Sustained Success

"We have an opportunity to leave a legacy that's not just about one championship. It's how many can we win? Sustained success is the hardest thing in sports. It's human nature to relax and feel you've arrived. In reality, you have to sacrifice and dedicate yourself even more."

-Drew Brees

Heels' freshman Harrison Barnes a leader in the making

Great article from the Charlotte Observer on the work ethic and leadership qualities of high touted North Carolina recruit Harrison Barnes:

North Carolina freshman Harrison Barnes was practicing moves at the Smith Center on July 3 when he spotted strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian.

“So, are we going to do a workout tomorrow?” the top incoming recruit in the nation asked.

The next day – a holiday Sunday – the 6-foot-8 wing completed his 9 a.m. solo session with Sahratian with a similar question: “What time tomorrow?”

“Then the next morning, he comes in at 8:30 a.m … with Kendall [Marshall], Will Graves and Dexter Strickland,” Sahratian remembered. “I said, ‘I thought you were coming by yourself.’ He said, ‘I can’t do it all alone.’

“Right then I said, ‘OK, we’re going to be all right.’ ”

Barnes – projected as the No. 1 overall NBA pick next summer in several mock drafts – is already known for his smooth outside shot, athletic rebounding, and honed court smarts. But the Iowa native also boasts an intangible quality that might be even more important as the Tar Heels try to ricochet from the worst season in the Roy Williams era: leadership.

One of the things Williams lamented about last season’s freefall – when the reigning national champions finished 5-11 in the ACC, failed to make the NCAA tournament and only managed to win 20 games because of an NIT run – was his team’s failure to consistently work hard.

He won’t have that problem with Barnes, whose summer session dorm room boasted a pile of basketball books but no TV; who can be found working on his dribbling skills in the weight room if the court is taken; and who has become a pied piper, of sorts, when it comes to working out.

“[Coach Williams] is not going to call him a leader, because he’s a freshman,” said Strickland, a sophomore guard. “But actions speak louder than words. You don’t have to say anything, you can play, you can work out, you can set an example – and the way you present yourself can make you be a leader, alone.”

Competitive youth

Barnes has been showing those leadership qualities for years. Off the court, he was an honor roll student through high school who plans to major in business administration at UNC while, he has said, pushing for the top GPA on the team. He played soccer and the cello as a youth and still occasionally dabbles on the saxophone.

As the son of former Iowa State basketball player Ronnie Harris, who left the family when Barnes was young, basketball has always been a part of his life. But he has often credited his mom, Shirley – who works in the department of music at Iowa State, and raised him and his sister alone – for instilling his love of the game. And for keeping him humble and cementing his focus. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

Team rules prohibit UNC freshmen from talking to the media once they reach campus, until after they play in their first game.

But Vance Downs, Barnes’ coach at Ames (Iowa) High, said of the player’s mother: “She’s very driven. And I’m not sure she sleeps – she’s the type of person that’s always doing so much, I wonder if she ever goes to bed. … Without a doubt, she’s unbelievably strong, and she’s instilled that work ethic in Harrison.”

It showed early on.

Barnes’ fifth-grade coach, Jafar Azmayesh, sensed the player’s maturity the first time they met.
“That first day, we showed up to nine 10-year-olds standing there for practice, their behavior, their actions, how they carried themselves, were all on par with what 10-year-olds do,”
Azmayesh told the Iowa State Daily. “Except Harrison was more like a 17- or 18-year-old.”

His competitive spirit only grew as he did, as he worked to be the best at everything – be it eating the most spaghetti at dinner with friends or burying the most free throws at practice.

“With Harrison, the simplest drill becomes a cutthroat experience,” Downs said. “It just spreads, everybody becomes challenged. And the team gets better.”

Now, fans are hoping that carries over at UNC, as well.

In just the couple of months Barnes has been in Chapel Hill, sophomore John Henson said, teammates have seen him staying after pick-up games to shoot – and they stay, too.

Roommates hear him getting up early to work out, and they do, too.

His drive is so tangible that it has drawn comparisons to Tyler Hansbrough, UNC’s all-time leading scorer who helped the Tar Heels surpass expectations his freshman season in 2005-06, and ultimately pushed them to the 2009 national title.

“He is the high school version of Tyler in some ways, because he’s the most focused high school player I’ve ever recruited, the most disciplined high school player I’ve ever recruited,” Williams said. “Tyler was that way and took it to another two or three levels after he got here.”

