The week that was

Well, I went a week without talking basketball. I missed a troubling loss and a decent win over a bad team (wait, maybe that means it isn't a decent win). Not really sure what happened in the loss to North Carolina A&T.

Win or lose, I was far more interested in this in today's DMN:

SMU, riding a two-game losing streak, suffered through a "horrible" practice Wednesday, coach Matt Doherty said.

Team captain Jon Killen warned Doherty that the Mustangs' confidence was down.

"We've got to change our course of action," Doherty said he realized. "We've got to build 'em up."

So Malcolm Farmer, director of operations, quickly put together a highlight video. The team sat down in Moody Coliseum's bleachers after Thursday's walk-through to watch it.

"It got the guys fired up," junior Derrick Roberts said. "We chose to come out and make a difference on the court."

This is what, by most accounts, Doherty didn't do at North Carolina. At UNC he pushed harder and harder got more negative and negative. Now, he is builiding players back up. I think there was some concern that he was headed down that same path a few weeks ago. What we can't forget is that Doherty is a good coach and a demanding coach. He is going to be hard on his players.

So, over at the Orsini blog, where he doesn't post pictures of USC cheerleaders, Orsini is inviting "guest bloggers." Now we have a post from Head Football Coach Phil Bennett. At the end, Bennett says he will be back with more insight, but for the life of me I didn't read anything in his post that couldn't have come from nearly any coach in Division I. It really isn't fair of me to criticize; the guy is in the middle of recruiting. It isn't like he has much he can comment on.

In other news, Chuck Faucette is rumored to be gone.