The Golden Flashes get their motivation mojo from a video.
When Phelps and former director of basketball operations Ryan Pedon (now an assistant at Miami) started producing an annual video in 2003, he had no idea that it would become such a big deal.
“I totally made it expecting the guys to like it, but I didn’t expect them to get this motivated,” said Phelps, a senior broadcast journalism/theatre major.
“Each year, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. More and more is expected of it.”
This year, Phelps topped even himself.
He tracked down former players such as members of the 2002 Elite Eight squad — the last KSU team to reach the NCAA Tournament — along with players who never fulfilled that lifelong dream.
He interviewed them via phone and the audio was incorporated with video highlights from their playing careers and this year’s games.
Demetric Shaw explained what it takes to win the MAC Tournament.
Trevor Huffman talked about the tradition at KSU.
Eric Thomas detailed what it’s like to head into the tournament injured, then put the pain aside.
Jason Edwin talked about how he never made it to the NCAA Tournament. He told them to leave their effort all out there on the floor.
“The guys need to know the tradition, the reason why we’re successful at Kent State, and what type of people they are,” said former KSU guard Eric Haut, now the team’s director of basketball operations.
The video is 14 minutes long and can be viewed in Quicktime, WindowsMedia or Real.
Paul Zeise just completed a NCAA Tournament chat at the P-G. I like Zeise’s work covering Pitt and college football, but found him to be all over the board and completely inconsistent about college basketball.
He’s a Temple guy and wants to complain about the Big East being too physical and rough? He thought the Big East Tournament was bad basketball? Then he obviously didn’t see the Big 11 Tournament or the eye-bleeding pain caused by watching the SEC Championship game between South Carolina and Florida.
Still worth a look, if for no other reason then he totally agrees with me about this:
Slr: Do you think Pitt is a year away?
Paul Zeise: I don’t usually buy that “a year away” stuff because each year is different and success this year doesn’t mean they’ll capture it next year. You never know. One guy could fail out, Aaron Gray could run into Greg Lee’s agent and walk away from the meeting convinced he’s a lottery pick and decide to leave school, another could get injured. This team is special _ they played together and were on a mission, it seemed. That chemistry can be hard to reproduce, particularly next year when the expectations will be high and they won’t have the “us against the world” stuff to rally around. They should be very good next year, but a lot can go wrong as well. That’s why they need to seize the moment this year.
Never waste an opportunity.
