First off, sorry I missed yesterday. There were some technical difficulties on my end logging into our blog page. Had I been able to write about Friday’s practice, I would have told you that things started to get pretty sloppy. There were missed layups, bad passes, not much attention to detail. John Calipari saw those same things when he watched the practice tape Friday night, and he came Saturday loaded for bear. After the sloppiness Friday continued into Saturday, Calipari let his team have it. He yelled and screamed. He made them run. And I think it really surprised the freshmen, who saw a different side of the coach than he had shown the first few days of practice. “Jeff Robinson (right) has never seen me yell before,” Calipari said. “My man thought this was going to be fun.”

One of the interesting things about coaching that I’ve observed over the years is that there’s always got to be a certain tension between a coach and his players. If you’ve ever been to a Memphis practice, it’s usually pretty easy to see what I mean. But because things had been going so well, Calipari couldn’t really produce that tension. Like he told me, how could he yell at them when there was nothing to yell about? On the other hand, when the tension goes away, it’s easy for bad habits to slip in under the radar.

Regardless, Calipari apparently got his players attention. They finished out pretty strong Saturday morning, then came back in the afternoon and had a very good, defensive-oriented practice. They’ll scrimmage on Sunday afternoon.

Greetings from Texas. I’ve been down here for 3 days already visiting family. I’m ready to head on down to Houston for the game.

Playing games in Houston has been good for Tommy West coached Tigers. Since his first season in 2001 the Tigers have played and won 3 games in the city of Houston. All three wins have come against the Houston Cougars not the Rice Owls as this is the first meeting between the two schools. The 2001 Tigers won a shootout. The 2003 and 2005 Tigers turned their seasons around down here. Could the same happen for the 2007 Tigers?
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