We are back from our weekend trip out to Springfield and we are happy to have picked up a couple wins.

It’s hard to gauge really what happened as everyone in the D-League is feeling out the level of competition right now and we are in that boat too.  So as we love the wins, not everyone will be convinced that they were great wins yet. But the thing that I am happy with is this:  we played really hard, we played collective defense, and we shared the ball.  At this point in the season out of training camp, that is what we are after.

Building chemistry and cohesiveness is an elusive thing sometimes in our league.  So am I happy?  At this point, all ten guys are on the same page.   We did face some challenges, going on the road, playing two games in 36 hours, traveling on Thanksgiving etc…and we handled most of that really well.  We had good performances from a lot of different guys.  So, no need to mention anyone specifically this time.

We played really good team defense. We held the Armor to 73 points in the first game which has to be some kind of record for us.  We should look that up.

We are back at it in practice, and getting ready for Fort Wayne, who is very talented. They have a new coach in Joey Meyer, who is one of the best in this League.  He has a lot of talent and they are coming off a very impressive win versus a tough Erie team.

It’s dollar beer night too, and tons of other things going on.   Come on out and see this team, they play hard and play well together.  You will be proud of this team and how they represent Des Moines and the Energy.

See you Thursday.

Nick

We had our first look at our game against some opposition Saturday in OKC, versus the Tulsa 66ers.

Here is a quick re-cap.

First of all as a team, we played pretty hard and executed some of the things we spent our entire training camp on.  Things like transition defense, rebounding, and defense in general.  We had a decent effort from everyone 1-12.  We were able to play everyone quite a few minutes and probably gave some more minutes to players who are on the cut bubble and further down the roster than we normally would have done in a regular season game, but we used the game as a real evaluation tool. (We have to cut two more players by Wednesday.)

Curtis Stinson – played a very good game, he is a better player this year than last.  His shooting is ever improving, he runs the team and he had just a real solid game scoring 15 points, hitting one three ball, and dishing out 8 assists.

Pat Carroll- is a good all around player, he shot it well, did have a few more turnovers that normal, but got put in some funny situations.  He plays at both ends, and has a high IQ to go along with his good outside shooting touch.  He made some big shots when the game was in the balance.

Jeff Trepagneir – Jeff is down 20 lbs from a year ago and is in great shape.  He is viewed mostly as a 3 point gunner, but his overall team play was solid yesterday.  He knows how to play defense and is giving great effort on that end so far.

Earl Barron – played hard, not great, is a good outside shooter, but has tools to play well with his back to the basket has well.  Played really hard on Saturday, had some foul trouble, but love his attitude and work ethic.

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Well we are a couple of days away from our third draft in as many years and we are busy trying to put all the pieces together.

First let me give you a quick run down of how the draft works and of how we put our roster together.

Let’s start with our returning players:

We currently hold the rights to 15 players that played for us last year.  Of those 12 remained unsigned right now.  Othyus Jeffers and Cartier Martin are playing in Italy, and John Edwards is playing in Greece.

The rest of our guys are un-signed, but a lot of them are trying to go for a little higher paying jobs in Europe.

Courtney Sims, Anthony Tolliver, Marvin Phillips, Denham Brown, Demetris Nichols, Jeff Trepagnier, Patrick Sanders, Brian Evans, Curtis Stinson, Mark Tyndale, Artistide Sawadogo, and Shawn Hawkins are part of this list.

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