PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Early in the season, coaches often learn a lot about their team. It seems Tim O’Shea certainly learned plenty about his team at Bryant, while maintaining a consistent perspective.
The second year at the helm for a head coach is often more difficult than the first one for a few reasons. Player turnover often accompanies a head coaching change, but those who have just one year of eligibility left often stay at the school to finish out. That means the team in the second year is often very young and inexperienced, whereas there might be a veteran team the first year.
That’s not quite what Bryant has, as there wasn’t an exodus of underclassmen when Max Good left to become an assistant at Loyola Marymount (later ascending to the top job there). Instead, O’Shea took over as the program went to Division I, and the challenge he faces is a little different. It came to mind on Saturday night as they trailed Mercer by 24 at the break.
“In the locker room at halftime, my biggest thing is, we’ve got to find an identity as a team,” O’Shea said. “The group I inherited last year was pretty much intact from a year ago, so they had defined roles, they all knew each other. They weren’t as talented as you might like, but the team had an identity right from the very beginning. It was easier to coach, guys knew their roles. They could play together and play off each other.”
This year’s team has all but three of last year’s players, plus several newcomers that are all talented enough to get good minutes. UMass transfer Papa Lo looked like more of a presence as the weekend went along, grabbing eight rebounds on Saturday and blocking five shots on Sunday. Raphael Jordan is the future at the point guard spot, and on Saturday he showed some of his potential in going for 12 points and five assists a night after he went 0-6 from the field with just one assist against Providence. Claybrin McMath has a good motor and gives them good size, while Vladysia Kondratyev will also get plenty of minutes. The Bulldogs are redshirting Erick Smith, a guard who played high school ball with Jordan, and Alex Herzing, a seven-footer.
Add in junior Barry Latham, whose minutes were limited as he was hampered with a knee problem last year, and the Bulldogs have a whole new look this time around. Latham is healthy now and seems to be finding himself; it wouldn’t be a surprise if he was in the starting lineup before long. That means the Bulldogs have four and essentially five new players they are trying to integrate into the lineup.
The challenge of finding an identity along with the schedule they play is the big reason O’Shea was beyond guarded about getting wins. It’s also why, from the second half of Saturday’s game on through Sunday, he felt good about what he saw and clearly sounded more optimistic.
“They’re struggling with roles right now,” O’Shea said after Saturday night. “It’s not a personality thing, it’s just learning on the court how to play together and play with each other. I did think, in the second half, I liked what I saw.”
The young players also come from programs where they did a lot of winning. That means losing is foreign to them, and especially a loss like the one they experienced on Friday night. But the better play in the back half of the weekend is a big reason for optimism, because confidence can be a bit fleeting with young players.
O’Shea said he noticed that when he had just one freshman on the floor, the ball seemed to move much better on offense than when he had more than one in the game. That will factor into his management of the lineup going forward, although it won’t always be that way. Eventually they will be able to play with each other better, and having more than one on the floor will be sensible. He also said that leading scorer Cecil Gresham, who got going in the second half on Saturday night and had a game-high 26 points on Sunday, has to look to score more.
“He’s got to do that for us, that’s kind of his role for us this year,” O’Shea said, adding that he has to do that in the first half of games after a lot of his scoring came after intermission this weekend.
At this juncture, O’Shea is still taking the long view with this team and program. It’s clear that the right man is running the show, because he understands it won’t happen right away and that the time to really judge where things are going is at least a year away. That means he can do it the right way, and he’s consistent in talking about this.
“We’re going to get there, but it’s not going to be easy,” said O’Shea. “We’re going to make progress, and we’re going to get better, and we’re going to get where we want to be over time.”