A ‘workaholic’

Now the question is: Will Barnes do the same?

Like Hansbrough in 2005, the 205-pound wing joins a team with question marks. But unlike Hansbrough in 2005, he’s been dubbed the preseason savior – something Williams thinks is far from fair.

The coach has insisted he doesn’t need Barnes to be the team’s leader. Instead, “I need him to play his rear end off.” But asked if a freshman can lead, he gave two prime examples. There was Jacque Vaughn at Kansas, to whom “everybody listened, and if Jacque said it was sunshiny – and it could be raining like crap – 13 people believed the sun was shining.” And there was Hansbrough, who didn’t talk much early on, but set an example by scoring 40 points against Georgia Tech his freshman season and outworking everyone in the weight room.

“That’s the reason he was a good leader,” Williams said, “because people watched him and said, ‘He’s pretty good, we’d better play ourselves.’ ”

Sound familiar?

“[Harrison] is a workaholic, he wants to get better, and that factor alone drives me,” Strickland said. “His work ethic alone should motivate everyone on the team – not, ‘I want to be as good,’ but ‘I want to be better [than him].’ So I look at it as a motivation tool. … And hopefully, it will make all of us better.”

Barnes, who joins point guard Kendall Marshall and Reggie Bullock in a star-studded recruiting class, is expected to start – and put up impressive numbers from the outset. But it’s the tone he is setting off the court now that could impact UNC’s season the most.
D
owns, his high school coach, likes to tell the story of the time that, as a 14-year-old freshman, Barnes phoned, begging to use the team’s weight room – even though Downs had given the team a week off for spring break.

“Coach,” Barnes told him, “we aren’t going to win state championships by taking a week off.”
So Barnes didn’t take the week off. And he went on to score a school record 1,787 points, and help the Little Cyclones win back-to-back titles, before he graduated.

Possession Focus By Kevin Eastman

Focus is a big phrase in sports. We constantly hear coaches and players talking about having to “focus more” or “focus better” or “improve our focus." Without question, this is an aspect of sports that we all know needs to improve, yet we’re all still searching for the best way to make sure it gets done consistently.

To ask a team to focus for a full game is a worthy demand, but to expect this to happen is often a frustrating exercise for a coach. Though I don't have a tested and proven solution, I strongly believe we must try to address the art of focusing, as it is a major factor of success.

Make focusing an every minute/every day endeavor for your team. Give it verbal repetition (coaches constantly reminding players) every time you hit the floor. Define it even more by having your team become a group that focuses on one possession at a time, no matter if it’s a drill or a scrimmage. Get them thinking and trying to maintain focus for short periods of time while in practice to start the habit.

Drills are designed to improve a specific area of the game; constantly remind your team what this specific area is for each drill they're working on. Demand that they truly focus on this intended area of drilling. Stop the drill when it gets sloppy, and remind them of the intent and focus of the drill. Get them to focus on the execution possession by possession in every drill and scrimmage.

I believe focus is the ability to know what to do, how to do it, and actually doing it that way every time through intense concentration. Demand this concentration every possession until it builds into a game in/game out habit.

These are steps toward developing focus. The major responsibility first falls with the leaders of the team -- your staff and any player who may be a leader. They actually have to have a focus first, before they can begin to remind the other players to focus and concentrate every possession. Just as we improve skills through repetition, we can improve focus through repetition. Focusing every possession every day will get you on the road to improving in an area that can be a big time difference-maker for your team!

Forward Thinking

Florida coach Billy Donovan is big on bringing in other players and coaches to talk to his team. A couple of years ago Bill Belicheck met with the team shortly before the SEC tournament. Florida was #1 in the country and Donovan wanted to make sure the team did not get full of themselves.

Belicheck showed them a video of the Breeders' Cup (which is a horse race) and paused the tape halfway through the race with the outcome still up in the air. He asked the team "Who will win? The horse with the most experienced jockey? The horse who has won the most money? The horse with the best odds prior to the race?" The team was puzzled, "No, it's the horse that runs the best race from here on out. You can't focus on prior accomplishments/failures, you must only foucs on the present and doing your best the next play."

Focus, work ethic sends Michigan State to Final Four

Big time performance from Tom Izzo's Michigan State Spartans yesterday in their 64-52 win over top seeded Louisville. I posted last week about how Coach Izzo stated that he thought his team was starting to 'get it' in terms of how to be winners. A couple of articles from espn.com and the Detroit Free Press show the mental preparation that the Spartans took into Sunday. According to the coach and players the victory started at their shootaround yesterday morning:

At 10 Sunday morning, the Michigan State basketball team reported for its walkthrough in a basement ballroom of the downtown Hilton.

