Non Conference Report Card

[reeder]

Haven't seen any games since UCLA on television a few weeks back, but clearly things aren't going well.

 

In most corporations, employees are given a mid year grade and specific feedback on how to improve for the year end review. Given the state of the program, I thought it would be good to give them a mid season grade.

 

Overall Grade would be a D.

 

Player for player, UA has the best talent in the conference. They should not be blown out at home against Harvard (missing 2 of their best players) or have to make a late comeback against Sacred Heart.

 

Yes, expectations were high this year, but the team is coming no where near those expectations to date. Even if they aren't winning, the performance should be better.

 

I do think that they can win the AE. Again, they have the best talent in the conference. I also think that Brown has excellent coaches with proven track records. It's also a very weak conference.

 

The challenge for Brown is to begin to win before he loses the players. The next few games are critical, not just for the program, but for Brown personally. If they don't get off to a good start in conference, I believe that it will be difficult to keep the players on board (consistent effort) and that is when a coaches job is in jeopardy.

 

Not sure how this gets turned around, but maybe the captains meet with the rest of the team and have a discussion about what they think needs to be done differently?

[Dane Pound]

I agree with you Reeder about the talent level and that some good things are going to happen in conference play and hopefully beyond.

 

My theory about our problems so far is that young coaches are going to struggle against veteran coaches when both teams have some talent. Not counting our power conference losses, the other four games against Sacred Heart (Bike), Siena (McCafferty), SDSU (Fischer) and the Harvard game have all been against guys who have coached a long time.

 

I think generally those "older" coaches have through the years learned how to install several defenses with their teams and switch between them during games to one that works. I saw it happen with the Siena game and again on Saturday. Teams switch to a tricky zone or concel their zone and we don't know how to attack it. Mike Deane's obscure "triangle and two" defense of last year or the year before come to mind.

 

This is in no way an inditement of Brown, just an observation. Every good coach has to start out as a young coach and right now he is both.