The Legacy of Dale Norman - CH2k8 Legacy

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How it all came together

Sometimes life takes you down unexpected paths. Dale Norman was a star basketball player in a small town of Forest City, Iowa. A small college by the name of Waldorf College was located there, and this is where Dale's career took off. In his two year's at Waldorf Dale averaged 24.4 points per game, and 11.3 assists per game. After posting such great number Dale had the opportunity to transfer to a small division one school in Chicago. The school was Chicago state. In his two years in the program he averaged 8.3 points per game, and 4.5 assists per game.

After posting numbers that were more down to earth in division one basketball Dale knew he didn't have a chance at going pro. He still wanted to be a part of basketball though, and he knew his best chance at that was coaching. After he graduated Chicago State offered him a job as a GA, in which he was there for two years. Now age 24, and being done with his GA, he know took a job as an assistant at Tulane. During his three years at Tulane the team was a little above average, but the impressive thing was the recruiting job he was doing. He was the head coach's main recruiter, and he brought the first ever top 25 class in to Tulane. Some bigger school's took notice of this. After his three year deal at Tulane was up, he decided to not accept an extension and went looking for other jobs.

The move to go look for a bigger job really paid off for Dale, because he had assistant coaching offers from Louisville, Illinois, Iowa, Texas A&M, Florida, and many more. However, the move that Dale made was the smartest one when he took a job under Billy Donovan at Florida. He only spent two years at Florida, one of which the Gators won the SEC, and that brings us to where we are today.

After impressing at the higher level schools, and even the lower tier teams too, Dale Norman has received his first college basketball head coaching job, and it is at Long Island! Congrats to Dale on his first job ever as a head coach.

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Reserved for Table of Contents

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Reserved for season recaps

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Reserved for All time leaders under coach Norman

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LIU Releases 2007-2008 Basketball Schedule




* Indicates conference game
Purple background indicates invitational tournament

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Season Preview

The Blackbirds have a very young and inexperienced team that will be taking the floor this year. Mix this along with a new head coach and things could get ugly at times. The tallest player on the team is 6'7" so things will get ugly if teams throw the ball down low. They only play three seniors, and will have a tough time getting rebounds. The best player on the team is Lex Wilkerson. Lex can shoot the three ball which helps spread out the defense. Point guard Bennie Childress is also an average player, but will see a lot of minutes without a consistent backup guard. The Blackbird's will graduate four seniors this year so Dale will get to use his recruiting ability quickly with four incoming players this next off-season.

*P.S Feel free to post!

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Simulated Game Recap




Thoughts from coach Dale: "This is a game where the better team won. I am proud of the way our guys fought today. We knew we were out talented, but I didn't want us to be out hustled, which we weren't. I know it is only one game, and we didn't win the game but this has to be a morale victory for us. Notre Dame is one of the best teams in the nation and we were right with them at half time. I liked what I saw today, now we need to get focused on Army."

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Re: The Legacy of Dale Norman - CH2k8 Legacy

(Ortiz drives in for a layup)

Army come's back, wins 69-63

This is a game that slipped right thru the fingers of the Long Island Blackbirds. After winning for the entire game up until the 4:33 mark when it was 52-52, and then Army's Jarrod Ortiz hit a three to put the Blacknights up by three.

That is when the crowd got into because they knew that they had a chance at winning the game, and they did. It is unfortunate for the Blackbirds because this would have been the first win for LIU, and the first win of Dale Norman's career.

The Blackbirds were led by Senior Small Forward Lex Wilkerson. Wilkerson led the team in scoring with 25 points on 9-21 shooting. 6 of those shots came from behind the arc.

However, the most impressive performance of the night came from Jarrod Ortiz who we talked about above. The Shooting Guard had 35 points for Army, which included 5 three pointers on 7 attempts.

LIU has their first home game of the year next Tuesday against Columbia (2-1).

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Simulated Games Recap



The first game that we will be recapping is also the first time the Blackbirds, and Dale Norman got to play in their home gym. We were hoping it would work out for the better because they were 0-2 on the road so far, but it didn't go as planned. Nobody on the Blackbird roster could get any scoring going today, which has seemed to be a common theme in the early year. Dwon Wilson was the high scorer, but even he only had 10 points. Columbia was led by Power Forward Roscoe Minniefield who scored 16 on 4-10 shooting, but was 6-7 from the line. The Blackhawks drop the game 65-52.

