• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Greene Raises Cougars' Spirits: Coach Buys Lunch for Team This Week

Posted on: Friday, 10 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Troy Johnson, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

Mar. 10--As the Columbus State Cougars have tried to put a promising basketball season back on track these last few days, they've done far more than work on their shooting and pressure defense.

In between the two-a-day practices, CSU coach Herbert Greene has attempted to rehabilitate a team's broken spirit. A surprising 81-74 loss to a sub-.500 Lander team in the Cougars' first Peach Belt Conference tournament game last week left him with quite a repair job.

"We're just trying to get a smile back on our faces," he said Wednesday. "We were still feeling sorry for ourselves. I hope they've gotten out of that."

In order to refocus his team's mindset from last week's disappointment to this week's opportunity in the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional, Greene used motivational material any college-aged male is capable of digesting.

Food.

With CSU's campus practically empty due to the arrival of spring break, players found themselves with nowhere to go at lunch time. Since a basketball team can't possibly run on an empty stomach in the postseason, Greene sprung for lunch at various local establishments.

The post-practice huddles have broken with the question of "Where are we eating?" Guard Justin Wilson suggested Olive Garden on Wednesday, but Greene, perhaps sensing the check a dozen or so players could rack up, opted for a pizza binge elsewhere.

In between their daily attacks on the buffet lines at Ryan's and CiCi's, the Cougars filled their dinner table conversations with some jokes and admonishments to summon the sort of intensity that resulted in the Peach Belt Conference regular season co-championship.

Greene will found out how well the informal approach worked Saturday, when the Cougars (22-8) face conference rival USC-Upstate (20-9) at 8:30 p.m. at the Arthur Ashe Center in Richmond, Va.. The winner advances to meet whoever emerges from Saturday's 6 p.m. game between top-seeded Virginia Union (25-3) and eighth-seeded Wingate (18-12). The second-round game will be played Tuesday night at 7.

Greene and his team have tried to turn the conference tournament loss into a positive. It allows them to enter NCAA play well-rested, having played just one game in 13 days as opposed to some of the regular-season stretches that involved six in the same span.

"It was a real wake-up call," guard Ron Robinson said of the Lander game. "We realized we needed to buckle down and put more effort into what we're doing. (The loss) was a lack of effort and leadership. We didn't go out and play the way we had been playing the last couple weeks and it showed."

Greene said his team can't afford to be lackadaisical Saturday night. The Cougars own a pair of wins over USC-Upstate -- a five-point road win in late-January and a 22-point home win on Feb. 1 -- but they'll expect a much tougher test this time. The Spartans are on a seven-game winning streak that includes an unlikely run to the Peach Belt tournament title from the No. 5 seed.

Playing a league opponent first presents the Cougars with a familiar scenario. They opened regional play against former conference rival Kennesaw State last season. Robinson said the familiarity can work one of two ways.

"It's good because you know you can beat them and bad because you might go in automatically thinking you're going to win," he said.

Greene is hoping for the former rather than the latter.

"If you can't get ready to play in this, you're not going to make it in anything," Greene said.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

More News in this Category