A Conversation With Dave Odom
Confidence and maturity will help the men's hoops squad this season.
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Coach Odom may have what it
takes to get back to the NCAA
Tournament this season.
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Gold Rush Front Page
It's been 10 years since Dave Odom was introduced as the new head coach of the Wake Forest men's basketball program. During that time, plenty has changed in the ACC: the league has grown from eight teams to nine, teams within the league have switched coaches about 10 times, and countless players have come and gone. Through it all, Odom has remained a stalwart, and has kept his team in the upper division of the ACC for most of that time. The 1999-2000 season brings a new challenge: how to get the Deacons back into the NCAA tournament after a two-year absence? Gold Rush's Jay Reddick talked to Odom the day before the Deacons' first exhibition game of the new season. The following is their conversation:
Gold Rush: How's practice been so far?
Odom: It's gone very well. We're a little bit ahead of where we've been the last two or three years, and we should be. We have more experience coming back and it takes less time to put our drills in and our different schemes. They understand what we're about and how we do things, but we still have to go through timing and things like that. It's still hard work, but the players have been up to it, and they've done a very good job.
Gold Rush: Having so much experience back must be nice.
Odom: We're due a year like that. We've been through two hard years of having to teach everybody everything. It's been nice, but what you don't want to do is get into a situation where you feel like everybody knows everything and you just skip over it. What you want to do is go into detail as if nobody knows anything, then you do a good job teaching them.
Gold Rush: Has any semblance of a rotation started to take shape?
Odom: What you've got is a natural breakdown, position-wise. You have at least two people at every position, and three at some. There's not a player on our team that I would mind putting into any part of any game we have scheduled, at this point. Things change, but right now, they've earned my respect and the respect of each other. Therefore, we want to take a good early look at everybody and try to get a feel for what combinations play well together.
Gold Rush: A lot has been said during the preseason about how teams won't be issued free passes into the NCAA tournament based on their conference's ranking. The NCAA selection committee has bitten the Deacons the last two years. How are you approaching the quest to return to the NCAA field?
Odom: In one way it's out of our hands, and in another way, it's very much within our control. Right now, you want to control the things you can control. The schedule's done, you're going to play it. What we've got to try to do is approach every single game like, at least in part, it will have a bearing on us to an NCAA tournament. Because it does. No game is unimportant, no game is more important. They're all very important, and they all take on an NCAA meaning. We've got to give them all that respectful approach that lends itself to playing your best.
Gold Rush: Talk a little bit about what the newcomers, Tate Decker and Josh Howard, bring to the program.
Odom: Tate has been with us a year, so he's had the advantage of knowing a little something about what's going on. He's a very spontaneous player. He shoots the ball with range and accuracy. He's kind of given to the unexpected; he's not a programmed player at all. In some ways, some people would say he's a little bit undisciplined. We're trying to give him the right touch of discipline without taking away that spontaneity. He's got good strength and good agility.
Josh is very athletically talented. He's quick, he's fast, he jumps well. He has good skills, and he just needs time. That's the one thing we can give him: a lot of time and a lot of coaching. He needs to become more comfortable with the system. He's going to be a nice player, I think, if he keeps working every day.
Gold Rush: Have there been any specific improvements you've seen that you'd like to talk about?
Odom: They're all improved. I think the biggest thing is that their confidence level is higher, as it should be, and they're all in better shape and stronger -- more physically capable of standing up to the rigors of a long and arduous season.
Gold Rush: Was getting stronger something you emphasized to your players in the offseason?
Odom: Strength and conditioning. We've always been a fairly strong team, but I wanted us to become a little stronger, particularly our young kids. Broderick Hicks has become a body. Craig Dawson has become a body. But I also wanted them to become more well-conditioned.
Gold Rush: What style do you see this team playing once the season gets started?
Odom: A natural style. One that we're comfortable with. I'd like to tell everybody we'll be a run-and-shoot, chuck-and-duck kind of team, but we're not. The kind of team we'll be, I'll be comfortable with and the players will be. We'll find that niche. We haven't yet, but we're getting closer.
Last year, we tried to pick up the pace a little bit, and it worked for a while, but everybody kind of settles into a pace that they're comfortable with, and we're doing that. There are some subtle changes even now. Whether the untrained eye will be able to pick them up, it's hard to say.
Gold Rush: Talk a little about the schedule.
Odom: It's the most difficult and ambitious we've ever played. We have one or two games early that we should win, but we quickly test ourselves at Navy, and a week later, we're looking at Wisconsin and Temple in the same week. We break for exams, then we have Georgia in the state of Georgia, followed by Arkansas away, then the Rainbow, whatever that throws at us, starting with Oregon, who might be the toughest team in the darned thing. It's clearly the hardest schedule we've ever undertaken, but it's the kind of team that, if we stumble early, we can recover from it. But we might also excel early.