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Morris: Blueprint for success works perfectly
USC head coach Darrin Horn celebrates their victory over Kentucky at the Colonial Life Arena.
C. Aluka Berry/caberry@thestate.com
Posted on 03.13.09
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SEC TOURNAMENT
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USC OPENER: Gamecocks vs. Mississippi St., 3:15 p.m. Friday
CHAMPIONSHIP: 1 p.m. Sunday, CBS
LET’S CALL THIS Darrin Horn’s five steps to recovery for the South Carolina men’s basketball program. Here goes:
1. IT’S ALL ACADEMIC
When Horn was hired 11 months ago, he said in his introductory remarks that academics would be paramount for his players. Too often those kinds of comments are mere coach-speak as the business of winning basketball games takes precedent.
Horn’s team quickly learned otherwise. Early in the first session of summer school, one player and then another skipped a class. Yet another was reported late for a class.
Under Horn’s instructions, the entire team began gathering at 5:30 a.m. every day, and USC’s conditioning coach put the squad through rigorous running exercises.
“We learned you’ve got to be accountable,” USC senior guard Zam Fredrick said. “We’re counting on everybody. If one person messes up, all of us get punished. We took that lesson and applied it to everything. It’s just not about basketball.”
USC posted its highest grade-point average in years during the fall semester. Academic suspensions for Sam Muldrow and Brandis Raley have served as messages that Horn means what he says.
2. VIVA LA EUROPE!
The four-game swing through the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria was in the works before Horn’s hiring, but the new coach was all aboard for a trip that served as an icebreaker for his staff and team.
“How you travel and the time you spend together, it gave them an opportunity to see what we were going to be about on the floor,” Horn said. “Also, it gave them a sense for us off the floor, too.”
The immediate sense from the players was once they stepped on the basketball court — whether in practice or for a game — Horn was intense and his demands on them were greater than anything they previously faced.
After one game, USC athletics director Eric Hyman addressed several players and was full of enthusiasm. He told the players that USC fans would support a team that played as hard as the Gamecocks did in Europe.
“We talk a lot about trust, player to player, player to coach and coaches to player,” Horn said. “Any time you can have an experience like that, it helps build it.”
3. ZAM THE MAN
Horn quickly got his message across to Fredrick in two preseason meetings: Fredrick no longer could play the same way if USC was to be successful. The meetings also injected a needed dose of confidence in Fredrick that his coach believed in him.
“Hopefully, he understands that I value what he’s about and how he plays,” Horn said of Fred-rick. “He’s also come to an understanding of what we need for him to do well for our team to win and to make him a better player.”
Few are the instances this season when Fredrick has taken off on his own as he sometimes did during in his junior season. There seems to be recognition from Fredrick that his game has to fit into the team’s scheme, rather than the other way around.
“He told me as long as I do the little things — play hard, play defense, rebound — he would give me freedom to be me,” Fredrick said. “Gaining a lot of confidence from your coach, telling you he’s going to back you, goes a long ways when you’re a player.”
4. SMARTER ‘D’ FROM DOUBLE-D
Devan Downey led the SEC in steals a season ago with an average of 3.2 per game. It was not a statistic Downey was told to brag about.
The problem was that on too many other occasions Downey overplayed on defense, missed an attempt at a steal and left his teammates in a compromising position. Horn went about changing Downey’s method of attack on defense. He asked Downey to attack the opposing point guard, straight up.
“When he’s locked into that and doing that well, I think it sets the tone for our whole team and sets the tone for the other teams in terms of letting them know how we’re going to play,” Horn said.
Downey again leads the SEC in steals with an average of three per game. But his defensive efforts have not come at the expense of his team. Along the way, Downey has made himself just as dangerous on the defensive end as the offensive end.
“I think I’m much better,” Downey said of his defense. “Coach Horn has me more disciplined. I steal the ball within the defense.”
5. BELIEVE
One play turned the season for USC, transforming a team that often found ways to lose games a season ago into one that believed it could win any game.
USC trailed Florida at Colonial Life Arena by seven points with 1:46 remaining. Yet during every timeout, Horn and his coaching staff preached a mind-set of believing USC could win. Even with two seconds remaining, USC trailing by one and Florida’s Chandler Parsons at the free-throw line, Horn told his team to believe.
“You’re 1-2 to start league play and your back’s against the wall,” Horn said. “We talked to them in practice prior to the game and throughout the game, especially in the last 10 minutes, to keep competing, to keep believing and to stick together and trust each other, understand you’ve paid the price.”
As USC broke the huddle before Parsons’ free throw, Mike Holmes told Fredrick to “go long.” Parsons missed, Holmes grabbed the rebound, turned and fired a perfect length-of-the-court strike to a streaking Fredrick for the winning layup as the horn sounded.
“There is a difference between believing you can win, then getting in the heat of the game and sticking to those little things that help you win, and not getting caught up in how the last play went good or bad,” Horn said. “Quite honestly, that’s the biggest challenge in being with a team that hasn’t won because you’re fighting all that.”
With that, Horn had completed his five-point plan of recovery for this USC basketball team.
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM.
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