PROVIDENCE, R.I. – They say practice makes perfect. For Brown, that has proven to be true recently in an unexpected way.
The Bears, who improved to 5-6 on Monday with a convincing 89-73 win over Quinnipiac, had a stretch earlier in the month where they struggled just to practice. After their win over Hartford on December 9, the Bears practiced just twice in 12 days. Final exams were part of that, but so were injuries – the Bears were down to about six or seven good bodies on most days. Needless to say, they struggled against Wagner when they returned to action on December 21 in a 78-66 loss.
So when they got back from the Christmas break, they were more than eager to get some practice time in.
“We had very, very hard double practices when we came back from break, and our kids really responded well,” said head coach Jesse Agel. “They played with a lot of passion.”
The difference was stark. Brown came out firing in the first half, shooting over 61 percent from the field and making 7-of-8 from behind the arc to build a 47-29 halftime lead. Although Quinnipiac tried to rally at times in the second half, the big halftime lead stood up along with some good answers to runs the Bobcats made.
“We’ve been getting a lot of work in and practicing very hard,” said sophomore guard Adrian Williams. “I think we were just feeling good as a team coming into that game.”
A key player in the Bears’ win on Monday, Williams is further evidence of the importance of practice. Williams had career highs of 29 points and seven three-pointers (on eight attempts) on Monday, and has had a couple of excellent shooting games this season. But his improvement to help form part of the burgeoning inside-outside attack the Bears have hasn’t come easily.
While he was their most consistent player during a trip to Europe in August, Williams got hurt in practice the day after the season opener. For about a month, he couldn’t practice, and while he was still serviceable and had a couple of good games in the stat sheet, he wasn’t the same player. Then he was able to practice leading up to the Hartford game, and he shot the ball well there as he made five three-pointers en route to 19 points.
The inside part of that attack, Matt Mullery, keeps getting better through it all. While he continues to be unstoppable inside, the most impressive stat line of the day wasn’t his 22 points, which tied a career-high. Rather, it was his seven assists and no turnovers, as he continues to improve facing the basket as well.
“He’s done a great job of improving his game and working hard, he’s got a lot of desire and deserves an awful lot of credit because he put in a lot of time working on his game,” Agel said of Mullery. “Now he’s very comfortable, for the first time he feels very comfortable when he gets the ball.”
Added Williams: “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no one who can guard him on the post, so we’re just trying to feed the ball to him and pretty much everything works through him.”
Three games remain before Ivy League play gets going. With final exams over, the Bears have some time to try to improve in some key areas, notably bench contributions. Scott Friske is the only starter averaging less than 32 minutes per game, so depth is clearly still something they need to develop, especially with the Ivy League’s slate of games on consecutive nights. The lack of practice time earlier in the month certainly didn’t help, but now they also don’t have to plan around classes for three more weeks. That means this next stretch will be crucial for them.
“Luckily for them, we’ll be in the gym a lot more in the next three weeks as well, so we’ll have a lot of opportunity,” said Agel. “We have to take advantage of the time we’re not in school, because when we’re in school, to have kids come back twice is just not conducive for them to do well in an Ivy setting.”
Considering the effect that practice, or the lack thereof, has had on Brown thus far, this is their opportunity to potentially make or break their season.
