Nov. 17, 2006

Click here for Daily Alaska Journal #2
Click here for Daily Alaska Journal #1

Daily Alaska Journal #3 - Assistant coach Pat Skerry

Friday, November 17, 9:30 p.m. AKST

For my entry for the Alaska journal, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about what the coaching staff does to prepare the team for three games in as many days.

The in-season tournament is different than anything else we do during the season. You treat the first game of the tourney like any other, because you know who your opponent is ahead of time. Because the next game or two is so up in the air, you need to get film and prepare for every team.

With the Top of the World Classic being early in the season, most of the films we have from teams are from last year. So you have to balance that with some of the box scores and news you get from teams this season.

Myself and Kevin Clark have been breaking down the film on this trip, so that once one game is done, we can go right into preparation for our next opponent. Another wrinkle with the in-season tournament is live scouting. We're prohibited from doing it, with the exception of tournaments. I think that gives you the best way of evaluating a team.

But the bottom line at this point in the season is focusing on your own team. The tournament gives you set practice times and facilities, so we try to balance our time between going over the previous night and preparing for the next game.

For instance, we'll spend a little time today recapping the Troy game and then look ahead to Alaska and focus on getting ready to play.

While it's a change in routine for the coaches and players who have done this before, it's definately an adjustment for our newcomers. If they're coming from a juco or a high school, they just go and play. Now, they have to adjust the way they play every game. It's more situational than repetition for them, where is becomes more of a teaching roles for us. We have to show them what to do on the film and then on the practice floor.

I would like to say hello to everyone back in Rhode Island. Alaska is a beautiful place. For someone like myself who is a native New Englander, Alaska is a completely different place to see and experience.

I hope you are all tuning into the games on the radio and keeping up with the stats online. It's tough because of the time difference, but Rhody has loyal and dedicated fans.

Hope to see you all soon.

Go Rams! Pat Skerry