The second game, again at home this time against Canisuis was a heart breaker in two ways. The Blackbird's lost the game on a buzzer beater, and Shooting Guard Dwon Harris strained his back. His return should be in 3 weeks. Now onto the game. The game was back and forth the entire time, with LIU being down two at the half. However they battled back in the second half, led by Center Gerrod Pritchard who had 18 points, 16 of which were in the second half. However, Canisuis had the better player today in Lionel Tsagarkis, the Small Forward out of France. Lionel had 27 points in the game, and buried the game winning three pointer to sink the Blackbirds to 0-4, and losing the game 78-77.

Game three was a road game, which also included the biggest challenge of the four simulated games. Saint John's is a tough place to play, and it was proven today. If this game was played 10 times, the series is probably split 5-5. However today Saint John's got the best winning 64-60. Nobody on Saint John's scored over 15 points which shows the kind of balanced attack that they put on LIU. LIU was led by Gerrod Pritchard once again who had 14 points and nine rebounds.

The fourth, and last game featured Hartford who came into the game 2-6, and the most winnable game of the four because it was being played on our home floor. The Blackbird's did not disappoint and they came out of the game with the first win of the year, and of Dale Norman's career. This was once again a low scoring game that the Blackbird's win 59-48. Gerrod Pritchard was the leading scorer for the third time this sim, and scored 14 again. He also added 7 rebounds.

With the end of this week that means it is now in-season signing week. We got a chance to catch up with coach Norman and asked him about the plans, and what he did this past week to prepare for signing week.

"We have four scholarship's available, and I have offered all four scholarships at this time. We are recruiting six kids, but I have chosen the four I think fit best with us. With two games this week the assistants and I could only have a total of four visits. We visited the four that we have offered. The highest rated, and highest target on our list is a Small Forward named Cleveland Curtis. He is a three star out of Queens, and is the 261st best player in the class. We are pushing really hard at hime."

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Recruiting Board



*Green background indicates LIU is the top school*
*Yellow background indicates LIU is a top three school*
*Pink background indicates LIU is a top ten school*
*Red background indicates recruit has signed elsewhere*

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Blackbirds drop 1st conference game



The out of conference season is over -- Oh wait, nevermind. For some reason when the league was making the schedule they decided it would be a good idea to put two random conference games in the middle of the non-conference schedule, so teams are not playing as well as they would be if it was "conference season."

Well that above statement was true today, for one of the teams. Unfortunately that team was the team we are all cheering for, the LIU Blackbirds. Once again the team failed to score points, which is what you need to do if you want to win ballgames. Today they only managed to score 58, which is 4 lower than their season average of 62.3.

Once again, the Blackbirds played with their opponent for the first half, in which they were only down ten. However the difference was the start of the second half in which Mount Saint Mary's went on a twelve point run putting them up 22. After that the game was over and they never looked back.

The Blackbirds have Farleigh Dickinson coming to town on Saturday for the other conference game, and Dale will be out recruiting on Friday.

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Re: The Legacy of Dale Norman - CH2k8 Legacy

I'll get an update in either tonight or tomorrow night.

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Re: The Legacy of Dale Norman - CH2k8 Legacy

Simulate Games Recap



Dale's thoughts: Team played great. It feels good to get our first conference win under our belt. That team isn't great, but we won. Lex played good, we have things to improve on.



Dale's thoughts: I was hoping we could win that game. New Hampshire is a good team, they have only lost one game this year. We were not clicking offensively tonight. If we are going to contend in this conference, even though this wasn't a conference game, that is going to require us scoring points.



Dale's thoughts: Another good opponent tonight, just like the last few games. We don't have any cupcakes on our schedule, and I like that. Childress played really good tonight, both shooting and passing. We need him to start playing every game like he did tonight, because we are only as good as our point guard will be.



Dale's Thoughts: Wow, that was just one hell of a game from Lex tonight. He hasn't shot that good all year, but I knew it was coming. Other teams had to know it too. He is an all-conference type player, and I feel like the game tonight is going to give him some confidence. Childress had himself another game too. I like the way were trending. Guys are looking forward to the little tournament down in Memphis now. Belmont is a good team, glad we get a shot at them.