Wednesday, January 30, 2008
GL Practice Report
If I haven't already I'm pretty damn close to losing GL and I am fairly despondent about that fact.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
AH Tourney Writeup
GL had a couple games last weekend that I have not gotten around to writing up. I hope to find time this week to do that.
This weekend HP participated in a tournament sponsored by AH. The fourth grade bracket was the largest of the tournament with 12 teams participating. It was structured such that we would play 3 games in pool, with the winner of each pool plus a wild card advancing.
Our pool consisted of a team who I wasn’t familiar with, SC, JCC”s 4th grade team, and PL, which I thought was the one we played, but in the end I think was the PL in the B league (there was no A and B bracket for 4th grade). The games would consist of 2 twenty minute halves. The clock would only stop on timeouts, and in the last minute of the first half, and the last two minutes of the second half.
Our first game was against SC. If you could call it a game. They pressed right from the start, despite tournament rules having suggested this wasn’t the case with 4th grade. Basically the game was over in the first five minutes. I had decided to go with hockey subs, aka subbing out all of the players every 2-3 minutes. The game was never close, but we played extremely hard the whole time. We made particularly good use of the bounce pass to beat their zone on several occasions. We were outclassed by this team. In fact I would be bold enough to say GL would have trouble against this team. After the game the coach spoke very complementarily about our team. I felt the same. The game was a blow-out, but we never stopped trying. It was good to see, despite the 46-22 final score.
Our next game was against JCC’s 4th grade team. And we played just horrendously. I started us off with a press, which was meaningless and led to some uncontested layups. We were finding decent, but not great, shots on offense that we then missed. We were down by 6 at half. I had decided not to do hockey subs in the second half in hopes that we could get back into it. We came out in the second half and played even worse. With 8 minutes left we were down by 12, after having been down by as much as 15. Remember that in a normal league game if we score 12 points in a 7 minute quarter, with the clock stopping the whole time, we’d have done fairly well. Starting at about 10 minutes I had become a broken record of “Get the ball”. Finally at the 8 minute mark, after my having said it probably 20 times by that point, we started going for the ball. And we just started on a completely improbable comeback. Basically we just out play JCC, with them missing the few shots that they do get off. With just under 35 seconds left we get to with-in two. However, we get two good shots at the end, one of which was basically a wide open Jack A shot inches from the basket, that we can’t get to fall. We lose.
After the game I have to decide on what version to give the post game speech. I decide to end it on a negative note, the opposite of what I normally do. I complement team on the amazing effort they showed during the last 8 minutes of the game, and everyone had gotten playing time in that stretch even if I did rely more on a core of Josh, Zach, Jack A, and Danny to get it done for us. But I then really point out that the only reason we needed to make an improbable comeback was because of our weak play in the first 32 minutes. That we should never have put ourselves in that position to begin with. I tell them to all get a good night’s sleep so that we can come out playing better during Sunday’s games.
This morning we play PL’s B team. And just as it was a mismatch between us and SC, it was a mismatch between us and PL. We were up by 10 after 5 minutes, and that was as close as they ever got, despite the fact that I had us start to play defense inside the three point arc and in the second half told them to only take shots in the key (which they only semi-listened to). We win 40-19 and I’m proud of the type of game I saw.
That leaves us with our “cross-over” game to finish out the tourney. We end up playing SC’s B team. The game is a nail biter the whole way, with no team ever having a lead of more than 4 points. SC is taken aback by our frantic pace at first, but their coach ends up employing his own “hockey subs” to compensate in the second half, to great effect. Unfortunately, SC is a fast team and so they minimize the number of layups we’re able to convert off of our steals. Further, they do a good job of getting the ball up the court at the end of the game for some easy points. But the real story of the game was the foul trouble we got ourselves into. They were in double bonus for a substantial part of the second half. Jon got 4 fouls in the first half, meaning he basically sat most of the second half. Danny and Jack A managed to foul out. It wasn’t good. In the end we just couldn’t pull through and lose by 5, thanks to some late free throws they made.
SC was, most likely, a better talented team than we were. The fact that we were able to make it a competitive game, despite only having 9 players, and less effectively during the second half due to foul trouble, speaks well. Overall I’m happy with how we played. However, we need to win more of these close games. The team wonders about itself. I am hopeful that the HP tourney, which is only going to have 5 or 6 teams, could be a chance for us to get a surprise 1st or 2nd.
