New month marks halfway point of summer training

Note: Kellon Thomas is a junior on the Kent State men's basketball team and is working for the Athletics Communication department during the Summer to fulfill a requirement of his Practicum I in Sport Administration course. As part of this course, Kellon will be doing a weekly blog to give fans an inside look at how the Golden Flashes are preparing for the 2014-15 season.

This past week marked the halfway point of our eight-week training program. We had our elite camp for high school players Monday night, which went on from about 5-9:20. During this time, some of our guys demonstrated a short 20-minute workout for the campers to see the type of drills and work ethic it takes to play at Kent State.

It was a shortened week with the holiday, but we still had our scheduled individual workouts Tuesday and Thursday, and another one-hour team practice on Wednesday. During this hour, we continued to work on some of our offense and things we need for the season. One of the things we worked on more this week was ballscreens and how we want to defend them. Coach Sendy had us run a drill where you earn points for getting defensive stops, not offensive scores. I like when he does this because it puts our mindset towards getting defensive stops and not worried about offense. One area we have to improve from last year is playing better on defense. We have plenty of scorers and playmakers but playing in a league such as the MAC, you have to win games on the defensive end.

On Thursday, we did another team-building and conditioning event. We had a mini track meet of seven events. Although I do not like conditioning, I like being with my team getting better and knowing that we are all chasing the same goal. Our freshman, Raasean Davis was on my team for the track meet. He is new to this type of work ethic and some might have been questioning him because of his size but he really surprised me how well he ran. He finished every sprint and timed event in the time he was supposed to. We will need him and his size to be successful this season.