It’s been a huge refrain across college basketball. Teams just aren’t ready to play post COVID pause for a week or two. Practices become disjointed at best. Two or three weeks can go by without any real game play action. Chemistry and continuity are are lost for at least a little while.
That was the general consensus.
Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton just blew a bunch of those theories out of the water.
Following a 10 point loss to Clemson on December 29, Florida State entered a COVID pause that cost them 3 ACC games. They returned to action on January 13. That’s 15 days without any game action.
The Noles returned to play their best game of the entire season with a 32 point win over a decent NC State team. They were a stellar 11/11 from the free throw line and shot a spectacular 70.4% from the field. Rather than a team coming out of a pause, they looked NCAA tournament ready.
Saturday FSU faced an improving UNC team without talented freshman PG Scottie Barnes, and a hobbled MJ Walker. They got a strong effort from UNC, and still prevailed 82-75, shooting 96% from the free throw line on 26/27 shooting.
This is what I’m calling Hamilton’s post-pause coaching…
Leonard Hamilton gets an A+ for his post-pause coaching. Blew out NC State, then beats a strong effort from UNC without Barnes.
— Jeff or Jeffrey Fann (@TalkinACCSports) January 16, 2021
You’d expect something like free throw shooting to slip given the lack of practice time. It didn’t.
You’d think losing a major contributor like Barnes would further erode team chemistry. It didn’t.
How did Hamilton do such a fine coaching job following the pause?
From this article https://theosceola.com/hamilton-youve-got-to-be-flexible-and-patient/ Hamilton preached flexibility and patience.
“We just got to maintain flexibility during these times,” Hamilton said Monday afternoon. “It’s a moving target. Nothing’s really exact, you’ve got to be flexible and patient and understand that these are different types of times that we operating in.”
Sure FSU is talented and deep, but we’ve seen other talented ACC teams, and I’m looking at Duke, struggle post-pause. Wake Forest after their long pause looked completely out of sorts in a blowout loss to Georgia Tech a couple weeks ago.
Duke, Wake Forest, and others probably didn’t do anything really wrong either. It’s as Hamilton says “different types of times”.
It’s how you handle it, and Hamilton has definitely proven a pause in your season doesn’t have to mean a pause in your team development and growth.
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