On receiving a contract extension

First of all, on the contract front: I'm just ecstatic about being able to get this finished and to know I'm going to be here at Western Michigan. I'm a Bronco at heart, and have been for a long time. My wife Kelly and I recently had our first child together, and I have a five-year-old stepson Trey, and the Kalamazoo community is one we're thrilled to be part of. Professionally, there is a lot of work to be done with this program. We've been able to compete near the top of the conference since I've been here, and now we're ready to take that next step and be the team at the top. On a larger scale, there is other work to be done at the University. WMU is moving forward, with increases in enrollment, new buildings being built, and just overall growth. To be able to speak on behalf of the University in these times is very exciting. Finally, this allows us to continue to work in the community. Our community has issues that we have to work through, and it's a very gratifying feeling to be a part of that. We're the community's program, and being a key part of that community is an important responsibility.

April 21, 2011

There's probably a reason that we've taken a while to get to this "Hawk Talk," and that's because the end of the season is something that's still very painful.  Bowing out of the MAC Tournament in the semifinals the way we did - not playing well - is something that will stick with me for a while.  It was a bad game at a time you cannot afford to have a bad game.  Then to watch the team you lost to (Akron) make it all the way to the NCAA Tournament, it feels even worse.  There will come a point in time when I will look back on this year and will reflect and take satisfaction in it, but it's not there quite yet.

That doesn't mean we're not proud of the things the guys accomplished.  We went into the season and the general public didn't expect us to do well, but the men in the locker room were determined to show we were better than that.  That's a group of tough, resilient guys, and they fought through a lot of adversity to win 21 games.  Our freshmen stepped in and played well, the sophomores stepped up, the juniors, right on up to Alex Wolf, our only senior.  They led us and worked hard to achieve great things, including bringing home another MAC West title.  The season was a real rollercoaster ride with lots of ups and downs, but we're looking forward to getting on board next season.

Alex's story is very well-known to our fans, and for him to earn this award is a tremendous honor.  Five years ago he came to us as a walk-on, and he ends up being an important part of a couple MAC West title teams.  That Alex hasn't gotten more attention for this award is very bothersome to me; it's something that comes across as a huge inconsistency that needs to be addressed.  Everyone talks about the decay of college athletics, how we've lost sight of the academic part of things, and yet we all want to know who was All-Conference and not Academic All-Conference.  To me, Academic All-MAC selections are the most important awards in our league, because they represent what a student-athlete is supposed to be: a good student as well as a good player.  For Alex - or anyone, for that matter - to be named one of the five top student-athletes in our conference is outstanding and something we as a program are extremely proud of.  Every year I've been here we've had someone represent Western Michigan on the Academic All-MAC team, and we've placed 12 of the last 31 players on the team.  Excellence in academics as well as athletics is something we don't just profess and preach, but also live.

At the end of the season, we gave our players time off until the end of the Final Four, then we got them in for a few weeks of individual workouts.  As it stands today, it's the week before final exams, and we won't be working with the players again until they complete their final exams.  We've spent time in player meetings identifying things the individual players need to work on, and we've addressed them as a team on things things they need to work on.  We've given them a "prescription" about what they need to improve upon in their individual workouts.  That goes for everything from gaining weight and strength, to losing weight, or improving the ability to shoot, pass, and dribble with the off hand.  There are a lot of different aspects they'll be looking at.

Winning at Miami is like picking up a game on everyone else because you get a road win that you know not many other teams are going to get.  It has been tough to win at Miami this season.  We are the only team to give Miami a loss at home during the conference season thus far (currently 3-1).

That was pivotal because not only are we in the middle of a MAC West race, we are in the middle of a MAC title race.  We lost a home game against Buffalo and we needed to make up for it.  Going into the game I had no idea that our record at Millett Hall was what it was.  I only knew I had not won there during my tenure.  We've had some great games both there and at University.  Last year they got us by hitting a shot at the buzzer and a little while back we were the ones with the big lead and Miami came back and made a bucket late to beat us at their place.  I knew the history of the series but didn't realize how bad our record was down there until Robin [Hook] was nice enough to bring it up during the pre-game show right before the game.

