Welcome to the classroom of Eastern women’s basketball coach Brady Sallee. With eight new players and a year under his belt, the coach has gone back to teaching.

For those of you that thought teaching only occurs in the world of academia with professors and grad assistants, there are 14 women students in an empty 5,000-seat arena that are learning everyday.

One year ago, I evaluated Sallee for his comments during the press conference of which he got hired that apparently put me on the “RUN BRADY OUT OF TOWN” bandwagon.

Those comments included him proclaiming that last year’s players were his players and his system would work with them. He now will admit that simply wasn’t true.

“A long time ago, I was told that it’s not about the X’s and O’s, it’s about the Johnny and Joe’s,” Sallee said.

With eight new players and expectations never being that high to begin with, Sallee could be poised for a rebound season. With a schedule that has high profile major schools early, he could get unfairly turned on quickly.

“People judge success with wins and losses but with this program, we have to win small battles and that’s not exactly how I completely judge this team right now,” Sallee said.

Anyone who was at this practice could feel that if this team doesn’t win, it isn’t Sallee’s fault.

Ten minutes into watching practice, something occurred that I’ve never seen at a basketball practice before (this is pretty impressive because practices of any sports routinely have nothing but well, routine).

A whistle blew and all that you could hear was, “That’s not how we inbound the ball!” Sallee walked halfway down the court and repeated, “That may be how other teams inbound the ball but that’s not how we do it.” It was amazing to hear this at a college basketball practice. The inbounds pass may be the routine action in the game without a press and he was stopping practice to correct laziness in that.

“Nobody believes me when I say this but we started practice on layups because we need to know how to make them in November so we don’t miss them in February,” Sallee said. “I think the women’s game provides for more of a opportunity to go over the basics because the fundamentals are more key.”

“There’s a difference between a team getting back on defense and a team ready to defend,” Sallee said.

He didn’t yell, scream or berate. He didn’t have to. In that moment, it became clearer to me what the difference is between a coach and a teacher. Sallee was teaching. A elementary school teacher doesn’t yell at a little Johnny if he can’t get his state capitals down. Professor Sallee stops practice on average every two minutes to explain, teach and coach. If an offensive rebound happens, a whistle blows and half the team is running sprints

“Sometimes I think I stop (practice) too much and want them to play, but it bothers me when everything isn’t perfect,” Sallee said. “There are nights I have to go home and remind myself where this program was when I got here.”

Players are accountable for their actions every second of every practice. After 20 minutes, the only thing one could be sure about was every one of these players weren’t going through the motions.

With all these new players that are now perceived as “Brady’s players” and a system currently building around him and veteran players that know what their roles are, Sallee should have no excuses. However, the players must perform on game night and no matter how much he obviously wants to, Sallee has little to no control over whether that happens.

“I’m not but I could be the next John Wooden but if I don’t get Bill Walton, none of this matters,” Sallee said.

One thing is for sure, they will be prepared and a new style will hopefully be implemented because they are learning from a teacher. One Sunday morning is all it took to learn and see something new. And guess what? Maybe the new teacher is pretty good. Class dismissed.