Taking a look at our players individually for the weekend:
Adam: He’s really growing. He continues to be clueless what to do when we’re not on the fast break. However, his defense has improved dramatically EXCEPT that he can’t guard a cutter to save his life. He must have given up 10 points on give and gos in the SC game. Just utterly clueless. That said he does a good job of pressuring and stealing the ball while committing almost no fouls.
Ben & Jon: They struggle more with our more upbeat play and are good at intercepting passes and helping on defense, but struggle with guarding a player with the ball. On offense they aren’t quite as fast as others and do better with the chance to cut and move, which is something we need to do more of. They have an nontraditional shot which is quite ugly, if effective for the moment, and one that I’m working with them on changing.
Danny: He’s done a much much better job of not being reckless with the ball. This is good because he’s able to dribble with the ball at about 95% of his sprinting speed, and his sprinting speed is fairly fast. He’s particularly adept at intercepting in bounds passes, but struggles, as in this game, at getting in front of the ball and stealing without fouling. He was not much of a factor at all on offense this weekend. His dad and I talked today at breakfast (which we went to in-between games) about the need for him to look to pass rather than just drive.
Gavin: Once again was out of town due to hockey. Basically I’ve just decided that he’s not around enough to treat as an equal member of the team. While we will continue to do hockey subs, he will sit out more frequently than others. I will be letting him know this next Saturday when he is at practice. It’s a shame because he’s definitely one of the best players on the team. But he’s not made the commitment others have, his play has suffered for it, and it’s simply not fair to the kids who have made the commitment.
Henry: Henry is a bit of a ball hog. He takes ever shot he thinks he can get away with, with many that he’d have been better off not taking. The frustrating thing is that he can’t make his layups on the fast break. He was open NUMEROUS times during the JCC, PL, and SC B games for layups and he made only a couple of the shots. It’s a frustrating thing all around. I also had to give it to him on the bench during the JCC game for being negative. He got the message and improved there the rest of the weekend.
Jacob: He’s finding shots in his range, and making them. More than any other player on the team, he’s taken my preaching of using your legs along with a high arc to heart, and so I feel fairly good about the improvement I’ve helped to contribute to in his game. Of course, he’s still a defensive liability, unable to really shut down kids who are even slightly bigger than he is, though he’s doing a better job of rebounding against those bigger kids.
Jack A: He’s raw, but he plays ferociously. Right now his defense is better than his offense, but his offense is making progress. His blown shot at the end of the JCC game was just heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking. He missed Saturday’s practice because he mistakenly thought we had a game. It’s a shame since we worked on driving and kicking it out, a skill that he could sorely use help on improving. He’s got a weird gait, such that it constantly seems like he’s injured when he’s jogging up the court, and he tends to display the all too typical 9 y/o behavior of over exaggerating his injuries. That said he’s a big reason why our all out going for the ball works, since he’s single minded in that effort. Sometimes this is a problem on defense, but happily teams didn’t exploit that this weekend.
Jack B: He’s benefited from our upbeat pace, which has opened up the court and allowed him to do the little things, particularly on defense, that he does so well. He’s got the best court vision on the team, but doesn’t quite have the ball handling skills to execute on that court vision, which is why he has found himself usurped by others at point. Still it was good to see him pull down numerous rebounds this weekend, and generally be a defensive menace. I hadn’t liked his play lately and this was a real positive turn.
Josh: His dad thinks he’s lazy. I can’t really disagree. Part of this means his conditioning isn’t what it should be. He is probably the best outside shooter we have on the team, but since I so actively discourage outside shots, that’s not the greatest skill to have on our team. That said he does much better in our aggressive “get the ball” defense than when we play a more regular man to man. He doesn’t commit the effort required there. Hopefully at some point he’ll mature in this respect.
Zach: He was feeling ill on Saturday and missed our games today. He would have been the difference in the SC B game. He remains our most complete player, and does an excellent job of shutting down kids much bigger than he on defense. His play was a big reason we got back into the game against the JCC. It was a real shame not to have him today.
HP’s schedule remains brutal. Next weekend we face undefeated NF, and then have the HP tourney. We could beat NF, I feel, with a good game, and a respectable showing in the HP tourney is possible given the small size. Hopefully we can make all that happen.
This weekend HP participated in a tournament sponsored by AH. The fourth grade bracket was the largest of the tournament with 12 teams participating. It was structured such that we would play 3 games in pool, with the winner of each pool plus a wild card advancing.
