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Has anyone thought about why our big men have not developed in under Davis? Of course they have to be eligible to play but in the Anderson years our big men were very skilled, despite playing in a more guard oriented system.

Davis' system seems to be more big man friendly but we have not seen much progress in our bigs.

Do we need to bring Coach Giles back?

The only big man that Davis has recruited is Mayfield and he is developing quite nicely. I hear he has mastered the spelling of the word C-A-T and is working on D-O-G next week.

We have big men on our team?

Mayfield is also progressing in his administration of pregame flying ass bumps.

(01-05-2009 03:25 PM)FNblazer Wrote:  Mayfield is also progressing in his administration of pregame flying ass bumps.

and handing out towels during timeouts. Nothing beats a 6'10" towel boy.

Let's face it, evidence to form such a conclusion is lacking.

Davis can't be faulted yet for non-development of big men, but perhaps he can be faulted for that very lack of evidence.

I can't help but like Howard, though. He's not a blazing ball of fire, but is rather methodical and studied in his play, maybe too much so. Nevertheless, I think he tries hard but isn't a "natural" and is usually outmanned.

During Davis's first year, he had Kerry Rupp as an assistant, and I remember many posters claiming he was doing a fantastic job coaching the bigs. Then, he went to La Tech.

Last year, Donewald, I believe, was the one responsible for the development of the bigs, and he was heavily criticized. Obviously, he has moved on.

This year, we really don't have many bigs to work with, but if it means anything, Kinnard has done well at the 5 position this season.

I don't think this answers the question, but perhaps people who attend practices can provide comments based on my comments about the coaching of the bigs.

I'd try hard but you wouldn't want me out there. Crawford seems to have a talent issue that trying hard will never overcome.

As for Mayfield, he is not just a towel boy. He is also a 6'10" scholarship cheerleader.

Vaden already was in Davis' hip pocket when he came here. In the 3 year's since the only players of any substance that Davis has brought to UAB are AJ and Toney.

Crawford has talent but he as little where it counts and that is heart. That's what separate him from the likes of the Griffins of the world as well as the kid from Louisville.

(01-05-2009 05:17 PM)seasonticket Wrote:  During Davis's first year, he had Kerry Rupp as an assistant, and I remember many posters claiming he was doing a fantastic job coaching the bigs. Then, he went to La Tech.

Last year, Donewald, I believe, was the one responsible for the development of the bigs, and he was heavily criticized. Obviously, he has moved on.

This year, we really don't have many bigs to work with, but if it means anything, Kinnard has done well at the 5 position this season.

I don't think this answers the question, but perhaps people who attend practices can provide comments based on my comments about the coaching of the bigs.

Well, first off, what bigs are we going to coach? Howard, Lo, and Cameron are all we have. Kinnard is pretty much a finished product at this point. Howard has moderate athleticism and skills. Cameron Moore could benefit for certain from solid coaching.

Rupp was as good a teaching coach as I've ever seen. He worked hard with obsessive attention to detail, and he'd stay out there on the court after practice working with anyone who wanted his help. I wish like hell we could have kept him. Donewald was a waste of space. We hired him to get Z. Both have since washed away.

There is a lot of coaching of both fundamentals and details. Davis does the majority of the offensive coaching himself with help from Dusty May. He does teach some positioning and moves around the hoop but there is no specific big man coach down there that I'd point to. Shelby County, feel free to correct me, you see more practices than I do.

While we're talking about coaching, what exactly does Flanigan do? I've been to a few practices and all he did was be an extra body. I never saw him say a word and don't really notice him doing anything in the games except passing the ball around during warmups.

Even though Howard hasn't exactly set the woods on fire, he has actually come light years since high school. After he and Curtis Nickson signed early in the fall of 2005, and then when their high school team made it to the Final Four at the BJCC, I went to the game excited to watch these two future Blazers in action. I watched that game in disbelief and was dumbfounded at how unskilled they were. They kept looking over at the bench as if to ask what they should do and seemed to have no natural basketball instincts at all. They appeared to be unaware of the fact that they were 8-10 inches taller than everyone else on the court and that they had the size to take over the game whenever they wanted to. I mean, it looked like they had never played a basketball game before, and that's not much of an exaggeration. I was really disappointed at what I witnessed and thought there was no way Howard would ever get any playing time at UAB.

The moral of this little tale is that I'm actually somewhat pleased with Howard's progress at UAB given where he started from.