The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men?s basketball team was 18 hours removed from its thrilling 76-72 victory over UW-Milwaukee when it was back on the practice floor Sunday afternoon.
The topic of conversation during the brief, 45-minute workout to prepare for tonight?s game against Butler at the Resch Center was no surprise. Since the Phoenix lost back-to-back games against UWM and Loyola two weeks ago, its players and coaches have spoken mostly of one thing ? getting back to playing ?Green Bay basketball.?
What exactly that seemingly vague notion is became clear in the last week and a half. Perhaps the best example of it was on display Saturday night against UWM in a game that pulled the Phoenix (14-5 overall, 7-2 Horizon League) into a virtual tie with the Panthers for first place in the Horizon League.
Beginning with the bounce-back win against Illinois-Chicago on Jan. 22 and including victories at Detroit and over UWM, coach Tod Kowalczyk?s team has exemplified the lessons he began teaching nearly three years ago when he was hired to rebuild this program.
?The two main things are togetherness and toughness,? said senior guard Matt Rohde, the only player who has been with Kowalczyk for all three of his seasons at UWGB. ?That?s what Green Bay basketball is.?
And it was everything UWGB wasn?t during its only consecutive losses of the season. When things went badly in the first UWM game ? a 30-point blowout loss ? the Phoenix couldn?t hang together and fight through adversity.
Instead, it crumbled as a team and tried to play as individuals. That carried over in a 19-point home loss to a Loyola team that was nearly a double-digit underdog.
?Looking back at it,? Kowalczyk said on Sunday, ?we have a pretty quiet group of guys, and when things weren?t going their way as individuals, they got too quiet.
?That was the response that was causing the problems. We weren?t playing very hard or very together. We stressed that if it?s not going your way, you can still help this team by communicating and showing enthusiasm.?
To regain that attitude, Kowalczyk dug out all of the old toughness drills ? rebounding, fighting for loose balls, taking charges ? that were staples of his practices during his first season, when he was trying to instill that mind-set in a program that had lost its emotional edge.
?Those practices were much harder, and we got that toughness back,? Rohde said. ?We got away from that for a while, but that got us back to the Green Bay way.?
Said senior guard Brandon Morris: ?We started focusing more on ourselves, on Green Bay basketball and how we play. We just tried to take care of our business. I think that?s what turned it around.?
Whether UWGB can sustain that frame of mind over the final month of the regular season likely will determine if the Phoenix will win its first conference title since 1996.
The Phoenix shouldn?t have any trouble carrying that over to tonight?s game considering that the idea of ?Green Bay basketball? was built in part based on what Butler was doing at about the time Kowalczyk was hired.
That?s when the Bulldogs, who this season are struggling at 7-11 overall and 2-6 in the league, were near the end of a stretch in which they went to the NCAA Tournament five times in seven years. Their teams weren?t flashy or overly talented but played a hard-nose brand of basketball that was tough to stop.
?In our first year, all we did was make tapes of Butler to show their toughness and togetherness,? Kowalczyk said. ?They set the bar for it, and I think we have done a good job following in their footsteps.?
Said Rohde: ?They weren?t the biggest guys or the most athletic ? similar to us ? but they got it done with toughness.?
Kowalczyk made that the cornerstone of his program in part because he felt the difference in talent level among Horizon League teams was negligible.
?I told the guys after that Loyola (loss) that you could take the players in this league, throw everybody?s name in a hat, draw out the names, and it?d be pretty equal to what it is today,? Kowalczyk said. ?It?s the team that plays tough and plays together that?s going to win.?
The topic of conversation during the brief, 45-minute workout to prepare for tonight?s game against Butler at the Resch Center was no surprise. Since the Phoenix lost back-to-back games against UWM and Loyola two weeks ago, its players and coaches have spoken mostly of one thing ? getting back to playing ?Green Bay basketball.?
What exactly that seemingly vague notion is became clear in the last week and a half. Perhaps the best example of it was on display Saturday night against UWM in a game that pulled the Phoenix (14-5 overall, 7-2 Horizon League) into a virtual tie with the Panthers for first place in the Horizon League.
Beginning with the bounce-back win against Illinois-Chicago on Jan. 22 and including victories at Detroit and over UWM, coach Tod Kowalczyk?s team has exemplified the lessons he began teaching nearly three years ago when he was hired to rebuild this program.
?The two main things are togetherness and toughness,? said senior guard Matt Rohde, the only player who has been with Kowalczyk for all three of his seasons at UWGB. ?That?s what Green Bay basketball is.?
And it was everything UWGB wasn?t during its only consecutive losses of the season. When things went badly in the first UWM game ? a 30-point blowout loss ? the Phoenix couldn?t hang together and fight through adversity.
Instead, it crumbled as a team and tried to play as individuals. That carried over in a 19-point home loss to a Loyola team that was nearly a double-digit underdog.
?Looking back at it,? Kowalczyk said on Sunday, ?we have a pretty quiet group of guys, and when things weren?t going their way as individuals, they got too quiet.
?That was the response that was causing the problems. We weren?t playing very hard or very together. We stressed that if it?s not going your way, you can still help this team by communicating and showing enthusiasm.?
To regain that attitude, Kowalczyk dug out all of the old toughness drills ? rebounding, fighting for loose balls, taking charges ? that were staples of his practices during his first season, when he was trying to instill that mind-set in a program that had lost its emotional edge.
?Those practices were much harder, and we got that toughness back,? Rohde said. ?We got away from that for a while, but that got us back to the Green Bay way.?
Said senior guard Brandon Morris: ?We started focusing more on ourselves, on Green Bay basketball and how we play. We just tried to take care of our business. I think that?s what turned it around.?
Whether UWGB can sustain that frame of mind over the final month of the regular season likely will determine if the Phoenix will win its first conference title since 1996.
The Phoenix shouldn?t have any trouble carrying that over to tonight?s game considering that the idea of ?Green Bay basketball? was built in part based on what Butler was doing at about the time Kowalczyk was hired.
That?s when the Bulldogs, who this season are struggling at 7-11 overall and 2-6 in the league, were near the end of a stretch in which they went to the NCAA Tournament five times in seven years. Their teams weren?t flashy or overly talented but played a hard-nose brand of basketball that was tough to stop.
?In our first year, all we did was make tapes of Butler to show their toughness and togetherness,? Kowalczyk said. ?They set the bar for it, and I think we have done a good job following in their footsteps.?
Said Rohde: ?They weren?t the biggest guys or the most athletic ? similar to us ? but they got it done with toughness.?
Kowalczyk made that the cornerstone of his program in part because he felt the difference in talent level among Horizon League teams was negligible.
?I told the guys after that Loyola (loss) that you could take the players in this league, throw everybody?s name in a hat, draw out the names, and it?d be pretty equal to what it is today,? Kowalczyk said. ?It?s the team that plays tough and plays together that?s going to win.?
