Mark Slonaker
Mark Slonaker
Mark Slonakeris an American college basketball coach. He is the former head men's basketball coach at Mercer University. He was the 2002–03 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year after leading Mercer to the best one season turnaround in NCAA history, improving from 6–23 to 23–6. The team won the Atlantic Sun regular season championship with a 14–2 conference record and made school history for number of wins; Mercer won 22 games in 1923–24 and 1984–85. The season ended with...
hard hard-work lose point reward tough win
You get to the point where you have to win to reward yourself for the hard work. You don't want to lose another tough one. I didn't want to think about it.
arguably aware best guard hit minute miss point rip row three
He's arguably the best point guard in the league. You have to be aware of him every minute he's on the floor. He can rip off three threes in a row, then miss six, and then hit two in a row to demoralize you.
dribble florida kept north offensive
Dribble penetration and 21 offensive rebounds. That kept North Florida in the game.
correct gave handle trying
We gave up too much penetration. We've been trying to correct it all year, how to handle a 22-point lead. Keep pushing, keep driving, if we are up by 22, try to make it 30.
factor gotten improving keeps kid optimistic sure
He's a big kid who's gotten better. I'm sure they're optimistic that if he keeps improving he'll be a factor in this league, and he's a factor now.
huge momentum obviously plays stay
Obviously that five-point play was a huge momentum switch. It's disappointing. Then we couldn't make the plays to stay even after the five-point play.
felt fighting fights-and-fighting frustrated internal sign
I felt like the first sign of some internal fighting (emerged), getting frustrated and teeing off on each other. I wanted to nip that in the bud.
coming error five half keys knew margin minutes outside second shooting zone
We knew coming in that our margin of error was slim. We wanted to play more zone but their outside shooting prevented that. Our turnovers in the first half and the first five minutes of the second half were the keys to the game.
against night pressure
Too many turnovers. We only had 11 turnovers against more pressure the other night.
close colorado losing oklahoma worry
Two of (the losses), Colorado and Oklahoma State, you expect, but the other four, we were in. After losing the close games, you worry (the team) will get discouraged.
win
It's just devastating that we couldn't get the win for them. That was a big thing for us.
games match tend
We're just always pretty evenly-matched. We tend to match up well, and that's why games go down to the wire. This one should, too.
capable kids
Wow. They're kids who are capable of going off for 20 (points) on you anytime.
academic attempts classroom efforts glad hope proud recognized repeat team
We are proud of Will's efforts in the classroom and we are glad to see that he is being recognized for his accomplishments. We hope this will bode well for him as he attempts to repeat as a first team Academic All-America selection.