour, than we ran wind sprints, and finally another hour of rebounding drills. We will not be out rebounded by more than 30 boards ever again. We will play on the glass hard, bang bodies and keep the opponent off the glass. I took Barker aside after practice and told him if he does not play well agaisnt Cincinatti tommorow, that his starting position is at risk. I got a rude awakening with my first loss in 4 years and it was a welcoming moment to the NCAA. Before this game I thought we would be able to keep a close game with Cincinnati, after getting blown out by a lower echelon school like TMU, I just hope we keep it within 50 points.

[Brandon 2006]

November 11, 2006

Howard 0-1 (0-0) VS Cincinnati 0-1

HLF 1 2 OT T
CIN 57 42 - 99
HOW 39 50 - 89

I'm to a 0-2 start in my college coaching carrer but this game was much different than yesterday's. Yesterday we seemed to play a more single handed game with Smith racking up the bulk of our points whole the rest of the team was way behind. Today we came together as a team at points and looked like a team that was championship worthy. The first half was like the game against UTM lots of solo play with some moments of team work. We missed open shots, fast break lay-ups and we were out rebounded. The second half was compeltely different. We had a 9-0 run to start the half and we had some other runs of 12 and 15 at other points. We were down by 15 with 2 minutes left but we forced turnovers and we had some good rebounding. Some late shots and layups that were missed may have cost us the game, but we had a great performance today. My Bison had 6 players in double digits, 2 at 13, 3 at 12 and 1 at 10. All but 2 of my players scored but they only had 5 minutes of game time. The problem today was once again too many fouls and our rebounding. We were out rebounded 21-42 and we had 15 fouls to their 8. We have up 10 points off of our fouls and without some of those and the completion of our missed lay-ups and we would have had an upset. I did not have them practice after today's game because of their good performance but I told they should be at our gym at 9 AM tommorow for a pre-game practice.

[Brandon 2006]

November 12, 2006

Howard 0-2 (0-0) @ High Point 2-0

HLF 1 2 OT T
HOW 49 53 - 102
HP 24 42 - 66

My first win! And in blowout fashion. We came to HPU knowing that they had played the same schedule as us, against UTM and Cincinnati and they won both games that we lost. It felt great to get a big win, the only downfall was that it was not at home. Our defense was incredible, 22 steals and 8 blocks forcing 25 turnovers. We had 62 points in the paint and 73 bench points. My starters got almost the whole second half off as I let a lot of freshman gain experience. 5 men in double digits, and everyone made a bucket. Quincy Dilligard my backup power forward/center had a team leading 19 points and 8 steals. The offense was run through the point guard for the first time and all of my point guards played great. Making clean passes, taking smart shots and driving in. Defensively I switched to a man defense because zone had not worked up to this point and we were leaving people open too often. In this game we only a had a few moments of bad defensive play while HPU's players made nice shots while being covered. We have a lot of positive's to take out of this game and we will work on them in the upcoming week's praactices. We have no games next week and have an eight day break before the next game day.

[Brandon 2006]

I guess the NCAA recruiting world is a world of players betraying old friendships. All of my Canadian boys are being heavily recruited by other schools and they don't seem as interested in playing for me. So I went away from Ontario and Quebec and called some kids that I had never met, let alone seen play. I heard them on the news though because their HS team was winning the provincial championship of BC. I also contacted players from all over the world; Lithuania, Sydney, Venezuela, Montenegro, and Cameroon. I find that american players are very hard to recruit as the bigger programs can convince the players to go there to be back-ups better than I can influence the kid that he can have a guaranteed starting position by his 3rd year. With the Canadians and international recruits they want to come to the U.S and are happy to hear that they will get plenty of playing time.

Practice has gone well. All of the players are in good spirits after the victory and are working hard. Quincy Dilligard is really pushing for that starting position and Wentt would be the most likely to lose his spot, since Chapman has played very well. Taquan Barnhill is also pushing Marcel Doellman for his starting point guard position. Barnhill has looked great in practice and his ability to lead the team in the second half against High Point was amazing. The game agaisnt La Salle will be a game for my players to prove that they deserve a starting position.

On another note, I was reading the paper and my team is averaging the most points per game, with 88.3. We are tied for first in steals with 47 total. We are looking like quite the good team on paper and we do not have any top 50 teams in our upcoming schedule so we could possibly stay on the top of the stat leaderboards.

[Brandon 2006]

November 21, 2006

Howard 1-2 (0-0) @ La Salle 1-0

HLF 1 2 OT T
HOW 40 42 - 82
LAS 26 47 - 73

Another win and we improve to .500. We came out of the gate strong and ended the game strong. We began the game with a 12-2 run and we traded baskets with them until we hit another run at the end of the half to put us up by 14. Again in the second quarter we started the scoring, but they answered back and got within 9 points. With 7 minutes left they started a 2 minute run that got them within 2 points. The next 5 minutes were very intense as we would trade baskets keeping the score close. With 2 minutes they started taking intentional fouls and we went to the line. On the line we sank all 7 of our shots and we held off their offense until the time ran out. Kurt Smith kept us in the game during the last 7 minutes as he stopped their run with a 3 point shot and took smart shots that he knows he can make, which he did. He put up 29 points leading our team to victory. Regis Barker, my team co-captain put up 18 points with 7 rebounds and played very good basketball inside the paint. He took big men on and left them with their pants down and made all of his free throws in the final minutes. Our inside game was key to victory as we had 42 points in the paint. We were out rebounded again, which has and probably will be a problem all year. We only had 19 bench points which is dissapointing considering that we had 73 against High Point. We have another game this Saturday against VMI, a military school, so the players should be pretty disciplined. They are 3-0 up to this date and are a strong rebounding team.

[doncoryell]

Your doing great so far.

How is Wentt doing at center? I would think that 6'7" would be too small for the center position.

[Brandon 2006]

He's doing really well actually. He tends to be out rebounded by the bigger men but on offense he is a strong presence in the paint. I'm going to switch him and Julio Chapman around so that I have a taller center and Wentt can go back to his natural position. It is tough to rebound without a true center on the team. Thanks for reading doncoryell, your caoching career is one of the longest and best dynasty I have seen.

[superjames1992]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brandon 2006

November 12, 2006 Howard 0-2 (0-0) @ High Point 2-0 HLF 1 2 OT T HOW 49 53 - 102 HP 24 42 - 66

How dare you beat High Point!!! Just kidding!

I like this dynasty. Keep it up!