Louisville, Ky. — If it appeared that Indiana State’s players were slow to react to their lowly lot in an 0-6 start, you weren’t the only one to notice.
After some prodding from the ISU coaching staff, the Sycamores decided that the team’s soul-searching needed to be done in the open. After regular team meetings with the coaches on Saturday night, the players had a team-only meeting to try and cure what had ailed ISU in its poor start.
ISU point guard Rashad Reed thought the meeting was vital in helping ISU break its streak. The Sycamores defeated Lamar 68-66 on Sunday in the Marques Maybin Classic.
“Last night, after our coaches’ meeting, we had a meeting for ourselves. We discussed things that were going on. We talked about what we needed to do to win down the stretch,” Reed said. “The coaches can tell us what to do, but as players and teammates, we need to discuss what’s going on in our own heads, why we’re not getting wins. We had to talk about that.”
ISU senior forward Jay Tunnell said the team agreed that it needed to re-focus.
“We decided we needed to start playing for each other instead of what’s on the back of our jerseys. It’s a pride thing about being Indiana State. We’re not the best rebounding team, but we wanted to prove we could fight for every one we could get. Eventually those energy plays helped us,” Tunnell said.
Reed said the main thrust of the meeting was improving ISU’s defense.
“We said if someone gets beat one-on-one, everyone rotates, not just the one guy. We discussed defense first, then we discussed our offense. As you can see, everybody came together today and we got a win,” Reed said.
Reed hopes the victory serves to cement the message the players wanted to get across to one another in the meeting.
“Once someone speaks up, it puts pressure on them as a player first. Once that person speaks up, they have to follow what they said they’d do. Once one person does it, it’s going to make everyone else get on the boat. When you get 12 people on the boat, you win,” Reed said.
From the Press Box
From the Press Box: ISU’s players take matters into their own hands before Lamar victory
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Quick quiz … what’s the state flower of Hawaii?
Don’t worry. I can’t just rattle state flowers off the top of my head. I had to look it up too, even though I’ve seen them all over the place in Honolulu.
I didn’t even know that Indiana’s state flower is the peony, which replaced the apparently unloved zinnia in the 1950s.
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