New Assistant Basketball Coach: Roger Powell, Jr.

[FWalum]

Character and integrity, everything I hear about this guy says he has them.  Those would probably be my top two "wants" when looking for staff additions.  We know the guy must have pretty decent basketball acumen from just looking at his resume, those guys are a dime a dozen, but add to it character, integrity and ministry.... I couldn't agree with Bryce more, this is a very good fit.

[bg321]

I don't think Coach Powell's lack of coaching experience will matter at all.

To me, the two most important things about the HC and the assistants are:

1-Players have to naturally (as in unforced) respect the coaches as coaches and human beings. Players will not rally around coaches they don't respect. Never happens.

2-The coaches have to be natural leaders. Natural leaders are people whom others naturally follow... People who people want to follow because their subconscious intuition tells them it is in their best interest to follow. I think it's how we're all wired.

I think those two characteristics are required in order to have total team chemistry (coaches and players). And that factors into success more than individual talent or experience in a coach or a player.

So, if chemistry is created within our young (some have said inexperienced) coaches and collection of returning, freshmen, transfers, and foreign players, the team will be successful. From what I've been hearing, that chemistry has already started germinating with this team.

Ask yourself which of the following will be more successful:
• Most talented vocalist... or entertainer who has the best chemistry with fans
• Best looking couple... or couple with best chemistry
• Actor who graduated at the top of the class from Juilliard... or actor who creates best chemistry with audiences
• Miami Heat... or Dallas Mavericks (2011 editions)
• Ole Miss... or Valpo (1998 editions)
You get the point.

Tidbit: Word is Vashil will be at the school tomorrow.

[sectionee]

Vashil is already there, although maybe not "officially".

[valpotx]

Great examples, and I especially like the Mavs vs. overrated Heat example ;-).  Nothing shows chemistry more than what we did in the Finals.  You could just tell from the looks on everyone's faces that the Mavs were in it as a group, whereas the Heat looked down and were pointing fingers...

[milanmiracle]

This team has two projects at the center position so it's good to see more coaching help for the bigs.

I don't know anything about Powell, but I see he's listed as 6-6 and played SF.  SF is closer to PF and C than our mostly guard-oriented coaching staff, but I wonder how much first-hand knowledge he has about low post offense and defense.  That said, he could be a big help in developing our mid-sized guys like Rowdy, Jakolis and Edwards.

They might have listed him as a SF, but he played alot at the PF position in college. The primary lineup for that Illinois team was J. Augustine, R. Powell Jr., Dee Brown, L. Head and D. Williams. Augustine wasn't really a 5, played a 3 guard lineup and left Powell to do the rebounding. I remember him shooting a 3, missing and following his own shot, grabbing the rebound and dunking it in the Final 4. Impressive.

All told, he'll bring some toughness to Valpo, that's for sure.