Our pool consisted of a team who I wasn’t familiar with, SC, JCC”s 4th grade team, and PL, which I thought was the one we played, but in the end I think was the PL in the B league (there was no A and B bracket for 4th grade). The games would consist of 2 twenty minute halves. The clock would only stop on timeouts, and in the last minute of the first half, and the last two minutes of the second half.
Our first game was against SC. If you could call it a game. They pressed right from the start, despite tournament rules having suggested this wasn’t the case with 4th grade. Basically the game was over in the first five minutes. I had decided to go with hockey subs, aka subbing out all of the players every 2-3 minutes. The game was never close, but we played extremely hard the whole time. We made particularly good use of the bounce pass to beat their zone on several occasions. We were outclassed by this team. In fact I would be bold enough to say GL would have trouble against this team. After the game the coach spoke very complementarily about our team. I felt the same. The game was a blow-out, but we never stopped trying. It was good to see, despite the 46-22 final score.
Our next game was against JCC’s 4th grade team. And we played just horrendously. I started us off with a press, which was meaningless and led to some uncontested layups. We were finding decent, but not great, shots on offense that we then missed. We were down by 6 at half. I had decided not to do hockey subs in the second half in hopes that we could get back into it. We came out in the second half and played even worse. With 8 minutes left we were down by 12, after having been down by as much as 15. Remember that in a normal league game if we score 12 points in a 7 minute quarter, with the clock stopping the whole time, we’d have done fairly well. Starting at about 10 minutes I had become a broken record of “Get the ball”. Finally at the 8 minute mark, after my having said it probably 20 times by that point, we started going for the ball. And we just started on a completely improbable comeback. Basically we just out play JCC, with them missing the few shots that they do get off. With just under 35 seconds left we get to with-in two. However, we get two good shots at the end, one of which was basically a wide open Jack A shot inches from the basket, that we can’t get to fall. We lose.
After the game I have to decide on what version to give the post game speech. I decide to end it on a negative note, the opposite of what I normally do. I complement team on the amazing effort they showed during the last 8 minutes of the game, and everyone had gotten playing time in that stretch even if I did rely more on a core of Josh, Zach, Jack A, and Danny to get it done for us. But I then really point out that the only reason we needed to make an improbable comeback was because of our weak play in the first 32 minutes. That we should never have put ourselves in that position to begin with. I tell them to all get a good night’s sleep so that we can come out playing better during Sunday’s games.
This morning we play PL’s B team. And just as it was a mismatch between us and SC, it was a mismatch between us and PL. We were up by 10 after 5 minutes, and that was as close as they ever got, despite the fact that I had us start to play defense inside the three point arc and in the second half told them to only take shots in the key (which they only semi-listened to). We win 40-19 and I’m proud of the type of game I saw.
That leaves us with our “cross-over” game to finish out the tourney. We end up playing SC’s B team. The game is a nail biter the whole way, with no team ever having a lead of more than 4 points. SC is taken aback by our frantic pace at first, but their coach ends up employing his own “hockey subs” to compensate in the second half, to great effect. Unfortunately, SC is a fast team and so they minimize the number of layups we’re able to convert off of our steals. Further, they do a good job of getting the ball up the court at the end of the game for some easy points. But the real story of the game was the foul trouble we got ourselves into. They were in double bonus for a substantial part of the second half. Jon got 4 fouls in the first half, meaning he basically sat most of the second half. Danny and Jack A managed to foul out. It wasn’t good. In the end we just couldn’t pull through and lose by 5, thanks to some late free throws they made.
SC was, most likely, a better talented team than we were. The fact that we were able to make it a competitive game, despite only having 9 players, and less effectively during the second half due to foul trouble, speaks well. Overall I’m happy with how we played. However, we need to win more of these close games. The team wonders about itself. I am hopeful that the HP tourney, which is only going to have 5 or 6 teams, could be a chance for us to get a surprise 1st or 2nd.
Taking a look at our players individually for the weekend:
Adam: He’s really growing. He continues to be clueless what to do when we’re not on the fast break. However, his defense has improved dramatically EXCEPT that he can’t guard a cutter to save his life. He must have given up 10 points on give and gos in the SC game. Just utterly clueless. That said he does a good job of pressuring and stealing the ball while committing almost no fouls.
Ben & Jon: They struggle more with our more upbeat play and are good at intercepting passes and helping on defense, but struggle with guarding a player with the ball. On offense they aren’t quite as fast as others and do better with the chance to cut and move, which is something we need to do more of. They have an nontraditional shot which is quite ugly, if effective for the moment, and one that I’m working with them on changing.
