WHEN ARRIVING 30 minutes before a Marshall basketball practice, you see the same thing, day after day, week after week.
There's Thundering Herd assistant coach Mark Cline feeding a pass to the same player, who dutifully catches, squares up and shoots.
Bounce passes, chest passes, you name it. After all these years, the former Williamson High and Wake Forest star can throw it where you need it.
Terrence Thompson has been the man on the receiving end. Baseline jumpers, 8-footers off the glass, the occasional pivot move, you name it.
It isn't just a matter of repetition. It's an overhaul of offensive fundamentals, skills not well-taught at a lot of high schools and a lot more AAU programs.
Full extension on jumpers without short-arming, proper rotation of the ball and a number of mechanics I'll leave to the experts. It seems that Thompson had his offensive game torn down and built anew.
It had to happen. Thompson has been receptive, even insistent, on the extra work. It comes down to this: When he enters the game, the Herd essentially has played 4-on-5 in its offensive style.
That's changing with every minute. He played 33 of them Saturday at Western Kentucky, with nine points and 10 rebounds - all career highs.
That the sophomore from Durham, North Carolina, can rebound is indisputable. With his fierceness and knack for finding the ball, he plays larger than his 6-foot-7, 215-pound frame suggests. When I see him go after a 50-50 ball, pictures of Tirrell Baines flash across my mind.
With his work, Thompson is trying hard to expand coach Dan D'Antoni's six-man rotation into seven. Since not entering the Jan. 23 game at Old Dominion, Thompson has played 18, 14, eight, 12 and 33 minutes.
He had to play extended minutes in the Herd's 96-93 win over WKU. Ryan Taylor went from three fouls to five in a blink and departed with 12:01 left in regulation, and James Kelly picked up his fourth with 17:09 left. Thompson entered then and didn't leave until a strategic substitution with 25 seconds left in overtime.
Of his nine points, eight put Marshall ahead in a game that featured 18 lead changes. That included a short jumper from the right side - off the glass, no less.
It looked exactly like a shot in one of those pre-practice sessions. It's an encouraging sign for Thompson, and for the Herd's bench.
nnn
WKU coach Ray Harper, who would be a prime target for student-section abuse in another era of Marshall basketball, added to the growing anguish over dealing with the Herd offense.
A few weeks back, colleague Mitch Vingle reminded us that national writers savaged D'Antoni's 2014 hiring. I will remind you of this line from ESPN's Jeff Goodman: "Conference USA coaches are texting me at a furious rate downright giddy by the fact that Marshall hired Dan D'Antoni."
Yeah, they're really giddy now, aren't they?
With the probable exception of Charlotte's Mark Price - another coach brought in from the NBA who lives in the fast lane - those coaches aren't coping well.
Harper seems like a sourpuss on a good day, but I think he turns his nose at MU's "organized chaos." Hey, your team held the Herd to 80 in regulation, something only two other Conference USA teams have accomplished!
Then again, the Herd hit 5 of 7 shots in the overtime, scoring 16 points.
"I'm more concerned about defense; I don't even worry about offense, really," Harper said. "Down the stretch we would have won the game if we could have just gotten stops. Regardless of all the easy buckets we missed and free throws, just dig down and get a stop, get a deflection, somebody make a play on that end to win the game."
Somebody, anybody get a stop. I'm hearing that a lot these days.
nnn
Charlotte is up next for the Herd, 7 p.m. Thursday at Cam Henderson Center. If you attend just one Herd home game, here you go.
The 49ers are 6-6 in the league, but own a 103-95 win over the Herd on Jan. 21. On Saturday, they scored 100 for the second game in row for the first time in 25 seasons, hammering North Texas 103-79. The 49ers shot 56.9 percent from the floor, 14 of 31 from 3-point range and 23 of 28 from the line.
They had five double-figure scorers for the fifth time this season, and dished out 20 or more assists for the seventh time.
Turn off the shot clock, for it won't be needed.
nnn
Let's get this straight: Kareem Canty signs with Marshall, sits out a year to gain eligibility, plays a year, bails out after the coach moves on, transfers to Auburn, sits another year, gets suspended by Bruce Pearl - a player's coach, as I understand - and enters the NBA draft.
He has as much chance of being drafted as I do, but he can move between European pro leagues without sitting out a season.
I'm supposed to wish him well, but I'm having a tough time doing that.