|
Bailey's
Take on Pirate Sports
-----
|
From the Anchor Desk
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
-----
By Brian Bailey
Sports Anchor of WNCT-TV 9 |
 |
Herrion game plan 'on time'
©2003 Bonesville.net
|
AUDIO
—
Brian Bailey Goes 1-On-1 with Mike Cooke and Moussa Badiane:
Select clip... |
I had a chance to interview Bill Herrion earlier this week
at practice. When Coach approached me, I joked that I was at least 45
seconds early.
|
CyberEast of New Bern
"Service While You
Watch"
Need a quick
repair on your computer?
How about a
bigger hard drive or a DVD/RW-CD/RW?
Could a new
SoundBlaster™ Audigy card and speaker system
improve your experience listening to
Bonesville.net's Windows Media features?
Call CyberEast
of New Bern for an in-store appointment to get
your computer geared up to meet your needs while
you watch.
|
|
417-C Broad St., New
Bern, NC |
|
252-637-4443 |
cybereast.com |
|
|
Herrion didn’t see the humor in the comment. He politely
chuckled, but you could tell that his decision to discipline two of his
players for being 45 seconds late was to send out a message. There was
nothing funny about being late.
Herrion’s message is crystal clear. Hard work and discipline
is a winning combination.
The Pirates improved to 8-1 on the season with
Tuesday night’s 87-50 trouncing of Radford.
Herrion seems to be delighted with just how hard this team is playing.
“I’m just real pleased with this team’s effort,” said
Herrion. “The kids are playing extremely hard for 40 minutes. I think in the
past we’ve been a team that would play hard in spurts and then we’d drop
off.”
This year’s team isn’t “dropping off” at all. In fact, you
would be hard pressed to find any Pirate teams in the past that played any
harder.
East Carolina gave up just 21 first half points against
Radford. Still, the Pirate coach didn't go into the locker room smiling.
“I wasn’t real happy at halftime,” Herrion said. “I felt,
physically, they were moving our big guys around so we got after them a
little bit.”
Herrion continued, “If we are going to try to compete in
Conference USA and be a player in this league, guess what? It’s a very
physical league and we have to play that way.”
Herrion’s teams have always won with defense. If you watch
Herrion on the Pirate bench, he orchestrates his defense like a conductor in
front of the string section.
“When we guard tough and rebound, then we can run,”
explained Herrion. “That’s why we are shooting a high percentage from the
floor. We are taking and making our share of high percentage shots.”
Herrion’s plan for this season has been played out to
perfection thus far. There was that minor hiccup at George Mason, but this
team is 8-1 with one more non-conference game to go at Ole Miss.
“We play in a very difficult league,” said Herrion. “If we
don’t win our non-conference games and get our head above water in November
and December, then things really get tough in January and February.”
Last year Herrion and the Pirates knew that the bulk of
their wins would come with that non-conference slate. That’s not a part of
the Herrion plan this year, though.
“We are really trying to build an attitude, a mentality that
we are trying to get ready for league play,” Herrion explained. “This year
we want to continue to build off of our non-conference wins.
"We have a few more pieces this year. We’re running more;
we’re penetrating more and getting better shots. I think we should all be
happy that we are 8-1, but we have plenty of work to do.”
Herrion is all set to gear up for the league challenges
ahead. His words to the team on Tuesday night spoke volumes.
“I told the kids to put the helmet on, put the chinstrap on,
put the mouthpiece in, put your shoulder pads on. It’s coming! Hopefully,
we’ll be ready for it.”
And with the helmet and chin strap, the players also had
better hope their watches work. If I were a Pirate, I’d set mine to
Herrion’s and not take any chances!
 Send an e-mail message to
Brian Bailey.
Click here to dig into Brian Bailey's Bonesville
archives.
02/23/2007 01:25:30 AM |