What the Spartans showed their coach in that room was a monumental focus on the mission to reach the Final Four in their home state.

"They were locked in like they were in the army," Tom Izzo marveled. "I felt like saluting them.
"I went from worrying about things to leaving there saying, 'We're going to win the game.'"

Said freshman Draymond Green:

“We had a walk-through this morning,” freshman Draymond Green said. “Coach told us, ‘I can see it in somebody’s eyes when they’re ready, and I think they’re ready to play.’ And he could see it when we walked through the door before the walk-through, that we were gonna win this game.”

Senior captain Travis Walton was instrumental in helping his team gain the right mindset going into the game. His leadership has been noted in this blog before and continues to impress me everytime I read something on him:

Credit for taking Louisville forward Terrance Williams out of the game goes largely to Walton, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. Despite giving away 6 inches, the rugged senior guard declared to his coaches Friday night, "I got Williams."

"The job he did on Williams was incredible," Izzo said.

If the Spartans had lost, he would have become the only four-year player in the Izzo Era not to have reached a Final Four -- a streak he did not want to see end on his watch. Michigan State staffers said Walton single-handedly demanded that his teammates approach this game with total focus.

"I had pressure," Walton said. "Seniors had pressure. Our underclassmen had pressure to deliver this last class and get them to the Final Four so Coach can go on the road, anywhere he goes, and say ... 'You know what, I know you watched the Final Four on TV, I know you dream about going there. If you come to Michigan State University ... we're going to get you to a Final Four.'

"And now he can say that to every person, look them in the eyes and not have to say, 'There was one player I did not get [to the Final Four].' ... Thank you, Coach, and our coaching staff."

Commitment to the Team

Good stuff from Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro (shown left) talking about his high draft picks Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. Both players were top 10 picks in the draft (Thomas 2 years ago, Noah last year) and have not quite reached their potential so far as NBA players. Here is what Coach Del Negro has to say about the situation:

Del Negro said of them: "They're young and have to find their way. When you're on the court, you have to value those minutes. The guys who are focused, know their role, commit to it and come with effort every day will play.

"I can handle mistakes. But I can't handle lack of effort. And I can't handle lack of commitment to the team. Those guys know that. They're working better. That's always a work in progress with a young team."

"Commitment is coming in with energy every day, with focus, trying to get better, lifting weights, being on time, paying attention in meetings, being ready to play, knowing what your role is, who you're guarding, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how you can affect the team in a positive way," he said. "Commitment is being a professional, working every day to get better individually. As that happens, the team gets better."

"It's not just one guy," Del Negro said. "As a team, we have to jell and there are always bumps. If guys commit to the team, they'll get a chance."

Derek Fisher is tired of blowing leads

Point guard offers a reminder to Lakers of what they want to avoid. From the L.A. Times:

Derek Fisher had seen this type of behavior too many times, so he acted quickly.The steadying influence in the Lakers' locker room felt the need to approach the whiteboard after another close call Friday against Washington and write a simple phrase -- "Boston Finals" -- followed by the number 24, a reference to a more painful time in recent team history.

The Lakers have frittered away large second-half leads in many games this season, reminding Fisher of the 24-point advantage they lost in Game 4 of last season's NBA Finals.

"That was a window of opportunity to be champions, to take that series to 2-2 with the fifth game on our home court," Fisher said. "We did the same thing that we're starting to do now -- allow teams to get back into a game by executing poorly on offense, turning the ball over, taking poor shots and becoming porous on defense. I just wanted to kind of remind us that if we want to get back to that point, we have to correct this now."

"Tired more so than alarmed," he said. "How many times do you want to bump your head against the same brick wall? The wall's not going to give. Why expend the mental and physical energy that it takes to have to rebuild momentum like that over the course of a 100-plus-game season?

"Nobody says you have to beat anybody by 20. However, if you do put yourself in a position where you're up 16 or you're up 20, we're talented enough and we're good enough that we should be able to extend that lead or hold it."We're not doing it. I don't know if we're getting bored or just losing that immediate focus that we start the game with. We definitely need to improve quickly."

Fisher isn't alone in his thinking.

Kobe Bryant said Friday's victory didn't "sit right" with him because the Lakers were "not moving in the right direction."

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Very impressive for a team that is leading the Western Conference to still be concerned about the way they are playing!