One of the questions you get asked as a coach is, "Where is the toughest place to play in the MAC?"  I always tell people that it is the place that has the best players and Miami has a storied history and you can see why its so tough to play there because they normally have good players and this year's team is no different.

We're growing up.  I have seen some things over the past few games that I liked that had worried me earlier in the season.  Our basketball maturity is mirroring our emotional maturity.  Going back to the Ball State game, if we can get out and run on somebody we felt good about ourselves.  It is the type of basketball we like to play.  If a team does not allow us to run and opponents send three or four guys back after a shot goes up we didn't like that and didn't handle it well.  We became an impatient basketball team.  We took quick shots and poor shots.  Now we are a lot more patient and we are doing a better job of recognizing when we don't have a clear cut advantage in our fastbreak, and I really like that.

I also like the fact that we are developing road patience.  We're playing better, even in the Buffalo game, we had a couple defensive breakdowns, but at Miami we addressed our emotional maturity and it showed.  There were times when things could have gone south but the mood in the huddle and at halftime was great.  These kids have come back before.  I like the direction of this team.  They all believe they are going to win when they step on the court.  Despite the fact that there is still plenty to work on, I like where we are at right now.

You just have to adjust to the change and move on.  We tell the kids all the time that we have to get to the next possession.  It isn't just regarding things on the court.  It can be things in the classroom or in life, or in this situation.  We had to get the next possession.  We came in Tuesday expecting to play and have our final preparation day for Kent State and we find out that is not the case.  The administrations worked together and determined that was the decision.  It wasn't a basketball decision.  We were ready to play but understand the factors that went into the decision.

So for us, we moved to the next possession.  I had the practice plan to get ready for Wednesday night's game.  Since we had no game, I told them to forget about Kent State.  We weren't ready for BG especially since they had to play yet so we worked on us.  We adjusted and did that on Tuesday and a little bit on Wednesday with some work on Bowling Green thrown in as well.

Everybody points at the positive of having three-straight home games during this stretch with Illinois State on Feb. 19, KSU on Feb. 21 and Toledo on Feb. 23, but we have three-straight road games leading into that stretch.

It has to be the Packers.  We have a Bronco playing, has to be the Packers.  I will be watching the game at home.  I'm not real big on Super Bowl parties but if we do anything it is with the team.  We like to be able to hear the game, hear the commercials and watch the game.  I'm sure there will be crumbs of some sort down the front of my shirt.  I don't know what the snacks will be but there will be snacks galore.

Hawk's Super Bowl XLV Prediction - Packers 24, Steelers 21 (Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings are Co-MVPs)

Non-Conference schedule thus far
As we sit here, it's after Christmas and we've just finished the tournament at Utah State.  The non-conference schedule has served its purpose although it's difficult because you see three games that easily could have gone the other way if we had done something different and we could be at 9-3 instead of 6-6.  Again, that's what the non-conference season is all about especially with a young team, figuring out combinations and figuring out the unknowns.

It's tough to take when you lose three games by one possession but on the other hand we won four one-possession games.  I think we scheduled tough and it's validated by the RPI (175 as of 12/29) and strength of schedule (161 as of 12/29) at this point.  Generally, we feel we have worked out a lot of things and answered a lot of questions but there is still more to do.

World Vision Invitational
It was an interesting experience and let's put it at that.  It's not the kind of tournament we would choose to play in again.  This has nothing to do with the people at Utah State or the community of Logan, Utah.  They were great.  What made it interesting was who we played, where we played and how we played.

All three games had a very different personality.  Against Troy, it was almost embarrassing on how we played defensively but to Troy's credit, they shot unbelievably from three-point range, making 11-of-14 in the first half alone.  The next night they were 11-for-50.  Sometimes you just shake the other guy's hand and say, "You played well and we didn't."  I am very proud that we came back from 25 points down.  The kids showed a lot of determination.