Danny: He’s done a much much better job of not being reckless with the ball. This is good because he’s able to dribble with the ball at about 95% of his sprinting speed, and his sprinting speed is fairly fast. He’s particularly adept at intercepting in bounds passes, but struggles, as in this game, at getting in front of the ball and stealing without fouling. He was not much of a factor at all on offense this weekend. His dad and I talked today at breakfast (which we went to in-between games) about the need for him to look to pass rather than just drive.
Gavin: Once again was out of town due to hockey. Basically I’ve just decided that he’s not around enough to treat as an equal member of the team. While we will continue to do hockey subs, he will sit out more frequently than others. I will be letting him know this next Saturday when he is at practice. It’s a shame because he’s definitely one of the best players on the team. But he’s not made the commitment others have, his play has suffered for it, and it’s simply not fair to the kids who have made the commitment.
Henry: Henry is a bit of a ball hog. He takes ever shot he thinks he can get away with, with many that he’d have been better off not taking. The frustrating thing is that he can’t make his layups on the fast break. He was open NUMEROUS times during the JCC, PL, and SC B games for layups and he made only a couple of the shots. It’s a frustrating thing all around. I also had to give it to him on the bench during the JCC game for being negative. He got the message and improved there the rest of the weekend.
Jacob: He’s finding shots in his range, and making them. More than any other player on the team, he’s taken my preaching of using your legs along with a high arc to heart, and so I feel fairly good about the improvement I’ve helped to contribute to in his game. Of course, he’s still a defensive liability, unable to really shut down kids who are even slightly bigger than he is, though he’s doing a better job of rebounding against those bigger kids.
Jack A: He’s raw, but he plays ferociously. Right now his defense is better than his offense, but his offense is making progress. His blown shot at the end of the JCC game was just heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking. He missed Saturday’s practice because he mistakenly thought we had a game. It’s a shame since we worked on driving and kicking it out, a skill that he could sorely use help on improving. He’s got a weird gait, such that it constantly seems like he’s injured when he’s jogging up the court, and he tends to display the all too typical 9 y/o behavior of over exaggerating his injuries. That said he’s a big reason why our all out going for the ball works, since he’s single minded in that effort. Sometimes this is a problem on defense, but happily teams didn’t exploit that this weekend.
Jack B: He’s benefited from our upbeat pace, which has opened up the court and allowed him to do the little things, particularly on defense, that he does so well. He’s got the best court vision on the team, but doesn’t quite have the ball handling skills to execute on that court vision, which is why he has found himself usurped by others at point. Still it was good to see him pull down numerous rebounds this weekend, and generally be a defensive menace. I hadn’t liked his play lately and this was a real positive turn.
Josh: His dad thinks he’s lazy. I can’t really disagree. Part of this means his conditioning isn’t what it should be. He is probably the best outside shooter we have on the team, but since I so actively discourage outside shots, that’s not the greatest skill to have on our team. That said he does much better in our aggressive “get the ball” defense than when we play a more regular man to man. He doesn’t commit the effort required there. Hopefully at some point he’ll mature in this respect.
Zach: He was feeling ill on Saturday and missed our games today. He would have been the difference in the SC B game. He remains our most complete player, and does an excellent job of shutting down kids much bigger than he on defense. His play was a big reason we got back into the game against the JCC. It was a real shame not to have him today.
HP’s schedule remains brutal. Next weekend we face undefeated NF, and then have the HP tourney. We could beat NF, I feel, with a good game, and a respectable showing in the HP tourney is possible given the small size. Hopefully we can make all that happen.
Monday, January 21, 2008
HP vs MP
The next day is a new chance as we play MP, a team which I got to see Saturday against NF. I learned that they basically run variations on the pick and roll over and over again and who their 3 best players were. It was good information to have.
I had decided that night that after our running out of steam that hockey subs would be the way to go and so that’s what I do. I prepare a group of 4 and a group 5, expecting to have the twins back for the game.
And the first quarter starts off with us really pushing hard, exactly what I wanted to see. And then weirdness ensues. About 45 seconds into the game the ref gives MP a warning about no pressing. It seemed pretty unjustified, as 4th graders aren’t always the quickest to make the transition. I was surprised, but figured big deal. Game goes on. About 2 and a quarter minutes in, with my first group of 5 ready to sub in, one of their players does the MILDEST of presses and the ref t’s them up. Their coach is understandably upset but argues in a completely respectful sort of way. The coach then says something to his players and HE gets t’ed up. Absurd. Fortunately I know my rules and so I get Adam into the game to shoot the FTs. He misses the first two but makes the second two after I tell him that technicals are the hardest free throws to make. For a kid that age having everyone staring at you when you are the only player around has to be unnerving.
