Post by RUFresh on Nov 8, 2007 12:01:14 GMT -5
Change at top refreshes RU
Brad Greenberg's arrival to lead the Highlanders was enough to keep some players around.
By Ray Cox
RADFORD -- The moment Brad Greenberg was hired last spring as Radford University's new basketball coach, he had a positive impact on the program.
With the long-time Virginia Tech assistant's arrival, at least two key players, juniors Martell McDuffy and Kenny Thomas, decided not to depart.
"We needed a change here," McDuffy said. "A lot of people wanted to stay here, but they didn't really have a reason to stay here. Coach Greenberg was kind of like our reason for staying."
There was much uncertainty last year as the team slogged through the eight-win lame-duck season of coach Byron Samuels, now an assistant coach at South Florida. In the period between the end of the season and the announcement of Greenberg's hiring, McDuffy and Thomas, the team's most experienced returning players, thought about transferring.
"We talked about it, definitely talked about it a couple of times," Thomas said. "The biggest thing we needed in this organization, this program, is new life. We needed a new reason to keep pushing. Other than having a coach who really wasn't motivated to make us better, now we have somebody who is going to work with us and put in the actual time."
For his part Greenberg, the one-time Philadelphia 76ers general manger best known there for drafting future MVP Allen Iverson first overall in the 1996 NBA draft, took an immediate liking to the players already at Radford.
As for making predictions, he declined.
"I don't have a feel yet for what we are going to be able to do well enough to be competitive against the better teams we're playing this year," he said "It's a process for us now to figure out exactly what we have to do and how well we've got to do it to match up against more experienced teams that have had more success in the past."
Greenberg does know he has some solid perimeter players to work with including McDuffy and Thomas, as well as sophomore point guard Amir Johnson.
Read full story
Brad Greenberg's arrival to lead the Highlanders was enough to keep some players around.
By Ray Cox
RADFORD -- The moment Brad Greenberg was hired last spring as Radford University's new basketball coach, he had a positive impact on the program.
With the long-time Virginia Tech assistant's arrival, at least two key players, juniors Martell McDuffy and Kenny Thomas, decided not to depart.
"We needed a change here," McDuffy said. "A lot of people wanted to stay here, but they didn't really have a reason to stay here. Coach Greenberg was kind of like our reason for staying."
There was much uncertainty last year as the team slogged through the eight-win lame-duck season of coach Byron Samuels, now an assistant coach at South Florida. In the period between the end of the season and the announcement of Greenberg's hiring, McDuffy and Thomas, the team's most experienced returning players, thought about transferring.
"We talked about it, definitely talked about it a couple of times," Thomas said. "The biggest thing we needed in this organization, this program, is new life. We needed a new reason to keep pushing. Other than having a coach who really wasn't motivated to make us better, now we have somebody who is going to work with us and put in the actual time."
For his part Greenberg, the one-time Philadelphia 76ers general manger best known there for drafting future MVP Allen Iverson first overall in the 1996 NBA draft, took an immediate liking to the players already at Radford.
As for making predictions, he declined.
"I don't have a feel yet for what we are going to be able to do well enough to be competitive against the better teams we're playing this year," he said "It's a process for us now to figure out exactly what we have to do and how well we've got to do it to match up against more experienced teams that have had more success in the past."
Greenberg does know he has some solid perimeter players to work with including McDuffy and Thomas, as well as sophomore point guard Amir Johnson.
Read full story