We probably played our best game against Utah State.  We just couldn't get a break when it came to trying to catch up and our foul situation against a team that is 100-5 at home since the start of the 2004-05 season.

Against Idaho State, it wasn't the attitude we went into the game with, but the attitude we had afterward.  I was just happy to get out of there with a win.  We did not play well, lacking energy, whether it was missing a lot of easy shots or the atmosphere.  This team seems to be a team that responds to atmosphere which concerns me moving forward.  There will be games that don't have great atmosphere and we have to supply our own energy and that game we did not but we found a way to win.  It was a good way to come home and send the kids out for Christmas vacation.

Looking at Eastern Illinois
It's an interesting time now.  We bring the kids back after giving them three days off.  We had our first practice on 12/28 and we play Eastern Illinois on New Year's Eve day.  It's a good game to have at this point because you want to have a game close to when you start conference play but I would like to be playing a team that's would be a little easier to play than EIU.  We have played them in each of the last two seasons for Bracket Busters, losing at home and winning at their place.

They're a talented team led by a kid from Michigan (Tyler Laser) and overall a very talented game.  It will be another challenging game.  One that is similar to what we saw against Idaho State.  The defense of choice for EIU is zone, which was the same for Idaho State, but we are looking forward to taking the court again.

WMU vs. CMU to start the MAC season
This set up is different from what we normally see in basketball.  Normally you have one to two days to prepare for a team after your previous game.  With Central Michigan, we have eight days to do a lot of things to prepare the team based on what you see as a coach.

There are advantages and disadvantages to opening league play with your rival.  First of all, I am very happy we are playing the game at home.  That is a key advantage.  Secondly, it isn't hard to get up for a game like this because it is a rival and you want to take care of things on your home court.

The disadvantage ties into one of the advantages.  Seeing as this is a rivalry game and the MAC opener, it is easy to key on this match up but we look at conference play as one item of business.  As Coach Wooden always said, "There are no highs and no lows."  We lack emotional balance right now and we can't afford to have a letdown after this game as we move forward with the early portion or our MAC schedule.

Also, we have new members of this team experiencing this rivalry for the first time in guys like [Caleb] Dean, [Juwan] Howard [Jr.] and [Matt] Stainbrook.  It will be interesting to see how they acclimate themselves.

How the rivalry compares to others

I have been involved in coaching for a long time and this is the best rivalry I have encountered because it means so much to everyone associated with each school.  It means so much to the alumni and I'm not just talking about basketball alumni, but alumni in general.

People outside of the rivalry that have nothing to do with either program know about it as well.  I was at the WMU/MSU football game this fall and ran into some fans wearing Michigan State gear.  They didn't say anything about WMU or MSU but they started chanting, "Fire Up Chips."  The same thing happened during our game against Detroit earlier this year.  Their fans weren't chanting support for their team, they were chanting the CMU chant to get us riled up.  Those types of things speak to the rivalry.

When we were in the Detroit airport checking in for our trip to Georgia State, we were in line behind the CMU men's basketball team and I walked up to head coach Ernie Zeigler.  He suggested we find a spot in the terminal to hang some hoops and play right there, no reason to wait for Jan. 9.

Question from email - Adam Bancroft
This year, more so than years past, it seems as though we have players of similar talent levels at the same positions, in particular, at the small forward and shooting guard.  With Hutch, Howard, Ward, Brown, Pokley, and even Wolf all fighting for the same minutes how do you decide who gets the majority minutes without bruising egos and keeping team unity in place?  This situation could get even more interesting with the addition of your Northwest Indiana recruit.  

Thanks for the question, Adam - Sounds you have been sitting in our coaches meetings.  I'll give you a general thought and then something more specific.  First of all, I am of old school thought when it comes to your place in sports - player needs to keep coach happy and not vice versa - that has reversed in recent years (not ego talking) but not here.

