FOCUS
ON IMPROVEMENT
By Tubby Smith, Kentucky
 This
Saturday we will be venturing into one of the
great environments in all of college basketball.
Bud Walton Arena provides Arkansas with a
tremendous home court advantage. Their fan base is
both loud and knowledgeable so it’s not an easy
place to play.
We will have our hands full with a very good
defensive team. Coach Stan Heath’s team is very
talented and they play very hard so it will be a
real test for us, especially with the status of
Chuck Hayes still up in the air.
Chuck, who is the heart and soul of our team,
broke his nose in the first half of our win over
Tennessee. It takes an awful lot to keep Chuck off
the court. He is as tough of a player as I have
ever been around, but right now he is in a lot of
pain. We will simply have to wait and see how he
feels, but if anyone can come back after breaking
his nose it is Chuck.
With Chuck sidelined in the second half, our post
players really stepped up. They displayed a lot of
heart, determination and grit. The Volunteers are
a different team when Brandon Crump is not on the
floor and we wanted to try to take advantage of
that. To a man, everyone made a great
contribution.
Every time Tennessee made a run, we were able to
hold them off. I thought we played with a lot of
poise in a very difficult road environment. We
still have some things to work on, but I was very
pleased with the effort we displayed that night.
The win at Tennessee was our fifth straight. We
are continuing to improve and make progress. As a
team we are finding more consistency. At this
point in the season I believe that each player has
a better understanding of what his particular role
is. It often takes a little time for everyone to
get comfortable with their role, some longer than
others. Now I believe that we reached a point
where each player knows what is expected of him.
Of course there are some areas that we can improve
upon. We need to do a better job from the
free-throw line and while we are creating
turnovers, we have not done a great job of
converting them into points at the other end.
Right now everyone in America is focused on
winning its’ next game, but everyone is also
focused on making improvement each day through
practice. We are no exception. The end of January
is right around the corner, which means there is
still over a month of basketball before conference
tournament play begins.
Currently we are 15-2 overall (6-0 in the SEC),
but those are meaningless numbers when the ball
gets thrown up on Saturday. We will have a week
off before our next game at Vanderbilt so we would
like to head into the off-week on a high note,
with a win at Arkansas.
It will be nationally televised on CBS so it has
all the makings of a great college basketball
game. |