Working hard to get ready for preseason practice

By Kris Brewer
Junior, Point Guard

After getting back from the Bahamas, it was kind of a down time for us with classes starting right up. But we got right back to work after Labor Day and our whole team has been getting to the gym every day for the past 3 weeks now. We come in for individual workouts in the afternoon and then we lift weights after that.

One of the main areas of that I’ve been working on during individuals is my ballhandling. I’ve worked a lot on penetrating and then either taking the shot or finding open shooters. I want to do anything that I can to help our team win. As a point guard, that means taking care of the ball and creating open shots for my teammates. 

Our posts have been doing a lot of big man work. They do rebounding drills, dunking drills, blocking drills, and just working on improving their overall skill level.

We usually have open gym a few times during the week as well. Those have all been very competitive. Everybody’s been coming in and playing hard. I’m very competitive and want to win every time that I compete—whether it’s a drill during a workout, a game in open gym, or the MAC Championship game. A lot of these guys are like that and it makes us all compete that much harder when we go against each other.

I see a lot of confidence in our new players. I think playing in the Bahamas helped us all, but it especially helped the newcomers feel more comfortable with our system.

Friday is our first official practice. There should be some great competition in the preseason. I feel like we have so many guys that can play, and everybody’s going to be competing for spots, including myself.

We’re all looking forward to the season and November 8 can’t get here soon enough!