More specifically, you are right about similar players with similar talent levels.  We have game-to-game and half-to-half evaluation with movement up or down dependent on performance.  Hutch[eson] and Howard both are capable of playing the 4, which we'll look at during the prep time prior to CMU.

How was Hawk's Christmas
My Christmas was great.  After getting back into town on Christmas Eve, we had family at our house over the next two days.  I grilled tri tip in 20 degree weather and I really enjoyed it.  There was a lot of relaxation and my wife gave me an iPad, which I am afraid it is going to take many hours to learn how to actually use it.

The best part of the holidays actually was shopping with my stepson Trey for his mom.  There is nothing like experiencing the holidays through the eyes of a four-year old.  He wanted to pick out a gift and he boiled it down to a pair of Rudolf earrings with a red light-up nose, a Christmas broche and a big watch with a bright blue strap that had nothing to do with Christmas.  He chose the watch.  He didn't want to get her clothes because as he said, "Mommy has enough clothes."

With any special holiday there is always emotions about special people you have lost or those that are close to you that can't be with you, but what got to me was our first gift for our unborn child.  The card on the gift read "To Baby Hawk" and I had to step away for a minute.

Live Chat on Jan. 6
I will be hosting my first live chat at noon on Jan. 6 from the WMU athletic web site (www.wmubroncos.com).  I participated in Graham Couch's live chat a few weeks ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The biggest thing I want is people to participate.  We won't shy away from questions and try to get to as many as possible in an hour.

Questions tell the concerns our fans have and they are helpful to us as coaches to see what the fans see during their hour and a half interaction with our team at games.  We want to do our first live chat now as we get finish up.  I look forward to chatting with everyone on Jan. 6.

We had a specific approach to the first four games of the season.  We knew they were going to be difficult games and that was done by design.  We had no idea what to expect out of this team this year even though we had suspicions about our offense and defense.  We thought our defense could be staunch at times.  Offensively, we knew we were going to be a work in progress and needed to find our nitch.  The first four games have shown progress in areas and shown our weaknesses.

Against Xavier, we showed the good and the bad.  We showed we can be a good defensive team but we also displayed a lapse in concentration for a four-to-five minute stretch and that concerns me.  That's where we lost that game and did the same thing during the Loyola (Chicago) game.  We were down by 1 with four minutes in the first half, down by 4 with 3:56 left and then we were down by 16 at halftime and lost the game by 18.  That is something we need to stay away from as we move through the schedule.  Having said that, I don't believe Loyola has lost a game yet and Xavier has just one loss.

I felt we showed really good balance at Milwaukee and defended the way we want to as a team.  I thought we played well defensively and shot the ball well from the perimeter.  We picked up a big road win.  Finally, against Illinois, when we looked at the film, we saw we did some things really well.  It's just that Illinois is really good.  There are certainly areas we need to work on, our pick and roll defense for instance.  Running a pick and roll defense against a player that's seven foot tall presents problems because he can still see over the defense where he wants to go with the ball.

The positives of the first four games are that we showed balance offensively, we have more than just Flen (Whitfield) that can shoot the ball, and we showed pretty good defense and that we have the ability to be a very good rebounding team.  At the same time, what concerns be is our lack of concentration for a span of time, whether its four minutes or an entire half.  The other area we knew would be a concern was offensive continuity.  We're young but we're getting better.  At times, it looks like they get it and it is coming together nicely and we are a team that is capable of executing.

That was the first four games and we now direct our attention to the next five that lead us directly into our holiday tournament in Utah at the end of December.  These games are very important for us because now that we have identified what we need to work on, we need to get them corrected.

Towson is a team that gives us a new look that we can refer back to later in the season.  This is the first team that has their own style of play.  They press a lot and we have not seen that.  They play zone and we haven't seen that yet, but we will later and we can use this game.  They are a very athletic team so this will be a very good test.  They are in the Colonial Athletic Association and they are very talented.

