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FARMVILLE, Va. -- Longwood University
men’s basketball began practice for the
upcoming 2010-11 campaign on Friday,
October 15. The Lancers of eighth-year
head coach Mike Gillian return eight
lettermen while adding seven newcomers
to the program. Longwood finished 12-19
last season, including 9-3 at home in
Willett Hall where the program is 22-5
over the past two years and 43-20 during
the past five seasons. The Lancers,
however, will open on the road November
12 at the University of Kansas in
Lawrence at the Allen Fieldhouse
beginning at 8 p.m. Following the
opening three practices this past
weekend, we sat down with Coach Gillian
for this Q&A session that follows.
How do you replace a Dana Smith both on
and off the court?
MG: Dana Smith was here at Longwood, and
with our basketball program for an
extended period of time because of a
unique set of circumstances. When you
have a situation like we did with him
you, certainly get used to having him
around every day and get used to the
level of performance he brought to the
court on game night. As much as you do
miss players like Dana when they finish,
you have to trust that what you are
doing in building the program will lead
to the next guy stepping in and doing
the things that Dana did. While we may
not get that out of one particular
player, I do feel confident that this
team has the components to achieve the
same results we did while Dana was here
playing.
What are the goals for the program?
MG: The goals for our basketball program
don't really change very much from year
to year. There are a couple of different
ways to look at it when you talk about
goals. First are our expectations of how
we handle our responsibilities as
players, students, and people. The
foundation that you have, both
individually and collectively, as to how
you handle these expectations is a
measure of character. I know that we
have a group of high character young men
in our program and that singular trait
will allow us to learn how to do the
things necessary for us to be able to
achieve success in our basketball,
academic, and social endeavors.
Secondly, and naturally when you start
talking about success, people want to
equate your goals with a quantitative
measure like how many games do you
expect to win. That is skipping to the
end result without giving proper respect
to the process that goes into attempting
to get to that result. What I can say
about that, is we are doing a great job
right now at giving maximum effort every
day, and achieving the goal in doing
that is the first step in the
aforementioned process.
What
has been the biggest difference in
preparing for this season as opposed to
last year?
MG: Going into last year we had an
experienced group with very few new
pieces. They all had a very good idea of
what we were going to do, how we were
going to do it, and subsequently we
spent the majority of our time refining
what our whole team already understood.
Approaching this season, we have a core
group that you can put in that same
category, but we do have a large group
of new players too. The biggest
difference this year will be moving
these young guys along as quickly as
possible, and getting them ready to play
the game at this level, while not taking
anything away from the attention
necessary for our veterans' continued
development. Once we get through the
first week of practice is when we'll
really be faced with how we best
approach this situation.
What
style of play do you envision for this
team?
MG: I know that we would like to
continue to the play the style we have
worked hard to develop over the course
of the past five years. We have the
right type of players in the program to
do so but how quickly the new guys can
adapt to the college game will be a big
factor in how good we can be at it. The
style is one of applying defensive
pressure that makes it difficult on
opponents and leads to them making
mistakes, and on the offensive end,
allows us to play together in a smooth,
flowing fashion that produces good
scoring opportunities a lot of the time.
What it all adds up to, if you do it
right, is a style of play that is
exciting and fun for the players and
coaches, and for Lancer Basketball Fans
to watch. Using our first few days of
practice as evidence, I think we are
making some progress in the pursuit of
Goal #1, give maximum effort - which is
the first step in us being able to play
the style we want to.
How
good a player can Antwan Carter be this
season?
MG: The sky is the limit for Antwan
Carter for the next two years. He has
matured to the point where he
understands how much it takes to
actually prepare to be great, which is
well before the opening tip for the
first game. He arrived at Longwood two
years ago with the ability to be a
fantastic college player and he has been
a most important contributor to our
success in that time. With the positive
strides he has made, I think it is
reasonable to expect great things out of
him. Consider the fact that Antwan
averaged close to 15 points and nine
rebounds as a sophomore last year. In
all of college basketball, there were
only 21 players who averaged a
double-double for the entire season. I
believe 12 of them have departed the
college game and that leaves plenty of
room for Antwan to jump right into that
exclusive club.
Do
you see Aaron Mitchell playing a larger
role?
MG: There is no doubt Aaron Mitchell
will play a larger role on this year’s
team. Like all players coming in, it
takes awhile to become used to the speed
of the college game, the strength of the
players, and how well prepared the teams
you play against are. For Aaron, that
adjustment period was relatively quick
but still took him about half the season
last year. Once he settled in, he was
really good and it showed in his, and
our teams’, play in the latter stages of
the season. He’s done a great job in the
off-season getting ready for this year;
his performance in the preseason has
been tremendous, and we are very excited
about seeing what he will do once we get
started.
Describe the improvement by Martiz
Washington last season, and has that
carried over into preseason?
MG: Much like I could talk about with
Aaron, once you adjust to the college
game you can concentrate on developing
your skill-set that gives you the best
chance to succeed. A lot of times that
means truly understanding what your
strengths are and doing that first and
foremost. In the case of Martiz
Washington, he has been someone who
could set the tone for us defensively;
that has been the case since he first
set foot on the Longwood campus and has
never changed. He has really started to
understand where and when his scoring
opportunities are going to come from,
and when players get to that point, they
play well on offense and our team plays
very well together. In our final 10
games last year, Martiz shot 44% from
the field and 45% on three-point shots,
averaging 10.9 points. In that period,
there was a four-game stretch where he
shot 49% from the field, 52% on 3’s
(making four a game), and averaged 15.5
points.
How
important will it be to have Durann Neil
back in uniform?
MG: Two seasons ago, Durann Neil played
an important role in our team’s
performance and the subsequent positive
results. He had gotten to the point
where he had a clear understanding of
not only what he was doing, but what
everyone else on the court was doing as
well. I believe he completed that
2008-09 season in the Top 35 nationally
in assist/turnover ratio, quite an
achievement. Now that he’s completely
healthy again and has the advantage of
watching the game from (almost) a
coach’s perspective while not being able
to play last year, I think he will be
able to step right into where he left
off. His understanding of the way we
want to play will certainly be important
in helping us try to develop that same
understanding from our newer players as
quickly as possible.
What
is the biggest challenge?
MG: In the spirit of being consistent
with how I have answered some questions
in the past, I’m going to answer these
last two questions together, and answer
both of them ambiguously. Our biggest
challenge going into the season is
probably finding out which of the
newcomers, or how many of them, will
provide significant contributions. They
are all certainly capable of doing
something special during the course of
the season. Who does what, and when,
will depend entirely on how quickly they
can become effective competing at this
level. With that being said, the one guy
who we are looking to for immediate
contributions is Jeremiah Bowman. JB is
a talented young man who is a bit older
by virtue of having been in school and
competed at a high level for some time
now. For him, it’s just a matter of
fitting in with our group, which he has
done quite nicely to this point.
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