The sweet sweet sound of sneaker squeak.
Men's Hoops Reports (via techathletics)
The men's basketball team had their first practice in what may be the strangest offseason that I can recall and Texas Tech knows strange offseasons. Texas Tech and interim head coach Chris Walker had their first practice yesterday and everything is rosy on the first day, but we know that it is not. We know that there were players that supported former head coach Billy Gillispie and we know that there are players that didn't support Gillispie.
Chris Walker is in the impossible position of trying to make things work and he's saying all of the right things. It does him no favors to focus on what happened, he's got a season to prove what he is as a head coach. LAJ's Nick Kosmider was at yesterday's first practice:
"It’s a great day," Walker said before the team’s session began Friday. "As a player, you always look forward to the first day of practice. As an assistant, you always look forward to the first day of practice, but for it to be the first day as the head coach — and you’re getting ready to work your team out for the first time — it’s very gratifying, and I’m very happy."
The only option is positivity. If players decide they want to transfer or leave or go away, that's fine. Walker can't control that. He's not the one that fired Gillispie.
As far as the style of play, Walker said on the day he was hired that he wants to be more up-tempo and force the issue defensively. Walker reiterated those thoughts yesterday:
"We’re going to be extremely defensive-minded," Walker said. "We did have a tenacity about us last year, defensively. But this year, we want to use that tenacity to create turnovers."
I'm just along for the ride this year.