PU hoops out of time
By: Justin Feil
"Time is on my side" are not the sort of lyrics in John Thompson’s head.
Time has run out. Official practices begin Saturday and it’s important that the new Princeton University head men’s basketball coach work efficiently if he is to mold the Tiger team into winners.
"I knew since I was hired Sept. 8, you don’t have the luxury of time," Thompson said. "The things that happened, they weren’t out of the ordinary. Having a guy go hardship, which is really what Chris Young’s case is, is normal. Having a coach go, that’s normal. Having a guy transfer, it happens. But normally it happens in May. We had it all happen in September."
Thompson has compared himself more to a fireman, extinguishing one small fire after another, than a coach. But Saturday the coaching begins. And it begins without Bill Carmody, who holds his first practice at Northwestern that same day, without Joe Scott, who holds his first day of practice at Air Force, and without Chris Young, who’s now in the Ivy League’s eyes a professional baseball player and without Spencer Gloger, now UCLA Bruin, and Ray Robins, who’s home in California for a year.
"We’re going to need more contributions from everyone up and down the line," admitted Thompson, who rounded out his coaching staff with Robert Burke, a high school teammate of his who was an assistant with Siena last year. "We are not going to have the offensive firepower we thought we’d have as short as a month ago and we’re not going to have some of the size we thought we’d have.
"But we still feel pretty good. I see Eugene Baah, who started some for us, Chris Krug who started for us in the past, Ahmed (El-Nokali) who has been a starter and C.J. Chapman who has started a lot for us. We have Nate Walton, the captain, who this team revolves around and we have Mike Bechtold who has started and played significant minutes with the injuries we had last year."
Thompson said that at a pre-season team meeting, he cleared the air about putting behind them who’s missing and who will make up the current Princeton Tiger team.
"We tried to set the tone right away," he said. "We had the meeting in the morning and we gave them until the afternoon to get together and cry about who wasn’t going to be there. Then we said, ‘This is who we have. We have a good group of guys who are working hard. We have to figure out some way to go forward.’"
Going forward begins in earnest Saturday. It won’t be until Nov. 4 in Princeton’s first scrimmage against the California All-Stars at Jadwin Gym that fans will get their first look at the Tigers.
But that’s all they’ll need to see. Practices, according to Thompson, will look much as they have the past 30 years at Old Nassau.
"I just think the way we’ve been doing it is best," he said.
But what gets done in practice must be more constructive than any time in the past when the Tigers consider the sort of out-of-league schedule that begins Nov. 14 at Duke and the challenge facing them to win the Ivy League this season.
"More so this year than any other year, the preseason is going to be a feeling out process to see who we’ll get contributions from," Thompson said. "In the past, you had a feel going in who your top guys are going to be and what your rotation will be. We don’t necessarily have that.
"We have to feel our way through the preseason. What’s always been important is winning the Ivy League. We have to use the pre-league schedule to prepare us as much as we can."
Despite the graduation loss of Mason Rocca and the aforementioned exits of three other expected contributors, Thompson believes he has capable players. Because of the rash of injuries last season, players like Bechtold, who hit the game-winning basket against Monmouth last season, got some playing time they might otherwise have not received.
"I think what it’s done is those guys who played before have a confidence level," said Thompson, who will also look for contributions from three freshmen – Ed Persia, Andre Logan and Konrad Wysocki. "It’s added to their sense of being a big part of the team."
Saturday that team starts taking shape. It’s just a matter of weeks before the season begins, and Princeton needs to get a lot done in that span.
As John Thompson knows, there isn’t much time.