How Troy pulled a rabbit out of its Trojan hat to beat UL

[NewsCopy]

Troy pulls a rabbit out of a hat to win tourney opener With the season one loss away from being over, Troy coaches Don Maestri and David Felix decided to turn the clock back a few years. In 1999, the Trojans lost to Samford by a wide margin, but changed their whole game plan just for the rematch a couple of games later. The run-and-gun Trojans became slow, small and dull, playing five guards and draining every possible second off the shot clock before forcing up a shot. That time, Samford won in the last minute. So Maestri and Felix decided after a 23-point loss at Middle Tennessee to end the regular season that they would bring that style back. The intent was to play five guards — Brandon Hazzard, Jerome Odem, Justin Jonus, O’Darien Bassett and Mike Vogler — and play them the whole game. “We had done it once in 26 years,” Maestri said. “We got them back into practice Sunday and told them this was what we were going to do. It meant some guys who had played a lot would not play.” The rest of the story

[Cajunsmike]

_ _

The Troy staff deserves lots of credit for their plan. I also commend their players for buying into something they had never done and executing it well.