Weight Room Conditioning

[ScootCat]

I have followed college basketball very closely since the late 1960’s, especially the ACC and the SoCon. Our lads would likely be no better than third or fourth best team in the SoCon this season. Samford, a team with the longest current winning streak in country, battled WCU in Cullowhee last night before a big crowd. Either team could’ve won, but Samford squeaked it out after a very entertaining battle. The Wildcats would be underdogs to either of those teams on a neutral court, and both of those SoCon heavyweights have legitimate NBA/Euro prospects in their starting five. We, on the other hand, do not.

[Cat Forever]

Legend is that that two of the strongest and fastest athletes we've ever seen didn't do weight training at all until they reached college and then only on a limited basis.

Herschel Walker was a poor 12 year old chubby kid in rural Georgia who was teased by his classmates for being fat and clumsy. He went to his brother's track coach and asked how he could get faster, stronger, and better coordinated. The coach told him to do push-ups, sit-ups, and to run sprints demonstrating the proper techniques to Herschel. By the time he arrived at UGA Herschel was doing thousands of push-ups and sit-ups daily. He was one of the fastest sprinters in the country and stronger than any of the older football players on the team which included a couple of All-American linemen (Payne and Gilbert) and All-American safety Terry Hoage. His first bench press as a freshman at UGA with no prior weight training was 375lbs which set a new team record at the time.

Bo Jackson ... arguably the best athlete of all time ... was not a fan of weight training either. He used calisthenics too and added water aerobics. He also said he had "good genes". I saw an interview of Deion Sanders during his recent return to the spotlight. He was asked if Michael Jordan was the best athlete he had ever seen. "Not even close ... Bo Jackson by far ... no one else is close. "

Herschel and Bo obviously had God given talents that few have had. But they showed that determination and hard work could develop strength and athletic talent in the absence of coaches and equipment filled facilities. So, if our athletes have access to coaches and facilities all they need is determination and hard work.

[Jay Catsby]

All I will say to this is: current student athletes have so many more time commitments and distractions available to them than we did as students. And our guys still find a way to give a ton of time and effort to the game and to their team. I’ll always be proud of the way our guys do that.

With this current team, I don’t think strength or quickness is any more or less of an issue than previous Davidson teams. We have won much more with much less athletic and physical rosters. Shooting on the other hand…

[stevelee]

We know they have done hard work. As for determination, I hope they are not reading this board.

[85Wildcatsky]

Crazy thing is that we can gripe and moan all we want but if Lee comes back last year, our 3 point shooting would have been a whole lot better and our record would have improved above the 20 game win mark.

If Sam sticks around for this year, we have Sam and Skogman banging inside and Bailey and Logan adding a deep big man bench. We probably would not look soft and have one of our deepest big man teams in a long time. Sam's 3 point touch was a legit threat and again our record would be a lot better.

Diets, strength programs, end of game coaching, etc are all very important. Talent solves most problems and those two losses had a big impact. Davidson basketball has mostly been a "player developement program" and the loss of those two hurt.


PS- Luka is putting up some nice numbers in Greece's top league.

[cat44]

We know they have done hard work. As for determination, I hope they are not reading this board.

Not one person has questioned the determination or efforts of our guys. What we have questioned is their strength or lack thereof of some of our guys, and why that is after almost two years of strength training.

[stevelee]

I’m too busy watching our ladies lose to bother with pull quotes.