Monday, January 23, 2012

Coach's Take: Saint Peter's Not There Yet

Here's another in the series looking at conference teams thorugh te eyes of their respective head coach.

Up now,

SAINT PETER'S



"Our group is getting better," said coach John Dunne, whose team, as of Monday, was 3-6 in the MAAC and 4-16 overall.. "I'm not overly concerned with our overall record right now. We're getting better. We're light years ahead of where we were a month ago. But, we're still a group trying to find ourselves. We're still trying to set rotations and game-playing awareness. It's not where you want to be this late in the season, but we're getting there."

The Peacocks are extremely young and inexperienced, particularly after losing four senior starters from last year's team. One of the bright spots has been 5-foot-9 freshman guard Lamin Fulton, who averages 9.9 points per game.

"He has been scoring well recently,  but he still defers way too much," added Dunne. "Still, early in the season he wasn't even looking at the rim ... not even in practice. He's starting to come along playing off the guard. He played with a ton of Division I guys in high school, and was a pass-first point guard, even though he had a knack for scoring the ball. But, he doesn't mind deferring. He's a great teammate.

"Still, we brought him here to fill a void, and that's to put points on the board. Some times he worries too much about upperclassmen's feelings. He's got mental toughness. If he can put the ball in the basket, I don't care what size you are."

Dunne is reminded that his program, before his arrival, had no problem putting the scoring load on another undersized guard, one Keydren Clark, who at 5-8 finished with more than 3,000 career points and twice led the nation in scoring.

"Both small, scoring guard's, but no parallel there," admitted Dunne. "Lamin is a good player in his own right, but Keydren is one of the best of all time to have played in the MAAC."


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