By Zack Cziryak
setonhall.rivals.com
TROVE: You certainly have a new team this year. How does the coaching staff prepare for what appears to be a team with a greater depth of players that can compete at this level, but not necessarily any standout studs like you had this past year?
WHALEN: It's funny because I think going forward now every summer you're going to use the word ‘tryout,’ you're going to use it as a tryout to kind of see what you’ve got. People have been asking me 'How do you guys look?’ And my answer's been the same: I really like our pieces, and I'm interested to see how it's going to come together. I have no doubt that it will come together, but even practices over the summer guys are still trying to feel each other out and some guys might look good on one day and struggle the next time. I think the best thing that I can say coming out of this summer is the depth. I think 1 through 13, we have 13 guys that can play. You know to what degree, to what minutes? But Coach was talking about this the other day. You're never going to have a problem looking down the bench and be like, 'I can't take this guy out. I can't put this guy in.' Somebody's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, or somebody needs a break? Get your butt in there. Get in there and show us what you got, make the most of your opportunity. And that's been something that's really exciting. So even if somebody says 'Oh, well, this guy's ankle hurts today, he can't go.’ No problem. Next man up. Get that guy in there and let him go. So that's been that's been refreshing.
I think 1 through 13 every guy has a chance to contribute. Now like any other season, how much they contribute is on them because Coach is an equal opportunity guy. We don't have set anything. There's no starting lineup. We don't have our first game until November. When that first game, when that ball is up, those five that are on the court those are the five guys that earned it, but there's going to be eight other guys on the bench that are foaming at the mouth, ready to get in there. That's kind of how we did things at Saint Peter's. That's the vision Coach Sha wants to coach. He doesn't want to be married to just a 5- or 6-guy rotation. It's tough because if a guy's struggling or people go down it's not a great way to do things. So it's been a breath of fresh air to have this competition in practice every day and workouts every day over the summer. And I'm excited to see how it's going to come together, because, like I said, I really, really like the pieces.
Now August will be spent a lot trying to cultivate what we want to do. We are obviously a defensive-oriented, defensive-first team. So a lot of what we do in the summer is trying to get down the basics and get these guys comfortable with how we play. I think one of the negatives of the transfer portal, from a coaching, purely Xs and Os standpoint, is you get guys that come from different systems for two, three years that are so used to doing things one way that you really have to retrain them. At least with high school kids, it's different, right? Because some of these kids aren't being coached to the highest level in terms you can kind of change things and tilt the way they do things. Some kids that are coming from other schools, like it took Dylan [Addae-Wusu] time to learn how we play coming from Saint John's. And you know he got it and he's one of the leading forces now of kind of echoing our message of how we like to do things, especially on the defensive end.
Conclusion Wed
PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
TROVE: You certainly have a new team this year. How does the coaching staff prepare for what appears to be a team with a greater depth of players that can compete at this level, but not necessarily any standout studs like you had this past year?
WHALEN: It's funny because I think going forward now every summer you're going to use the word ‘tryout,’ you're going to use it as a tryout to kind of see what you’ve got. People have been asking me 'How do you guys look?’ And my answer's been the same: I really like our pieces, and I'm interested to see how it's going to come together. I have no doubt that it will come together, but even practices over the summer guys are still trying to feel each other out and some guys might look good on one day and struggle the next time. I think the best thing that I can say coming out of this summer is the depth. I think 1 through 13, we have 13 guys that can play. You know to what degree, to what minutes? But Coach was talking about this the other day. You're never going to have a problem looking down the bench and be like, 'I can't take this guy out. I can't put this guy in.' Somebody's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, or somebody needs a break? Get your butt in there. Get in there and show us what you got, make the most of your opportunity. And that's been something that's really exciting. So even if somebody says 'Oh, well, this guy's ankle hurts today, he can't go.’ No problem. Next man up. Get that guy in there and let him go. So that's been that's been refreshing.
I think 1 through 13 every guy has a chance to contribute. Now like any other season, how much they contribute is on them because Coach is an equal opportunity guy. We don't have set anything. There's no starting lineup. We don't have our first game until November. When that first game, when that ball is up, those five that are on the court those are the five guys that earned it, but there's going to be eight other guys on the bench that are foaming at the mouth, ready to get in there. That's kind of how we did things at Saint Peter's. That's the vision Coach Sha wants to coach. He doesn't want to be married to just a 5- or 6-guy rotation. It's tough because if a guy's struggling or people go down it's not a great way to do things. So it's been a breath of fresh air to have this competition in practice every day and workouts every day over the summer. And I'm excited to see how it's going to come together, because, like I said, I really, really like the pieces.
Now August will be spent a lot trying to cultivate what we want to do. We are obviously a defensive-oriented, defensive-first team. So a lot of what we do in the summer is trying to get down the basics and get these guys comfortable with how we play. I think one of the negatives of the transfer portal, from a coaching, purely Xs and Os standpoint, is you get guys that come from different systems for two, three years that are so used to doing things one way that you really have to retrain them. At least with high school kids, it's different, right? Because some of these kids aren't being coached to the highest level in terms you can kind of change things and tilt the way they do things. Some kids that are coming from other schools, like it took Dylan [Addae-Wusu] time to learn how we play coming from Saint John's. And you know he got it and he's one of the leading forces now of kind of echoing our message of how we like to do things, especially on the defensive end.
Conclusion Wed
