"Rants and Raves" is an open forum for coaches to discuss topics, ranging from issues to observations on the state of college basketball and beyond.
 
 
The Second Season
By Brad Holland, San Diego

Last season Rider head coach Don Harnum wrote a telling column on how January challenges players and coaches a like. As he pointed out, championships are not won in January, but the can certainly be lost in the first month of the New Year.

January is often referred to as the start of the second season. The months of November and December present a different set of challenges, from team to team. But for every program it’s only a prelude to conference play.

Many coaches use the first portion of the season to experiment with rotations and to learn more about new additions to the program, while others spend the better part of the first two months on the road. There are many different approaches to the non-conference portion of the schedule, but the approach to the second season is the same. The goal is to be a part of the third season.

For a small group -- the upper echelon of college basketball -- the second season serves to produce a pecking order for March. Every coach in this group has designs on winning a league championship, first and foremost, but in the bigger picture the goal is to advance deep into March. For the rest -- the majority of college basketball -- January and February determine whether or not we will participate in March.

Every season there are examples of teams that conclude non-league action with less than impressive win-loss records, only to turn post impressive marks in the month of January. This season UMKC began the season with seven straight losses, but now they have jumped out to a 5-0 start in Mid-Continent Conference play. Some may find this to be somewhat miraculous, but the truth of the matter is that Rich Zvosec’s team was not what their non-conference record indicated.

In short, for UMKC and so many others, success in November and December is not always measured in wins and losses. And the first two months are ancient history once the calendar turns to January. By no means does success in the first month of the year translate into participation in March, but a good start will obviously put you in a better position. An unbeaten month of January doesn’t win you a championship, but a poor start can lose you one.

Yes have been many examples of teams that have struggled all season only to catch lightning-in-a-bottle, come conference tournament time. But for every team that has traveled this path there are a hundreds that have taken the same path only to find a dead end in March.

Right now everyone is looking to hold serve in January. Of course it’s great to get off to a fast start, but everyone is guarding against that tough start. Ultimately you want nothing less than to be within striking distance by month’s end. And there is a fine line between being among the league’s contenders and struggling to stay out of the cellar.

Take us for example. We played our first three West Coast Conference games on the road. We lost at Pepperdine and San Francisco and won at Loyola Marymount. We let one get away at USF so we could easily be 2-1. However, we trailed for the first thirty-nine minutes at LMU so we could just as easily be 0-3. An 0-3 start would have been a steep mountain to climb.

Like so many teams around the country, we knew that we had a very challenging start to conference play. We knew that we had an opportunity to really position ourselves well -- and we still can -- but we also knew that if we did not play to our capabilities that we could find ourselves in a deep hole.

For the majority January is about improving and surviving with an eye on making bigger strides in February. In January no team will earn a spot in the Final Four or secure the top seed in the conference tournament. But designs on both can certainly disappear with a bad month.