Blogging the Journey: Gotta Have a PhD!

It has been a while since my last "Blogging the Journey" post. We have hit the meat of our schedule and are wrapped in a tight race for first place during conference play. It's talked about all the time..."you don't want to be playing your best basketball early in the season." That statement could not be any more accurate. We experienced some adversity early on in the season, going through a culture change with more focus on getting stops at the defensive end, the aches and pains of coming together and gelling as a team. We have over come those to win the last five out of six games.

We had a nice trip to D.C. just after the New Year that helped us come together as a team. It could not have come at a better time! We lost a tough game to Marymount University, a game that we could have easily won. Unfortunatley, they out executed us on both ends to win 74-62. However, we bounced back nicely in the consolation game with a 65-63 win over Mt. Saint Mary's (NY). Congrats to Joey Stevenson for the well deserved honor of reaching the tournament's all-tourney team.
Since that win, we have won four in a row to climb to second place in the AMC Conference standings. This includes wins over Hilbert, Franciscan and most recently, over the weekend, LaRoche. LaRoche was a huge win for us, probably our biggest win thus far. They are tied for the lead in the conference and it was an important and well deserved road win for us. To win on the road you must prepare, execute and stay poised, which we did all 3. We are finally buying in to the concept of team play and getting stops and converts! If we want to accomplish our goal of reaching the playoffs, we must win all of our remaining home games and steal as many road victories as we can! Up next...Penn State Altoona, another leader in the conference, but more importantly a backyard rival.

My wife, or "Santa Claus" for all who still believe, got me the new Rick Pitino book, "Rebound Rules 2.0" for Christmas. It was the only thing I asked for and I highly recommend it to anybody who has ever been faced with adversity, which is everyone! I mean, come on...if you have not faced adversity in you life, you have not lived, you have not challenged yourself! Anyhow, the book is great and Pitino provides his personal philosophy for dealing with adverse situations and the importance of reflecting on those situations to help allow yourself to grow from them and move forward in a positive direction. In Chapter 3, Pitino talks about his players having a "PhD". No, he does not recruit kids who plan to go forward for their Ph D, following graduation, he is talking about having Passion, Hunger and Drive. He learned this from a friend who works on Wall-Street, who he asked one time how he recruits people to come work for his firm in NYC. Pitino imagined that they be recruited from Havard Business School, Princeton, etc. But, to much of his suprise, his friend told him that he recruits people that have a "Ph D" - people who are poor, hungry and driven. Pitino changed the P from poor to passionate, but it still has the same meaning. I started thinking about the idea of having a "Ph D" and how it relates to our team and the way we have been playing lately. I honestly believe that we have a group of kids who are passionate for the game of basketball, who have committed themselves to working hard, playing together and buying into the philosophy of Coach Loya. Then you have hunger...if you want to be successful at achieving your goals, you must be hungry for success. Often times, success or wins can be taken forgranted because you are so used to it...victory becomes the norm and when something becomes normal, it tends to loose its "taste". That's why you must always be humble in victory and appreciate the effort that is put forth to achieve that success, while understanding that it is never garaunteed and never the norm. Having humilty in victory or success, will keep you hungry and I think right now we are hungry for success. We have "tasted" the fruits of hardwork and committment through some of the recent success that we have had. Finally, in order to achieve success or reach maximum potential, you must be driven. This drive starts with head coach, Lance Loya, who does a great job of instilling drive into our players on a daily basis by way of energy and enthusiasm, preparation and reminding everyone of our vision and what we need to do to make our dreams a reality...having a Ph D for success!

Stay humble, stay hungry and stay driven and let's make it 6 out of 7!

Go Mounties!