The damage left by Hurricane Katrina has drawn help from all corners of the world, one of

the bigger ones being the sports world. This weekend the men's basketball team did its part.

The team held a public workout on Saturday morning at the Al McGuire Center. Players greeted fans as they entered the building and the workout generated more than $4,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina with money going to the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities. In addition, a large number of canned goods and non-perishable food items were collected.

Head coach Tom Crean addressed the crowd before the scrimmage started and told fans that all four of the teams (Marquette, Kansas, Texas and Syracuse) that qualified for the 2003 Final Four at the Superdome in New Orleans.

After running through individual drills for the first part of the workout,

the team scrimmaged for the final 20 minutes.

During the scrimmage the team used a 20-second shot clock instead of the traditional 35-second shot clock.

"They've been doing it since the spring," Crean said. "We are not going to be

as dribble-dominated by one guy as we were. We were dribble-dominated by one guy (Travis Diener) because he could create his shot and shots for other people, he could get to the lane with it; he was so good with it, so we wanted to have the ball in his hands when the shot clock was winding down. "Now what we are trying to develop is play faster, get up the floor faster,

looking for the basket. Play quick but don't hurry, the John Wooden saying, but have different people making plays in the shot clock."

Crean said he plans to move the shot clock back to 35 seconds as the season opener draws nearer.

One player who made an impact on defense during the scrimmage was sophomore Ousmane Barro, who was constantly around the basket.

"He has really improved in those areas," Crean said. "We need him to block

more shots, we were last in the league in shot blocks. We had 88 blocks last

year; Josh Boone of Uconn had 90.

"We have to be in a situation between Ousmanne and Jamil (Lott), who's an excellent shot blocker. You don't want them leaving their feet, you don't want them playing wildly and getting in foul trouble but you want them to block shots off the ball."

The only team members not participating in the scrimmage were sophomore Mike Kinsella, who recently had knee surgery, senior Chris Grimm who had his elbow scoped and senior Joe Chapman who bruised his knee.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 20, 2005.