The first quarter proceeds with us playing an upbeat tempo and MP just not able to handle us on offense. We are up 12-8 at the quarter. In the second quarter they sort of collapse and we take a 20-12 lead going into half. Their coach does a good job of calming them at half but the rest of the game is essentially a wash with a final score of 28-21. In the end we wore down, we didn’t have the energy in the 4th that we had early on, but fortunately we’d built up enough of a lead that it didn’t matter.
Assorted notes:
Zach had a sudden asthma attack at the end of the WG game. That certainly didn’t help us in the waning moments. Fortunately he’s fine. I told him he needed to let me know if he’s ever feeling the symptoms so I can get him out. He said that it came on suddenly. He played without issue against MP.
We were warming up in the side gym before the game against MP. I went into the main gym briefly to give our official roster and when I come back Gavin’s dad is coaching the team on man to man defense. Gavin’s dad, as you might recall, was very hot to help at the start of the season, however, he was gently rebuffed. Now Gavin was a surprise show up since his mom had said he would be unavailable all weekend. Anyway so Gavin’s dad is in there giving advice about not turning their backs on man. I tell him I would prefer him not to say anything so that there is a clear message. He responds that he wasn’t doing any harm and that the team doesn’t know how to play man defense. Now, this is where I should have been less nice. Here’s a guy whose kid has missed several games, who can’t come to practices on one of our scheduled days, and whose kid had missed several of the practices on the day he could come, lecturing me. And if this had happened after the game I would have realized he was talking about his own kid, who, no surprise considering how much practice has been missed, doesn’t know how to play man. This has stayed with me a bit and I am progressively more upset about it. Ok so maybe I was better off, given this guy’s temper, of being nice. My response simply was that we worked hard at it every practice & we’re getting better. He backed down after this, thankfully.
Jacob finally got some of his shots to fall, thankfully. Next to Gavin, his parents are definitely the highest maintenance so his success combined with team success makes my life easier.
We shot the fewest shots all season that made we wince.
Jack B continues to just sort of disappear out there. He plays great defense, on and off ball, which is worth something. However, his short size means that he sometimes gets scored on because of that. And he’s not been in the right place, as he was earlier in the season, for a good look on offense.
I had decided that night that after our running out of steam that hockey subs would be the way to go and so that’s what I do. I prepare a group of 4 and a group 5, expecting to have the twins back for the game.
And the first quarter starts off with us really pushing hard, exactly what I wanted to see. And then weirdness ensues. About 45 seconds into the game the ref gives MP a warning about no pressing. It seemed pretty unjustified, as 4th graders aren’t always the quickest to make the transition. I was surprised, but figured big deal. Game goes on. About 2 and a quarter minutes in, with my first group of 5 ready to sub in, one of their players does the MILDEST of presses and the ref t’s them up. Their coach is understandably upset but argues in a completely respectful sort of way. The coach then says something to his players and HE gets t’ed up. Absurd. Fortunately I know my rules and so I get Adam into the game to shoot the FTs. He misses the first two but makes the second two after I tell him that technicals are the hardest free throws to make. For a kid that age having everyone staring at you when you are the only player around has to be unnerving.
The first quarter proceeds with us playing an upbeat tempo and MP just not able to handle us on offense. We are up 12-8 at the quarter. In the second quarter they sort of collapse and we take a 20-12 lead going into half. Their coach does a good job of calming them at half but the rest of the game is essentially a wash with a final score of 28-21. In the end we wore down, we didn’t have the energy in the 4th that we had early on, but fortunately we’d built up enough of a lead that it didn’t matter.
Assorted notes:
Zach had a sudden asthma attack at the end of the WG game. That certainly didn’t help us in the waning moments. Fortunately he’s fine. I told him he needed to let me know if he’s ever feeling the symptoms so I can get him out. He said that it came on suddenly. He played without issue against MP.
