When Ron Woodard met with his Claflin Panther men’s hoops team Thursday afternoon there was a lot to talk about.

For starters, it was his first face-to-face with the young men who believed his pitch -- that the Panthers would play in the NCAA one day -- since the school was actually admitted into the premier governing body of college athletics last week. Oh yeah, there was also the trip they will be taking to Trinidad and Tobago in two weeks. Needless to say, there was a lot of good news being spread around.

“We just talked about our mental preparation for the coming year,” Woodard said. “We are preparing for next year to get better. We want to become more mentally tough and teach the incoming guys.

“Their response was they were happy,” he added. “Their mindset is different.”

Obviously, good news gave way to some seriousness. The Panthers will hit the floor this morning at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School (the floor at the Jonas T. Kennedy Center is being redone) for a 9 a.m. practice that Woodard said would begin an important period for his team. The Trinidad and Tobago Hoops Classic isn’t going to be all fun and sun. Woodard is looking to tweak a few things in a system that produced an HBCU-best record of 24-2 a season ago.

That tweaking begins on defense where the Panthers will start working on the “Amoeba” or “Scramble” defense. For those not in tune with basketball coaching lingo, think George Mason’s hustling, scrambling, swarming defensive run in the 2006 NCAA tourney. Ideally, the defense is controlled havoc.

“Some people say George Mason, but I always say (Jerry) Tarkanian,” Woodard said in referring to the defensive style used by the infamous former UNLV basketball coach.

There will be changes on offense as well. Blessed with a returning squad full of veterans -- leading scorer Phillip Brown returns along with Karl Ray, Eric Salley Jamal Newman and Ernest Sinkfield -- the coach is looking to keep his players on their toes.

“On the offensive scheme, we want to get more out of what we already know,” he said. “We are going to try to do some tweaking. When you have a team with a bunch of seniors back you don’t want them to get too comfortable so they know it all.

“We can’t do it all,” he added. “But, we are going to go through certain phases of the triangle offense. I think we have the people to do it.”

n T&D Sports Editor Brian Linder can be reached via e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553. Check out his blog, Welcome to Linderland, at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com.

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