For the Alabama A&M basketball team, a well-planned trip to Hawaii turned into a long day’s journey into … yikes!
“Our day started at 3 in the morning (on Thursday) when we had to catch a bus from Huntsville (Ala.) to Nashville (Tenn.),” said AAMU coach Dylan Howard, whose Bulldogs play Hawaii today in the Stan Sheriff Center. “We get to Nashville and we have about an hour and a half wait before we catch the flight to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, we have another wait. We finally board the plane (from Los Angeles) to Hawaii, and an hour and half into the flight, the pilot gets on the intercom and said we had to turn around because of mechanical issues. I was like, ‘Oh … my … goodness.’”
The Bulldogs eventually arrived in town at 7:30 p.m., then headed to UH for a short practice.
“We were up almost 24 hours straight because of the time change,” Howard said. “It was a long day. I know we were dead tired, but we still had to get some shots up.”
Howard said obstacles are part of the sport.
“It’s the nature of the beast, I guess,” Howard said. “It’s one of those things I always tell our guys. You never know what you’re going to expect. You’re going to face some adversity. That’s part of being a Division I basketball player. One of our mottos is: no excuses. We just roll with the punches and keep going.”
AAMU has become a school of hard knocks. The past three years, the Bulldogs are 6-66, including 1-11 this season. In May, Howard was promoted to interim head coach after Donnie Marsh resigned. In Marsh’s lone season, the Bulldogs went 3-28 and finished last among 351 Division I teams in scoring (60.4 points per game) and 276th in points allowed (76.4 per game).
Despite the “interim” tag, Howard is trying to institute changes. The Bulldogs recently secured two commitments from strongly regarded prospects. Howard has pledged to sign more local prospects. “I know everybody is always screaming about football, football and roll, Tide, roll,” Howard said. “But quietly, Alabama has a lot of good basketball players.”
With a modern campus and Huntsville’s partnership with NASA, Howard said, “the school is in a great environment.” But the aesthetics have not transferred to the basketball program.
“It’s hard to explain,” Howard said of AAMU’s perpetual on-court struggles. “It’s one of those things where, if you have a couple losing seasons, that some people get down on the program. … Every now and then, you have to breathe new life into the program.”
Howard has tried to implement a hurry-up offense. The Bulldogs are averaging 58.3 shots per game. “We want to play fast,” Howard said. “We want to get up at least 70 shots per game. That’s always our goal.”
The Bulldogs also utilized a 2-3, matchup zone in recent games. The smaller lineup features Gerron Scissum, a 6-foot-8 junior, as the tallest defender. “He’s long, athletic and he changes a lot of shots,” Howard said.
Howard said Brandon Powell, a 6-2 freshman, is the Bulldogs’ best point-of-attack defender. Howard said he told Powell: “We’re not looking for you to score. Your job is to play defense and rebound and just play as hard you can.”
Point guard Brandon Miller often tries to disrupt opponents’ flow by picking up a ball-handler in a personal full-court press. “He sets the tempo,” Howard said of Miller.
In last week’s victory, AAMU used the zone to hold Tulane to 36.7 percent shooting.
“With the new system, the new coach, it takes a while,” Howard said. “You’ve got to get a lot of games under your belt, a lot of practices, for them to realize this is how we need to do it. They’re buying in.”
