david conover - professional basketball coach

tonight was my first practice.  strange experience.  i have never coached a men's team before... only high school level students.  i have never coached guys with so much experience and so my understanding of the game.  i have never coached guys who didn't understand a word i was saying because they didn't speak english.

ok, this isn't entirely true. there are three americans on the team who speak russian.  all three of them are in bishkek as christian missionaries (but i won't hold that against them).

the first practice went well.  the old coach was there to introduce me to the players and help me through the first practice.  i was pretty stressed going into the practice.  would the players accept me?  how would it work with my not being able to communicate with them.  but it turned out great.  basketball is just basketball no matter where you play the game.  their style is very different than the style that i am use to playing and coaching... but that is a good thing as i think they are wanting to learn something new.  we worked alot on fundamentals of boxing out and defensive rotations while playing man to man.  good stuff that they soaked up.

i am really excited about this.