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New
head coach has full plate ahead of him New basketball head coach Neil Dougherty has his schedule book full for the next couple of weeks. Dougherty will be busy trying to fulfill his assistant coaching duties for the Kansas Jayhawks who play the Maryland Terrapins in the Final Four Saturday in Atlanta, begin recruiting for the upcoming season and trying to quiet some of the doubts for his new players. After being announced as the head coach on Monday at the press conference, Dougherty met with players in the afternoon and had dinner with Athletics Director Eric Hyman, some university officials and several supporters of the basketball program. Dougherty said he will return to Lawrence, Kan. in the middle of this week to scout and help the Jayhawks formulate a game plan against Maryland. “I have a lot going for me this next month,” Dougherty said. “I have to tie up some loose ends in Georgia so I can have a nice-sized ring on my finger by winning a national championship.” After finishing up Kansas’ performance at the Final Four, Dougherty will come back to Fort Worth early next week to begin recruiting for TCU, he said. He said his team is already at a disadvantage in the recruiting process because of the dead time the team had without a coach. National signing day for basketball recruits is in three weeks. “We are behind with recruiting at this point,” Dougherty said. “We are not going to rush things at all and we are not going just give scholarships just to give them.” Dougherty said he might choose to recruit some junior college players to fill some of the immediate needs of the team, but he still wants to focus his recruiting strategies on getting players from high school. “We may have to cover some of the positions that we are in need (of) with junior college players until we can establish some type of presentation and immediacy for us,” he said. “In the end I want to bring more freshman straight from high schools, preferably in Texas and the Dallas/Fort Worth area.” Dougherty also has to deal with developing trust and the respect of his new players. At the press conference only two players were in attendance: Forward Marcus Sloan and center Rebel Paulk. Most of the other players had class at the time of the press conference, Paulk said. Paulk said Dougherty wasn’t his first pick for the job, but he will do everything his new coach asks of him. Paulk said he had hoped that Wyoming head coach Steve McClain, who served as an assistant for former coach Billy Tubbs (1994-98), would have gotten the job. Paulk said he preferred McClain, who was contacted for the job, because he was recruited to TCU by McClain. “I am excited that we have a new head coach,” Paulk said. “I think he will bring a lot of good things for us. I wanted McClain because he is one of the main reasons I came to TCU and it would have been good for him to come home. But that decision is not made by me.” Forward Bingo Merriex said last week that he had his doubts about Dougherty because of his inexperience as a head coach. “I know that he can recruit and he does a good job at that,” Merriex said. “But being in charge of an entire team as a head coach is more difficult. He has not coached a game in his life so that raises some concerns, but I think he can do a good job for us.” Ram
Luthra |
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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