We come back home against Alma and we hope to clean up some of the things we have been working on up to that point in the season.  We want to play well and get minutes for guys that have not had a lot of minutes thus far.  It's also an opportunity to rest some guys that are a little banged up.

From there we get Detroit at home and Georgia State on the road.  Detroit is picked to finish right behind Butler in the Horizone League.  They are very athletic and played a very difficult early season schedule.  They have taken many teams down to the wire, Syracuse being one of those teams.  They have a lot returning and added Ray McCallum, one of the most highly recruited players in the country.

Georgia State, another CAA team, is next and they play a similar aggressive game as Towson.  Both series are the start of home-and-home series so both will be in Kalamazoo next year.  South Dakota State follows and they are having a great year, already having defeated Iowa at Iowa.  That will be a very difficult game for us as will all of these next five games, ones that will requires us to put together 40 minutes of basketball.

Every year I've been here, the philosophy has been to schedule tough in an effort to get us ready for the Mid-American Conference season.  You want to gain confidence heading into the conference schedule but you also want to be tested.  I know we have been criticized at points because everyone wants to win 20 games a season.  This is true for coaches as well but if your wins are against meaningless opponents or the wins are easy, then those 20 wins can also be empty.

In the seven years I've been head coach, we've won four MAC West titles and came in second the other three seasons.  I think the non-conference portion of the schedule and our approach to scheduling has been beneficial and has helped us get ready for the MAC schedule. 

If we break the season into thirds - non-conference, conference, tournament - each portion has to have a positive effect on the next portion.  We even break down each third into smaller segments all in the hope we are playing our best basketball as we get close to Christmas and then break down the conference season into the first five games against the West, next six against the East and last five against the West again.  The conference tournament itself is broken down into minutes.  To win the tournament, you're going to have to win 320 minutes of basketball and we try to win each four-minute segment from media timeout to media timeout.

Exhibition vs. Spring Arbor

Ok, let's get started.  With Spring Arbor, we just needed to take the floor.  If you had seen our last few practices before the game you would have seen that we needed to play someone else.  We were starting to get scrappy with each other, tempers getting short.  

From a technical standpoint, we needed a baseline.  We needed to figure what we were doing right and what we were doing wrong.  From a personnel stand point we wanted to see who was going show up when the lights came on.  We played a very scrappy, unorthodox team in Spring Arbor.  Ricky Stokes, our associate commissioner and director of men's basketball at the MAC said to me after the game, "Playing teams like this in an exhibition is so hard because you don't see another team like this for the rest of the year."

They shot the ball well and caused us some problems and they showed us what we needed to work on.  That was the bad news.  The good news is that it showed us what we need to do in terms of when there is a break down, this is what can happen.  When there is a lack of communication, it leads to open lay ups or open three's.  We also were able to get a lot of guys good minutes.  It gave us tons to be angry about when watching film over the next three days as we prepared for Kalamazoo College.

Exhibition vs. Kalamazoo College

I know the general thought is that K-College was not as good as Spring Arbor but there is a big difference between playing well and winning.  We played well against K-College.  We eliminated many of the breakdowns that were there against Spring Arbor.  Our fast break was cleaner, offensively in terms of spacing which opened things up and our decision making was better because of it.  Defensively we played with a higher level of intensity.  Defensive transition was our Achilles heel against Spring Arbor and we corrected it.  Not only did we play well, we also got a lot of guys good minutes.

Summary of Preseason

Basically to summarize what we have after our exhibition season is that we were able to create a baseline in one game and show vast improvement on the aspects of the game we needed to improve in the second game.  We were able to give multiple guys quality minutes within the framework of the offense.  There were good things that happened away from the ball as well and everyone has a good feeling going into this week.  We're excited about it but now we have to go out and perform on someone's home court in front of 10-15,000 fans against a program that has gone to three-straight Sweet 16's.

