basketball red/white game

Over the next 45 minutes, the first portion of the first practice for the 2010-11 season, the plethora of shooting drills that came to define the Steve Donahue era were nowhere to be found. Instead, Courtney ran his group through new offensive sets, defensive slides and demanding suicides as a messy, wind-swept rain whipped the building outside.

David Harding
Ithaca Journal comments on the first basketball practice of the season.

Over the next 45 minutes, the first portion of the first practice for the 2010-11 season, the plethora of shooting drills that came to define the Steve Donahue era were nowhere to be found. Instead, Courtney ran his group through new offensive sets, defensive slides and demanding suicides as a messy, wind-swept rain whipped the building outside.

Sophomore forward Errick Peck agreed. "We came out and had a two and a half hour practice as our first practice last year, but today was an in your face defense, four hour practice, which was pretty crazy."

The practice changes extended far beyond added sprints and duration though. Drills had an increased level of intensity and often involved every aspect of a possession except the shot. For those used to Coach Donahue's trigger-happy workouts of old, Courtney offered a new approach.

"There are some slight differences," Wroblewski said laughing, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "[Coach Courtney] definitely has an emphasis on defense and rebounding. And I think because we have a little smaller team this year that's important."

"The biggest thing for us is that we want to concentrate on defense, on defensive rebounding," Courtney said. "We did a lot of toughness drills where we kind of had to fight through some adversity and I think that was very important for us to set the tone on the first day."

The new head man also set the tone with his coaching style. After Eitan Chemerinski missed a contested layup, Courtney was quickly on his case, briefly halting practice to get in the sophomore forward's ear. Several minutes later though, Chemerinski grabbed rebounds on three consecutive possessions and again Courtney was fast to react.