Ciao Bullet Basketball Fans!
My first 9 days on campus have absolutely flown by! I feel so lucky to be here at Gettysburg and have found everyone that I have met on this campus to be so genuine and intentional. It is truly a special place and these 9 days have been filled with so much excitement, passion and enthusiasm.
They have also been filled with HR meetings, house hunting, learning the ins and outs of our department but most importantly they have been filled with BASKETBALL! Per NCAA rules we are allowed to hold up to 10 practices before departure for a foreign tour. As a new coach this has been a huge advantage for our team; to be on the court, work on skill development, set program expectations, install some offensive and defensive concepts and start to develop player/coach relationships. I can't begin to tell you how great it was to run team workouts on my first official day at Gettysburg! It’s been a lot of fun to just be in the gym with our team. Not having to worry about making sure we have zone offense in, or press break in but just a few packages and making sure we get really good at them has been really nice from a coach perspective. There is no Game 1 on the horizon so we can just really focus on us and do what we do to be successful.
Tomorrow, our team is set to embark on a foreign tour of Italy from May 17-26 and play four games against Italian competition. Our game schedule is as follows:
Saturday, May 19 vs. Ferrara Montale at 2 p.m. (EST)
Monday, May 21 vs. Misericordia Montale at 1 p.m. (EST)
Tuesday, May 22 vs. Basket Olimpia Legnaia at 2 p.m. (EST)
Thursday, May 24 vs. Virtus Velletri at 1 p.m. (EST)
In between games we will take in many of Italy's world-famous sites including the Grand Canal in Venice, the Roman Coliseum and Forum, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. We are also spending some time in Florence and Ferrara, where Gettysburg has had a lot of students study abroad. and tour Florence as well. While we're in Ferrara we will be attending a Serie A Professional Soccer contest between SPAL and Sampdoria which our team is pretty excited about! We have been advised by our soccer coaches to make sure our apparel colors match the SPAL kit!
We have a lot of players who have never been out of the country. This is going to be such a special experience for them and for our entire team. This trip proves that college athletics is more than just a game. The educational, cultural and team opportunities that are provided from a trip like this are truly unique and special.
My expectations for us on the court are: to focus on things that lead to winning, to buy into the “do your job” mentality, to play with pace and space, to continue to help your teammate and compete on both ends of the floor. We have laid the foundation of our "Bullet Proof" Culture and discussed every day at practice who and what type of program we want to be.
We have only had 8 practices but we have worked to develop a basketball playing identity on both ends of the floor. We are nowhere near perfect but it has been exciting to watch us grow as a basketball team. We are picking up concepts quickly and I really like where our execution is. We also have shown a strong competitive spirit (as a Celtics fan and the majority of our team rooting for the Sixers there was some good back and forth...until the Celtics won!) combined with the foundation that we have set will provide us with great momentum as we head into the summer months. I also have a feeling our team will be playing lots of spikeball this summer so Coach Slanovec and I don't runaway with the tournament title, AGAIN! We have been intense, competed but what I have really enjoyed about our group has been our ability to combine our fun and enthusiasm into everything that we have done together. We have already shared some good laughs and I look forward to many more!
As a new coach it has been important and an emphasis of mine to do my best to connect with each player on an individual level and I look forward to continuing to get to know them in Italy. The team bonding experiences that this trip will provide for us will be invaluable in building team trust as we begin to set our goals
for the 2018-19 season.
for the 2018-19 season.
We talk a lot about “being where your feet are.” As a group we are looking forward to exploring a foreign country together and immersing ourselves in the Italian culture. Make sure to follow along with us by checking out our social media pages...
Twitter: @GburgMBB | @CoachBJDunne | @JeffSlanovec
Instagram: @gburgmbb
Facebook: Gettysburg College Men's Basketball
And to read the release on the Gettysburg Athletics website CLICK HERE!
Andare Pallottole (Go Bullets!)
Cari saluti
-Coach Dunne
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