Leadership

[NorCalJack]

Well the other Oral Roberts game thread was drifting to this topic so I thought I would start a new thread. I know some question why Cordova would make the statement to TV that he did and questioned who is the leader of this team. To me the only real answer is the Sophomores are the leaders of this team.

You have to remember that we only have 4 Seniors on the team and one of them is red-shirting (Mackenzie). Of the other three, only Loney has played with any of the Sophomores. Beran sat out a year and has only played with Loney, Berte (part of a season), Mackenzie (red-shirt) and maybe Engen (but he was red-shirting that year). So really Beran has not played many games with anyone on the roster. Hard for him to be a leader of a team that he hardly knows. It is also hard for Loney to be a leader when you are the 8 or 9 guy off the bench.

A leader needs to be a starter and right now we usually start two freshman, two sophomores and one senior (Beran). It is also difficult for a freshman to be your leader and since we have no Juniors, the Sophmores are the leaders of the team. Cordova may be a Freshman, but he did red-shirt last year and really is a Sophomore.

This is still a really young team and we still need some post help. Next year with the addition of Davis and hopefully a late big man signee we are going in the right direction. But for this year we have what we have and I expect this team to improve as the year go along.

Go State!!!

[BTownJack]

Re: Leadership

Despite Baren being late for a shoot around, he's still a leader of the team. If not THE leader of the team. His style of play is the kind we all want to see and I'm willing to bet a lot of the guys on the team feed off of that.

Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is. My take is that this season is going to be a bit of a roller-coster and right now we are in a dip, not a rise. I'm guessing the U of M game is not going to help but it certainly might give us some more optimism. I'm not expecting us to win but if we can stay comptitive I will be really happy.

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: Leadership

I'm with BTownJack on this issue. I fully expect Ben and the team to respond with a great effort against Minnesota and as we continue into the conference schedule. He's a good kid and my guess is he will respond with a renewed effort that will help the team rally.

Only those within the team no how much of a factor the flu and other factors were last weekend. That doesn't matter anymore. It's all about how the team responds! If the leadership is there than they will get better. My money is on a strong repsonse from the whole team.

Winning at a Minnesota is a tough task but that "us against the world" attitude is what they have to have and bring to the court every game!

SUPERBUNNY

[JackJD]

Re: Leadership

Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is.

Good point.

[Nidaros]

Re: Leadership

There are two things that are important to me and lower my expectations of the final outcome of this season.

1. We are not solid at the post position. We seem to match up at 1,2,3 and sometimes at 4 real well with most teams. I think Ben is our best bet for the post position, but after that we are kind of thin. Berte is still recovering from an injury and Mark is a role player. I look for us to have mismatchs here until we get some true post players. Maybe my assessment of Berte and Engen is off the mark, but its up to them to change my mind.

2. The youth of the team makes it hard for them to come together as a unit. I think they are trying very hard, but again, progress is slow. We can not afford any more departures period. I have no reason to believe that will happen. I hoping wins over Idaho and U of Denver will pick up our spirits after this weekend. Who knows, we could surprise the world when we play the U OF MN.

[joeboo22]

Re: Leadership

Dude it was a bad road trip plain and simple.... they were late for flights, sick, bad practices, late for shoot arounds, played bad, lost, and then were late for the flight home...... I'm just going to say that it was a bad road trip both on and off the court we don't need to get into who is the leader and who should be the leader and start pointing fingers at whose to blame for the losses.... they just need to get better and I think it will come with more experience playing together....

[JimmyJack]

Re: Leadership

I think the illness was a bigger deal than people are letting on. In his coach's show this morning, Coach Nagy talked a bit more about it and said that was a big factor. He wasn't making excuses, just saying that there were a bunch of guys who were feeling pretty sick.

The show will be posted sometime tomorrow.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Leadership

I'm not expecting a win on Wednesday, but would sure like to see us play better than the ORU game. I hope the flu played more of a role in our lack of effort on Saturday than any of the other excuses that are out there. This is a game where we need Beran and Berte to show up and defend the Gophers post otherwise this will be ugly!

[jack power]

Re: Leadership

Dude it was a bad road trip plain and simple.... they were late for flights, sick, bad practices, late for shoot arounds, played bad, lost, and then were late for the flight home...... I'm just going to say that it was a bad road trip both on and off the court we don't need to get into who is the leader and who should be the leader and start pointing fingers at whose to blame for the losses.... they just need to get better and I think it will come with more experience playing together....

I would agree with most of this. This was the "perfect storm" of road trips, but it happened and it's time to move on.

Although i think it's fine to discuss a team leader here, i think a leader has to emerge from this team. I also think this is critical for this young team, i just hope somebody wants the job....i don't care who it is.