The more the players talk about the previous regime, the worse it looks for Sidney Lowe and his staff. I'm not convinced they did anything except show up to play the games. Come to Club Lowe: we'll see the country, have a few laughs, maybe play some basketball if we feel like it.
Williams said he put on 40 pounds between the time he stepped on campus and his sophomore year. And it wasn't good weight. It was the kind you get from eating what you shouldn't when you shouldn't. He felt slower.
"Oh, I was out of shape," Williams said. "A lot of people didn't see it, but I really was. Nobody really noticed it except my Mom. I guess I carried it well."
First off: excellent humblebrag, CJ. Secondly, 40 pounds! Maybe there was a mix up and he got Scott Wood's weight gain plan.
According to several players, the strength program under Lowe was light on structure and discipline. Conditioning was seemingly viewed as only for those who were noticeably out of shape. And ways of getting out of the work were easy to come by.
"Last year, it was just like nobody wanted to condition," said guard Lorenzo Brown, echoing several players' observations. "Sometimes it would pop up like somebody was hurt or they were sick."
Yeah, Ryan Harrow was sick for a record 83 consecutive mornings last season. Really, though, it just goes to show how important it is for a program to have structure and consequences. They're college kids, and if they're anything like most of us were at that age, they're going to be more interested in sleeping or video games or going to parties than doing work. Hell, I avoided a major in engineering specifically so I could minor in sleeping.