Saturday morning, Dan Earl was back in his element: coaching.
At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s “Chalk Talk,” which was an opportunity for area coaches to come in and observe an open practice for the school’s men’s basketball team, the Mocs’ second-year head coach was doing all the things typical for any practice in the sport.
Along with assistants Scott Greenman and Logan Dahms, Earl pointed out when players weren’t communicating properly on the court. He kidded with guards Honor Huff and Trey Bonham at times. He instructed his team, a balanced roster of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.
That part’s not so typical these days, due to college athletics having changed so much in recent years.
As NCAA teams prepare for the 2023-24 season to tip off, there are freshman-dominant rosters: Virginia Military Institute, where Earl was the head coach for seven seasons before coming to UTC, had 11 freshmen out of 17 listed players, while Kentucky has eight freshmen out of 16 players. There are rosters full of upperclassmen: 13 of the 14 players on UT Martin’s roster are either juniors or seniors.