The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Donnie Marsh Blog
3/17/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 17, 2010
It's a happy St. Patty's Day in these parts. It feels good to end up on the high side of the scoreboard following our victory over Coastal Carolina in our first round NIT game last night. It had been a while since we last celebrated a win...too long in my opinion. It had been a while since we had played well enough to earn one. It had been a while since our guys have played as relaxed and comfortable as they did last night. It had been a while since we saw smiles on their faces when they were leaving the floor after a game. You can get to a point where you take some of those things for granted. It's best not to! Winning is hard! It can never be taken for granted. It's something you have to work towards on a daily basis and you have to fully appreciate it when it happens. Winning requires that you constantly evaluate and reevaluate what you did to earn that victory. Sometimes you can fall into a trap of trying to move forward without taking a peak back. Last night for instance, when you consider how well we played in the first half and the fact that we won the game, I wasn't completely satisfied because I didn't think we closed the game out very efficiently. The old saying, "a win is a win" is definitely in play here, but when your goal is to continue winning you have to take note of the mistakes you made that might cause you problems in trying to close out future opponents. There were signs last night of the team that got off to such a great start this season. There were also signs of the team that went into a late season swoon. That spells inconsistency and in the postseason inconsistency can end your season prematurely. Your next opponent is looking for any chink in your armor, any edge they can find to knock you off. We gave NC State, our next opponent too many things to choose from last night. But I am happy we have some time to address those things with our team. We don't play until Saturday, so we'll be back in the "lab" today trying to straighten those things out. I always say it's nice to be able to teach those lessons after a win. If we want to "continue teaching", we have to dissect our flaws, get them corrected and then hit the floor better prepared to compete for a full 40 minutes. We'll get there.
NC State won in a close one last night at South Florida. They have played well over the past few games, making it to the ACC Tournament semi-finals before losing to Georgia Tech. It will be the 2nd ACC team we have faced this year. I thought the fans that came out last night did a great job bringing energy into the building. My expectation is that Saturday's crowd will do the same. Keep in mind that by the time we play NC State the number of teams still playing in postseason will have diminished quite a bit. We'll still be playing. We need your help to make sure that is the case after this weekend. GO BLAZERS!!!
