I wasn't really planning to write any more stuff about last night's Penn-Princeton game, because it's just not all that big a deal anymore -- even if it led the sportscasts on local TV last night.
But then the coaches and players opened their mouths after the game. So that idea got run over by the snowplow that might have gone down my street at some point though I haven't got any evidence of it.
(A warning that this post is kind of long, but I think it says something about the importance of coaching in college basketball. I split the post to take up less space on the page, but I hope you read the whole thing.)
Whether you care about Princeton or not, I'd like you to consider the following from Tigers coach Joe Scott. He said the following in his press conference, responding to a question about what his goals are for the rest of the season now that his team is 1-6 in the Ivy League:
“Our goals are the same every game. I just told our guys, we're building a program where our guys know why and how, why we play the way we play, how we play, and we make ourselves play that way every single game. When you do that, when you become successful, you know why and how. You keep doing it over and over again. It's called habits.
“That's what we're building. There's no time frame on, you know, when those things are going to occur. It's not about the end result. We're building something. It's about us getting to that point. It's about developing young guys who are willing to do that and do it all the time. So that's what our goal is, get better at what we do. Know what we do, get better at what we do and be crazed about getting better at what we do, and let's get as many guys that we can doing it at the same time.
“That's our goal. So I'm very happy with the effort of our team and how our effort paid. I'm unhappy that the ball doesn't go in the hoop, but I know we compete. We just have to get better at the things we need to do to make the end result different, and I think that's a learning process. And our younger guys are learning it and we'll get better at it, I know that.”
A lot of that refers to the famous Princeton offense, with its rigid system of ball movement, backdoor cuts and three-pointers. But if the head coach of the team you root for said what Scott said -- no matter what team that is -- wouldn't you be pretty concerned?
Wouldn't you be pretty unhappy if your coach said that "it's not about the end result," but is instead about doing things a certain way? I sure would be. I don't necessarily blame Scott for wanting to follow in the great tradition of his predecessors who brought the Princeton offense to national prominence, but something just doesn’t feel right about hearing those words from a coach.
Compare Scott's words to those of John Giannini after the La Salle-St. Joe's game. Both coaches have teams full of young players, and both claim that they're trying to build something up from a low starting point -- even though Scott inherited a great team in his first year that self-destructed in conference play.
But Giannini isn't so focused on a system as Scott is. Yes, he'd like his players to play a certain way, but you can tell that he's more concerned that his players play hard and give a good effort each game.
"We just have some young players that could have good futures that have been able to come in here and consistently make us competitive on most nights," Giannini said Saturday, and in that respect he seems reasonably pleased.
And remember what he said when asked if his team is discouraged: "Discouraged means you stop trying."
Perhaps it's because the Princeton offense by its nature slows the game down, but I felt watching the game last night that the players weren't trying all that hard. Couple that with Scott yelling from the bench that "we don't need any heroes," as Dick Jerardi noted in this morning's Daily News, and the contrast becomes even clearer.
It's no wonder, then, that Penn freshman Darren Smith reflected on his first Penn-Princeton game by telling Kevin Tatum of the Inquirer, "That was a little boring, I must say."
I don't think it's a coincidence that Penn's game against La Salle was anything but.