Shane Whittington has been offered and has accepted a redshirt this season.  Shane has been banged all preseason with multiple injuries.  The frustration for Shane was reaching a peak.  If you would have asked me prior to individual work outs who would be in the starting line up, Shane was there.  But in the long term interest of Shane, we are giving him his redshirt freshman season in his second year and he has the opportunity to have successful sophomore, junior and senior seasons.  The other exciting part is the prospect of having two 6-foot-10 kids in Shane and Stainbrook over the next three years.

David Brown is out for the next 2-4 weeks.  He is still in a boot and on crutches.  He would be considered doubtful for the Loyola-Chicago on Nov. 20.  If he did play it would be without any practice time or it would be extremely limited, but I don't think we are going to chance that.

I had a chance to watch them on film.  They played Northern Kentucky and Bellarmine, beating Northern Kentucky.  It's very interesting to me, especially at this time of the year when a team gets challenged in an exhibition game by one of these teams and gets beat.  Fan bases have a tendency to get a little restless when they see a game similar to our Spring Arbor game or how Xavier lost to Bellarmine.

I can tell you from coaching teams from that league and knowing that Quincy beat Bradley on their home court and Lewis beat DePaul at DePaul, you know these are things that are fairly common. 

We're both a little banged up right now, but it is going to be very exciting to watch.  This game is going to be very guard oriented with two outstanding guards on their side and then they have a 7-footer who is just a beast and I'm sure they're not going to be in a pleasant mood after coming off a loss to Bellarmine.  I'm sure Coach [Chris] Mack will have them ready and that will help get their attention.

I want to give everybody an update on the team after "Breakfast with the Broncos" and then I'll answer a couple of your questions.

"Breakfast with the Broncos" serves us on many fronts. Obviously, it's a chance for our fans to watch us play and get back into basketball by checking out this season's team. From an internal standpoint, the benefit is evaluation. We were able to evaluate whether players are doing what we want, how they perform, particularly execution and not so much points and rebounds.

We also look at team performance. What did we do well? What did we not do well? We take those things and get a real focus as we get into this week of practice.

The general summary is that we are close to where we need to be. There are plenty of areas that jump right out at me. We turned the ball over too much. We didn't shoot the ball real well early, but that got better as the game went along, as did our execution. The problem as a coaching staff, and this gets cleared up in the exhibitions, is when it comes to turnovers. Should we be unhappy with our offense or happy with our defense? That's what happens in an intrasquad scrimmage and we have to teach both. It was a great day and we got a lot out of it.

Last, but not least, is what a great turnout. It's one of the best we've had in a long time. It's starting to become a real tradition for us and the fans can count on it. Now we've got to work on getting sponsorship so everybody gets fed, not just the first 200.

"Hi coach. Congratulations to you and Kelly. Parenthood is an amazing journey. We all wish you the best. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would love to know more about how this year's team will look post-David Kool"

Scott Whittington

Thanks. I'm very, very much looking forward to parenthood, even though some may say that I've got 15 kids in any given year, Kelly included. I'm sure there won't be anything like having my own blood. We're ecstatic about it. This year was going to be interesting without David Kool and now it's even more interesting with a new baby on the way.

I spent the great majority of the summer thinking about who's going to replace David Kool. Like most of our fans, that was my first thought. As I continued to give that more and more thought and put pen to paper, my thought turned to the fact that it isn't so much David Kool, but David, Martelle McLemore and Donald Lawson. Three seniors that started every game and had a great knowledge of the system from playing here for four years.

Where we are going to miss David offensively is in late clock or late-game situations as the go-to guy. I don't know the answer to who will replace David in that role, yet. We will have to figure that out as we continue to go through practice and the evaluation process and find out how we will handle late-clock situations in 2010-11. Outside of that, I think we do have a lot of players that can step up throughout the game.

