Wichita State notes: Valley players use summer to work on weaknesses
Summer is the time for basketball players to admit their weaknesses and try to fix them. Egos are checked and everybody goes to school.
“None of us are perfect,” Creighton forward Doug McDermott said.
The average observer might miss Jarmar Gulley’s inability to drive to his left. Coaches quickly highlighted that fact on their Missouri State scouting reports and Gulley, a junior-college transfer, found it more difficult to score late in the season. MSU coach Paul Lusk told Gulley, a 6-foot-4 swingman, not bother driving right during pickup games this summer. Lusk wants Gulley, who averaged 10.4 points, to work on outside shooting.
“He’s a dominant right-handed kid, and we’ve really worked on his left hand,” Lusk said. “He’s most successful when he is getting paint touches. But he’s not that far away from being a consistent shooter. It’s reps. It’s footwork. It’s shot preparation.”
Gulley isn’t alone. All over the Missouri Valley Conference, key returners are working to gain an edge.
At Wichita State, forward Carl Hall is shooting 500 or so jumpers a day. He is WSU’s top returning big man and would like to diversity his offense. Hall, a senior, averaged 8.4 points and made 57.2 percent of his shots. He rarely scored outside the lane. While he isn’t going to turn into J.T. Durley, any additional scoring from Hall is important.
“Jump shot, free throws, post moves,” he said. “I’m really working on my offensive game. I’m seeing pretty good results. It’s a long road.”
McDermott is tuning a game that made him an All-American as a sophomore. He worked out against players such as Robbie Hummel, Marquis Teague and others preparing for pro ball at a camp in Indianapolis. Later this summer, he expects to attend two more high-profile camps.
“It’s huge to go against guys that are similar to me in size,” he said. “Those are the best of the best. I know I’ve got a long way to go.”
McDermott is a deadly three-point shooter with good post moves. He is working on his mid-range game, hoping to foil double teams with better drives and short jumpers. He is also working on defense, an area that bit the Bluejays last season.
“We need him to be one of our leaders defensively, if we’re going to move our program forward,” Bluejays coach Greg McDermott said. “It’s going to be important that Doug buys into that.”
Not normal in Normal — New Illinois State men’s basketball coach Dan Muller wasted no time drawing a contrast between himself and predecessor Tim Jankovich.
Jankovich, much to the displeasure of Redbirds fans, declined to schedule tough games. The Redbirds ranked seventh or lower in the MVC in schedule strength the past four seasons, including ninth in 2010 and last in 2011.
Muller charted a different course since his hiring in May. The Redbirds are playing at Louisville, with no return, this season. He started a home-and-home series with Dayton.
Those are the type of games he wants, regardless of where he is coaching.
“There was a conscious effort to use my scheduling philosophy, and it just so happened that that meant beefing it up,” he said. “I know that people in the community were a little frustrated with the scheduling of the past, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me. I wanted to come in and to help the program get to where I want it to get to. I think we have the ability to play a really good schedule most years, depending on your team.”
New look at Cessna — Crews are working on two projects at Cessna Stadium.
The football field is being reseeded with Bermuda grass.
“We’re starting over with our grass,” associate athletic director Brad Pittman said. “We just didn’t have the quality of grass we wanted.”
Pittman said the grass should be ready for high school football. Kapaun Mount Carmel plays homes games at Cessna Stadium.
Drainage problems forced WSU to tear out the retaining wall behind the south end zone (opposite the scoreboard). It will be replaced with a three-tiered setup that should help the drainage from the parking lot and give fans a place to walk and sit during events.
“It should look better and be a little more user-friendly,” Pittman said.
Worth noting — WSU golfer Gretchen Huhnerkoch won the Minnesota State Publinx Match Play Championship in Golden Valley, Minn. She defeated former Drake golfer Olivia Lansing 4 and 3 in the final. Former Illinois State guard Nic Moore will transfer to SMU, joining former Redbirds coach Tim Jankovich, according to CBSSports.com’s Jeff Goodman. Moore averaged 10 points and 3.8 assists as a freshman. WSU’s men’s tennis team finished the season ranked No. 7 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Central Region. Matheus Pereira finished 11th in the singles ranking.
This story was originally published June 15, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Wichita State notes: Valley players use summer to work on weaknesses."