Saturday, January 28, 2006

Hall of Fame Coach wins crucial game

Temple 91 - Maryland 85

PHILADELPHIA Jan. 28, 2006 - Hall of Fame coach John Chaney of Temple added another victory to his iron man career. John Chaney often purposely schedules the hardest teams to play every year and has miraculously won about 75 percent of all his games. Whether he is coaching a good team or average team, he has his team playing the best in the country.

Today Temple beat a good team that is ranked 18th nationally, the Maryland Terrapins who just a couple of days ago suspended one of their star players.

I was in attendance at the game and it was clearly evident that John Chaney is a teacher of basketball, a professor of the game in the highest sense. After nearly every play he would pull different players aside and give them little lessons on the sideline in between plays which is different from just yelling at players senselessly when they make a mistake. His profound understanding of the game is also obvious by the way his team plays defense, in fact, the zone defense that Temple plays is only played by Temple and no other school quite knows the exact zone that he teaches, it is only known that it is quite difficult to play against. Different defenses, whether it is man to man, or different type of zones often have various rules and assignments, and coaches often use the same type of defenses and even prominent coaches give clinics on their specific defense - but not John Chaney, his defense is absolutely top secret, in fact, other coaches often ask John Chaney's former players about this special defense and the players always decline to give any insight into his complex zone defense.

Maryland was confused by this defense and they committed several turnovers because of this often called "stifling defense." Myself being a former coach with two championships under my belt, was in awe of how this defense forced the other team into turnovers and how often they got a steal and how often they forced a bad pass.

This game was crucial since Temple doesn't have great chances of making it to the NCAA tournament which allows teams the chance for a championship. 64 teams are invited though it is not a formula of just the best 64 teams, but that is another story. By beating a ranked opponent it gives them better chance to make it into that tournament and it gives them some confidence for the remainder of their games that they can beat quality teams.

All in all it was a great game, and I hope to put some pics up and perhaps talk about the game some more.

Pete Duhon


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