The concern that I have is what are we going to do about the loss of Kool and Lawson defensively. Donald's value defensively was evident, while David was much more subtle. He rarely got beat off the dribble and was almost always in the right spot away from the ball. He's a great rebounder from the guard position and had a nose for the ball.

The final factor was David's ability to shoot free throws at the end of the game. He got to the free throw line a lot and ended his career making more free throws than any player in the history of the MAC and shot 90 percent from the line.

How do we address all of that? My general thought is that how we're going to play this year reminds me of the 2003-04 team, which won the MAC title. That team was very balanced. We had four players average nine points per game or more and had eight players average 13 minutes or more per game. We didn't have a player average more than 30 minutes per game. Out of a timeout, the opposing coach had no idea who's number I was going to call. When any guy got his given shot, he knocked it down. Whatever you took away, another guy could hit his shop.

The last two years, I thought the team was too reliant on David's ability to score. Too many times, especially late in games, we would throw the ball to David, set a screen for him and watch. This year's team I feel will be more balanced, post-David Kool.

"In your next installment of Hawk Talk, could you touch on your philosophy with regards to redshirting players?"

Adam Bancroft

Thanks, Adam for the question. This gets asked all the time. We determine as a coaching staff whether we will or will not offer an opportunity to the student-athlete to redshirt. We determine whether we will even give him the chance to redshirt. After we make that determination, then we allow the player and his parents to make the decision. I will never, ever, ever tell a player he must redshirt. 

There are many reasons for this, but the biggest is recruiting. We got Donald Lawson because two other schools in the MAC and one in the Missouri Valley came in and told him that he was going to redshirt. When his family asked us about our philosophy about redshirting, we told them that it would be their choice, but we wouldn't let him declare a redshirt early. We don't offer somebody the opportunity to redshirt until after the exhibition games so we have the most time possible to evaluate the student-athlete.

Another huge factor is injuries. One of the obvious questions right now is about what are we going to do with up front with Shayne Whittington and Matt Stainbrook. Theoretically, say I told Matt last spring that he was going to redshirt year one. There is a tendency to let your foot off the gas pedal, knowing you're not going to play a meaningful game for the next 1.5 years. What happens if Flenard, Muhammed and Shayne go down with an injury? We need Matt right now and he's had his foot off the gas pedal and isn't ready to go. That's why we don't give redshirt opportunities until after the full evaluation process is complete.

Let me continue by looking back at our situation last year. A lot of people have asked me why we didn't redshirt Brandon Pokley and Shayne last year. You have to make the decision right before your first game. In Shayne's situation, we had Donald who had missed time the year before with a heart problem. Shayne was the only other player on the roster that could match Donald's height. We also felt it was important for Shayne to get game experience last year so if he became a factor this year, it wouldn't be his first game action. We knew he was going to be raw and lack strength, but he still had contributing moments for last year's team. Shayne is also a skilled offensive player. Last year, Donald and Muhammed's offensive contributions were both unknown and Flen was more well-suited for the four. We felt Shayne could give us some skill at the "5" and we had to consider all of that in our decision before the first game.

In Brandon's case, the year before we were a miserable three-point shooting team and Brandon's a very good shooter and had a great senior year. At the same time we had to make a redshirt decision on Brandon, Demetrius Ward missed the entire preseason with a stress fracture in his shin and was still missing practices into late October. We didn't know if Demetrius Ward could play in one game, three games or the whole season. Because of that, we decided to keep all the players active because there were too many questions at the center spot offensively and too many questions on the perimeter when it came to shooting the ball and scoring.

This year, we'll take all those factors under consideration again. Who's playing well? Who isn't playing well? Who's hurt or not hurt? We've already had injuries to thumbs, shoulders, ankles and a concussion on the perimeter. The final factor, we may not offer a redshirt because a guy may develop into a better player for conference play. He might not be good in the first couple games, but could be a better player and pass the player in front of him by MAC play. 

Thanks for the questions and I look forward to seeing you all at our first exhibition on Nov. 2 against Spring Arbor.