College basketball is a completely different animal compared to the NBA. For starters, players aren’t being paid millions of dollars to play the game. And on top of that, the level of play is vastly different, and coaches have to come up with unique ways to keep their squads ready, motivated, and disciplined.
But what happened during Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s game might be something we have never seen before. During the game, the head coach called a timeout and then instructed his players to run laps across the court during that time, presumably to punish the players as the team had not been playing well as of late.
Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s head coach called timeout to make the team run laps 😅
(via @CurryHoff13) https://t.co/OjVNWtveR7
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 2, 2021
Head coach Solomon Bozeman is in his first month on the job and has already started off quite poorly. The team is 1-8 to start the season and the pressure is starting to build on him, so this may have been one way for him to convey his frustration with the players and punish them for not performing to the level he expects them to.
What’s even more bizarre is the fact that Bozeman did this with a lot of time left in the game, almost 20 minutes in the second half. The tactic seemed to have worked, as the players played much better after the mid-game drill. But they still ended up losing in a blowout to a power-conference rival in the NAIA Arkansas Baptist Buffaloes.
It was not a good look for Bozeman, because this seemed like a ridiculous way to send a message to his players. Whether it got the job done or not is irrelevant, as it sent a message to the rest of the basketball world that Bozeman is not above taking an extra step to reprimand his players, even if it is in the middle of a game.
