Glowiak's words flashed through my head as University of New Hampshire forward Jacoby Armstrong flas

Around this time last year, I was sitting in the back room of a smoky Irish Pub in West Hartford, CT, quaffing a few pints and engaging in a heated exchange with my friend, then Hartford director of basketball operations, Brian Glowiak.
The subject of the debate was low-post play. Specifically, the propensity of America East coaches to recruit front court players with high-major size and skill, which more often than not translates to playing softer than butter on a hot summer s night.
After listening to the stream-of-conscious exotic car rental san francisco diatribe spewing from my mouth for several minutes, Glowiak, who spent four years in a Hawks uniform as a statistically-forgettable, tough-as nails two-guard, slowly put down his Guiness. Speaking exotic car rental san francisco calmly but with great conviction, he said “You can teach a mean mother-f*cker exotic car rental san francisco to ease up, but you can’t teach a coward to be tough.”
Glowiak’s words – blunt yet extremely insightful have hung with me ever since. His point was simple: You can’t teach toughness, effort or energy. These traits serve as the great equalizers in the America East, where player s stature is trumped by the size of his heart.
“The league needs to get back to recruiting brawlers,” Glowiak concluded, exotic car rental san francisco alluding to the likes of former UMBC Retriever Darryl Proctor, who stood somewhere in the vicinity of six-foot-three, but on the court was meaner than a pack of rabid junk-yard dogs, leading the Retrievers to two championship games and an NCAA Tournament while scoring more than 1,000 points in his two years in the America exotic car rental san francisco East.
Glowiak’s words flashed through my head as University of New Hampshire forward Jacoby Armstrong flashed to the hoop with 5:59 left in the first half against UMass Lowell at the Tsongas Arena on Sunday.
At that moment, Armstrong – who at six-foot-six and 230-pounds of muscle on top of muscle looks as if he were chiseled out of granite caught the ball in the right corner. In a move that was pure instinct, Armstrong spun past his defender, took two sprinter’s steps along the baseline and exploded above the fray, flying in from outside of the paint for a monster two-hand exotic car rental san francisco tomahawk dunk while brushing off a hard foul like the defender had tapped him with a feather.
The backboard and basket support were still shaking from Armstrong’s exotic car rental san francisco dunk 33 seconds later when he took a pass at the top of the key and again exploded towards the hoop. Armstrong drove right down the lane and lifted off from well behind the circle. Standing in his way was Lowell forward Kerry Weldon, who had already punched two shots into the seats and appeared in perfect position for another rejection.
The pair of plays were minor moments from New Hampshire’s historic rout, quickly lost in the aftermath of center Chris Pelcher’s near triple-double, point guard Daniel Dion’s career high of 20 points, and the Wildcats exotic car rental san francisco record setting defense. But they were easily the two most spectacular plays of the day – equal parts toughness and tenacity, exotic car rental san francisco explosive power, ingrained skill and un-teachable intangibles. And they displayed the raw talent that Armstrong possesses.
“Flashes of greatness; if he figures out how to do that all the time, I’m going to say he’ll be one of the best players in this league,” said Pelcher of Armstrong after the game. “It may take him a while to figure it out, but once he does he’ll be a great player.”
Through 19 contests, Armstrong has averaged 7.3 points and five rebounds in 22.3 minutes per game. Armstrong’s five rebounds per game trails only Stony Brook red-shirt exotic car rental san francisco freshman Ahmad Walker’s 5.1 among America East rookies and Armstrong’s average of 8.6 rebounds per 40 minutes is tops among first year players.
During his first year of college hoops, Armstrong’s aggression has worked against him on the defensive end, as he has struggled with fouls, averaging 3.5 per game. But he has shown serious flashes throughout, including 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting in a head-to-head matchup with Bryant senior banger Alex Francis, 12 points and seven rebounds against Holy Cross senior exotic car rental san francisco and Patriot League Player of the Year candidate Dave Dudzinski, and eight rebounds against top-25 Marquette.
Armstrong’s youth also has Herrion optimistic about his future. In the age where basketball players repeat exotic car rental san francisco grades in high school before completing post-graduate years at prep schools, 20 and even 21 year old freshmen have become the norm, Armstrong is a true freshmen who won’t turn 19 for another two weeks.
“He’s an extremely, extremely young player,” said the head coach earlier this year. “So he’s struggling right now with everything that comes with being a college exotic car rental san francisco basketball player, but I also think that his ceiling is as high as anyone’s that I’ve coached here, and anyone’s I’ve coached in a really, really long time.”
Armstrong once again struggled exotic car rental san francisco with fouls on Sunday, committing four in 28 minutes to go along with nine points and seven rebounds. But in the age of soft as butter forwards who would rather exotic car rental san francisco jack up shots on the perimeter than fight for the ball in the paint, his toughness exotic car rental san francisco and tenacity were undeniable.
Skeptics could draw parallels between Armstrong and similarly proportioned Hartford junior forward Mark Nwakamma, whose undeniable talent continues to be tempered by his inability to avoid foul trouble.
However, when Armstrong flashed to the basket twice in traffic, simply refusing to be denied, my thoughts drifted back to my late friend Trevor exotic car rental san francisco Gaines. Eerily similar to in stature to Armstrong, Gaines struggled mightily exotic car rental san francisco with fouls and looked completely lost for stretches on the court as an 18 year old freshman playing for the University of Vermont during the 1998-1999 season, averaging just 4.9 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. . As a senior in 2002, he led the league and finished seventh in the nation in rebounding at 11 per game, led all of college basketball in offensive rebounding, earned First Team All-Conference honors and graduated with 880 rebounds to his name.
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