Navy's Future Is Written in Cement

Billy Lange bought the bucket of cement mix at Home Depot as a way of illustrating what this season, his third as Navy's men's basketball coach, should represent. The bucket sits in the locker room, except on game days, when Lange designates one player to carry it.

"We're cementing our way," explained junior Greg Sprink, Navy's leading scorer and team co-captain. Lange "talks about his first year here, we were sitting there digging up the old cement, breaking it up with sledgehammers. It wasn't pretty. We were just trying to get rid of all the bad habits. Now what we've done is we've laid down the foundation, and we're getting ready to lay the cement. That's what he's trying to remind us. It's a long process."

When Lange replaced the retiring Don DeVoe in March 2004, he took over a program that was coming off three consecutive 20-loss seasons and that sat near the bottom of the ratings percentage index rankings (315th out of 326 teams in 2003-04, according to http://www.collegerpi.com).

This season, Navy, which has 11 freshmen and sophomores, is starting to show signs of improvement. The Midshipmen (9-3) are off to their best start since 1998-99, when they won 20 games. Two of their wins have come against Division III opponents, but their losses have been to St. John's, Villanova and Pennsylvania. If the Midshipmen beat Georgetown (8-3) today at Verizon Center, they will have equaled their win total from each of the past two seasons.

"It builds some confidence and allows the kids to understand that it can happen," said Lange, who was 20-36 in his first two seasons. "So when we start losing, it should never be, 'I don't know if we can win here.' It should be, 'Well, we've already done it.' With the group of guys we have, we just have to get better and keep believing."

For Lange, the first step at Navy was changing the culture of the program. He emphasized that Navy has had success in the past; DeVoe took the Midshipmen to three NCAA tournaments (most recently in 1998) and led them to four 20-win seasons. But somewhere along the way, the program lost its identity.

"When you talk about identity, is it style, or is it system?" Lange said. "I think it's more the way you play, not how you do it."

Lange has changed the "how" by implementing a more guard-oriented offensive system. The Midshipmen do not have a traditional back-to-the-basket inside presence, but they have several players who can handle the ball and shoot. Sprink, junior Corey Johnson and sophomore Kaleo Kina came up with four names when asked to identify the best shooter on the team; Lange offered three: "In a drill, Adam Teague; in a game, Greg Sprink; for the game, Corey Johnson."

So Navy often spreads the floor with four guards and looks for three-point shots (47.3 percent of their shots have come from beyond the arc) or open driving lanes. Navy also has 185 assists on its 284 field goals, and only one player averages more than 10 points per game (Sprink averages 16.9).

"I think we're developing a team concept," Kina said. "Nobody's complaining about shots. Everybody's sharing the ball and shooting. We have a saying: 'Tough, together and for Navy.' I think we're embracing that this year."

And the players have embraced the intense and confident Lange, along with some of his more unusual methods. Every player, for instance, wears a pair of black goggles -- the kind that has plastic blinders covering the lower half, the kind that Lange last used when he was playing on his grade school team -- throughout practice. The only time they take them off is when they do any drill that involves physical contact. The purpose is to force a player to keep his head up as he dribbles.

(On Thursday, however, neither Kina nor Johnson wore the goggles during practice inside Halsey Field House. Johnson was asked afterward if they had graduated from the goggles. "Nobody is above the goggles," he said with a laugh. "Somewhere ours got lost in the shuffle from Alumni Hall.")

Navy is averaging two fewer turnovers per game than last season, despite playing so many freshmen and sophomores. Its shooting percentages are up, from 40 percent to 46 percent. Said Johnson, "I think [the goggles have] helped a lot with our skills."

The winning has helped with the Midshipmen's confidence. For the first time in his career, Sprink says that "the confidence we have going into each game, we feel like we can't lose."

Lange wants to make sure that the players keep that feeling once conference play begins Jan. 6 at Bucknell. Navy won only three Patriot League games last season after winning six in Lange's first season. Lange believes the teams that win in the Patriot League are those that have experienced seniors -- and for all the strides that the Midshipmen have made, that is something that they do not have yet.

And that goes back to message that the coach is trying to impart with the cement mix.

"It's for the long haul," Lange said. "We've got enough young guys where we can begin an ascension here. It's not going to be easy. But this is kind of how we can do it."