Throughout the year, www.GoASU.com will give fans an insiders' look at their favorite Appalachian teams and the day-to-day lives of Division I student-athletes through online journals provided by various Mountaineers. Representing the men's basketball team this season is junior Nate Cranford. Cranford averaged 7.5 points per game last season and was one of the SoCon's top marksmen with 59 three-pointers. Cranford hails from Harrisburg, N.C. and is majoring in business administration. February 16 We've won both our games this week, including beating first-place Elon in front of the home crowd, which was huge. Both games, we improved on what we need to be doing at this point of the season. We executed on offense and sustained our defensive pressure. We also maintained our energy in both games, even when the other teams made runs. Hopefully these are all good signs that our team is getting better and coming together. We haven't had a game this week and have been working really hard to getter better and prepare for Chattanooga. Monday will be a big game, they're a good team and it's a tough place to play but hopefully we can come out with a win. We're taking everything one day at a time and one game at a time an hopefully be able to build a winning streak going into the tournament. February 9 We're coming off a tough loss to Furman we played a lot better than in the Wofford game and our effort was much better. I'm looking forward to Saturday's Elon game. They're the top team in the conference and we're really hoping to come out and play well because we all believe we can come out with a victory on Saturday. This Saturday is our alumni weekend, so that will be nice with all the former players around and hopefully we have a big crowd and lots of support for the game. We've got four games and we need to start building some momentum for the SoCon Tournament and hopefull that all starts Saturday. January 26 I haven't really been able to much the past week because of my ankle injury, but it was great to watch us get a big win against Georgia Southern on Monday. I'm still having trouble walking on the ankle, but it's getting better. All the x-rays and MRIs came back negative, so it's just a really bad sprain. Basically, I sprained everying you can sprain in your ankle and foot, it's still all purple. The team's out there working really hard to get better and improve every aspect of their game. We have a huge road trip this weekend at The Citadel and College of Charleston. If we can go 2-0 over the weekend, that will even the SoCon record and put us right where we need to be. January 19 We're coming off a loss to Chattanooga at home where things just didn't come together for us like they should have. In practice we've been getting back to the fundamentals and going over our basic offensive reads while working on our defense too. We have to get better defensively if we want to be more consistent. This weekend we play a very talented UNC Greensboro team. They have some really good guards and one of the best big men in the league. It should be an interesting game and would be a huge win for us because we need to get one on the road especially after dropping one at home. We're just getting back to the basics, taking care of the ball, decision making and just trying to play more as a team. December 15 We've got our longest roadtrip of the year with games at Marshall and Little Rock. They're both very good teams that are very athletic. They're both winable games. We need to step up and win one of the road. Good teams win games at home, the great ones win of the road and we want to be great. UALR played us tough at home, but it will be a completely different game at their place. As long as we continue to get better everyday, we're going to be fine. December 8 We played Davidson and Tennesse the past week, and both were tough losses for us. Davidson was really tough because it was a conference loss at home. They're a really good team and we learned alot from that game. We didn't respond with the effort and intensity that we needed to. That was a good lesson to learn early in the season. We came out at Tennessee and played much harder and exectued better, we just couldn't win it down the stretch. But it was a really good lesson in a tough environment against a really athletic team. We've been back in the gym practicing and trying to get better every day. Our schedule doesn't get any easier in the next week. We play NC State, Marshall and Arkansas-Little Rock on the road before Christmas. We're excited to be playing such a tough schedule and won't get our heads down no matter what. I would like to mention that all of our new guys are playing extremely well. As they progress our team will get better and hopefully we can pull out three more wins before Christmas. November 30 Over the past week we went on road for games at Wake Forest and James Madison. Unfortunately we lost both, but our effort was there in both. I was pleased with how everyone came out in both games. We've just got to keep building our confidence and execute better, especially in clutch situations. There were numerous people who stepped up in both games. P.L. Henderson and Tyler Webb both played well at JMU. Right now we're getting ready for Methodist tomorrow. They're a good team with a really high-scoring offense. They're going to come in and play with a ton of enthusiasm. Hopefully we can get our third win of the season. Then on Saturday after the football game we play Davidson. They're one of the top teams in the league, so it's a huge game for us as far as conference standings go. November 23 This past week we had our first two games and got out to a 2-0 start which was huge for us. We played two good teams and I don't think we executed as well as we should have, but the effort was there from everyone and we're hoping to build off those two wins. Right now we're getting ready for Wake Forest. They're an incredible team but we're going to go in there and play hard and hopefully execute better than we have been. For Thanksgiving, we're having a lunch as a team that way we celebrate the holiday together. After the meal it's back here for practice because we've got to get ready for Wake Forest. It's been a little tougher to stay focused this week, especially with the cold and snow. Some of our guys it's their first time seeing snow and the cold. I'd like mention that Ryann Abraham had surgery to replace a broken bone in his foot yesterday so I'd like to wish him a quick recovery. Other than that, I'd just like to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving. November 16 The past week we've been putting the finishing touches on our offensive and defensive systems. As far as defense goes, we're trying to figure out what system this team will be best at. We've been working really hard trying to get more consistent with everything we do. Obviously we're really excited about Friday and our first game of the season against Arkansas-Little Rock. We know they're a really good team and it should be a good, fun game for us and the fans. We're going to do our best to play our style of basketball and make them adjust to us. I'm expecting big things from a lot of different people, especially our leaders like D.J. Thompson and Demetrius Scott. It's going to be obvious they're our leaders on the floor. Everybody's been focused for a while, but more so the past two days on what we have to do to take care of business. We're definitely ready to play and get our season off on a good note and hope we have a lot of fan support. We really appreciate them and hope a lot come out to the Holmes Center Friday. November 9 We've practiced quite a few times this past week and over the weekend, we took some time as a group to bond and get to know each other better and build some relationships. Hopefully, this time will help us as the season progresses. We're coming together really well for as many new guys as we have. The freshmen have played hard, but we have to work on being more consistent in every aspect of the game. We know we're not going to be a physically intimidating team that can walk in and win a game. We're going to have to play harder than everybody every night. To do that we need to be consistent in every aspect and we're going to continue to work on that. A key for us is going to be rebounding and defense. Both of those are just about being tough basically. Both on the court and mentally. It's going to be a tough season, we have a great schedule that's going to be really challenging. No matter what happens in any of the games, we're going to have to be mentally tough to keep our confidence up throughout the season. We're getting excited and are ready to play our first game. Everything is going very well and we're dealing with everyday student responsibilites like registration for next semester and seeing where we are at in terms of our academic progress. As far as I know, everyone is taking care of their business and things are looking good academically. November 2 In the past week we've continued working on our offense and the motion offense. It's coming along pretty well, but we're working hard to make it where we instinctively know what to do without having to think about it on the floor. In our last intrasquad scrimmage, it was a whole lot closer than the previous ones in terms of competitiveness. Freshman Tyler Webb has continued to improve. I beleive if he and P.L. Henderson continue to improve at this rate, they're going to have huge seasons. Jarvis Jackson is just being a beast as wingman. His physical presence is unlike anything else we have on the court. You put him in and he'll bang and be physical with anybody, he's athletic and explosive. D.J. Thompson and Demetrius Scott are continuing to lead this team with their actions on the court every day. They both refuse to lose in every drill. We're working really hard and improving as a team. We'll continue to build friendships and relationships as the season goes on that will make us a great team. October 26 In the past week we've been practicing really hard and picking up different things in our system. We're starting to develop our offensive system really well. We've probably got about a third of our offensive sets in and the continuity of the team is coming together really nicely. We've been shooting well in practice, which we contribute a lot of to our preseason conditioning with coach Patterson. He did a heck of job running us over the summer. We had a team scrimmage on Sunday where we went really hard at each other and played about three halves. All the younger guys have really stepped up. There was a huge difference from the first intrasquad scrimmage to this last one. Jarvis Jackson, Eddie Bermudez and Ryann Abraham all shot well and they're going to be great players. Jeremy Harper has stepped in as another point guard that has shown he can play. All of our point guards have played very solid and shown they can run a team. Tyler Webb also started to play like a man in the middle. He's only a freshman, but he might be the biggest guy on the team and is starting to play like it. He can be huge for us if he keeps improving and taking steps as he has been. Our coaches are stressing discipline on and off the floor. Not only with class attendance and study halls, but with being early and putting in the extra effort. We know as a team that the time we put in during practice isn't going to cut it if you want to be a championship-caliber team. Everybody's getting in the gym doing the extra work and doing some extra work in the weight room too. Our trainer, Tony Barnett, has done a great job so far keeping everybody healthy, I don't know what we'd do without him. That's about it. I've got a birthday coming up on November 1. I turn 22 and am already the oldest guy on the team and still have another year. I feel like the grandpa watching out for all these younger guys. October 20 The first week of practice has gone real well. We've just started out with the basics of our system, especially the defense. We're learning how to play defense as a team and building up to our press. We do that with different drills, whether it's a zig-zag drill or a 2-on-2 full court drill, we'll work up to our 5-on-5 drill full court as practice progresses. The team is picking it up really well and it's made for some interesting practices. They've been intense and we've gone at each other pretty good, which is always a good thing. It makes us better. We started putting in a few of our offensive sets and have been learning how to run them as a team. It's really tough with a continuity offense like ours where you have to know what your teammates are going to do and where you need to be. It's going to take a real team effort to learn and get good at the style we're trying to play. The new guys are all coming along really well. P.L. Henderson has had a couple of fantastic days of practice. He's just a beast inside. He's relentless. Jarvis Jackson is one of the most gifted athletes I've seen in a long time and I'm looking forward to great things from them and the rest of the new guys. D.J. Thompson has been outstanding from the moment we got back on campus. He's really picked up his leadership skills and is leading the team in just about every way a leader should. He's the leader in every drill and always talkative. Demetrius Scott is another guy that is just tenacious on defense and he has been setting the tone on defense in practice with his emotion and athletic ability. On a personal note, I'm trying to work hard on the court and classroom and work hard every day and help this team as much as possible. Midnight Madness was awesome to see all our fans here, especially that late at night. We hope they all had a good time. We will play better defense than what we showed, I promise you that. It's an exciting event that gets us going in practice. When you add in what football's doing, there's such an excitement around the sports at ASU. We were all out watching and supporting them on Saturday at their great win and hope they bring home the SoCon championship as well. Last week was a little tough though with the passing of Julie Nagel. We loved her and will miss her greatly. As a group, we've been supporting the field hockey team and the memorial service the other night was a great thing. She was an awesome young lady and she will surely be missed.