We were warming up in the side gym before the game against MP. I went into the main gym briefly to give our official roster and when I come back Gavin’s dad is coaching the team on man to man defense. Gavin’s dad, as you might recall, was very hot to help at the start of the season, however, he was gently rebuffed. Now Gavin was a surprise show up since his mom had said he would be unavailable all weekend. Anyway so Gavin’s dad is in there giving advice about not turning their backs on man. I tell him I would prefer him not to say anything so that there is a clear message. He responds that he wasn’t doing any harm and that the team doesn’t know how to play man defense. Now, this is where I should have been less nice. Here’s a guy whose kid has missed several games, who can’t come to practices on one of our scheduled days, and whose kid had missed several of the practices on the day he could come, lecturing me. And if this had happened after the game I would have realized he was talking about his own kid, who, no surprise considering how much practice has been missed, doesn’t know how to play man. This has stayed with me a bit and I am progressively more upset about it. Ok so maybe I was better off, given this guy’s temper, of being nice. My response simply was that we worked hard at it every practice & we’re getting better. He backed down after this, thankfully.
Jacob finally got some of his shots to fall, thankfully. Next to Gavin, his parents are definitely the highest maintenance so his success combined with team success makes my life easier.
We shot the fewest shots all season that made we wince.
Jack B continues to just sort of disappear out there. He plays great defense, on and off ball, which is worth something. However, his short size means that he sometimes gets scored on because of that. And he’s not been in the right place, as he was earlier in the season, for a good look on offense.
HP vs WG
After the very satisfying win against MP2, I was excited for HP’s game against WG. I know that they, based on their record, weren’t a great team. We would only have 7 players for the game, with Jack A at a soccer tournament, and family obligations for the twins and Gavin.
The good news was that WG wasn’t a big team, except for one player who was just an absolute monster. I knew he’d be a problem for us. The first quarter was a back and forth affair, ending up with us down 7-5.
Then in the second we took off scoring numerous baskets in transition and having the good fortune of having Adam, who has surprisingly emerged as our best free throw shooter, getting fouled on a couple of shots allowing him to go 3/4 from the line. Even better our defense was ferocious. We got their dominant player into foul trouble and the team just didn’t play well with out him. We took a 13-7 lead going into half. That’s correct: we didn’t allow a point the entire second quarter.
Unfortunately that’s all we had. Josh had sat out most of the first half after rolling his ankle in the first quarter, so he was fresh for the second half. Unfortunately their center, #50, took over the game. By the 4th quarter we were just sluggish. Our defense wasn’t as strong as we needed it to be. We were down by 5 with less than 30 seconds to go. We managed to get a lay-up. We then came VERY close to get a 5 second violation which would have set us up for a 3 point attempt, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. We then almost did get another 3 point chance at the end of the game, but Josh couldn’t make it happen and so we lost a disappointing game.
After feeling so good about the coaching I’d done with GL it was a particularly depressing game against WG. We committed a ridiculous amount of turnovers. Worse, I wasn’t on my coaching A game and Brian was there watching and commenting. In other words I didn’t look good in front of my boss. It was particularly frustrating. I went home upset at their lack of conditioning and upset with myself for not being a better tactical coach.
The good news was that WG wasn’t a big team, except for one player who was just an absolute monster. I knew he’d be a problem for us. The first quarter was a back and forth affair, ending up with us down 7-5.
Then in the second we took off scoring numerous baskets in transition and having the good fortune of having Adam, who has surprisingly emerged as our best free throw shooter, getting fouled on a couple of shots allowing him to go 3/4 from the line. Even better our defense was ferocious. We got their dominant player into foul trouble and the team just didn’t play well with out him. We took a 13-7 lead going into half. That’s correct: we didn’t allow a point the entire second quarter.
Unfortunately that’s all we had. Josh had sat out most of the first half after rolling his ankle in the first quarter, so he was fresh for the second half. Unfortunately their center, #50, took over the game. By the 4th quarter we were just sluggish. Our defense wasn’t as strong as we needed it to be. We were down by 5 with less than 30 seconds to go. We managed to get a lay-up. We then came VERY close to get a 5 second violation which would have set us up for a 3 point attempt, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. We then almost did get another 3 point chance at the end of the game, but Josh couldn’t make it happen and so we lost a disappointing game.
After feeling so good about the coaching I’d done with GL it was a particularly depressing game against WG. We committed a ridiculous amount of turnovers. Worse, I wasn’t on my coaching A game and Brian was there watching and commenting. In other words I didn’t look good in front of my boss. It was particularly frustrating. I went home upset at their lack of conditioning and upset with myself for not being a better tactical coach.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
GL vs MP2
Well I just got home from GL’s game against MP2. The good news was that before our game, NF was playing MP in 4A. MP is HP’s 4A opponent tomorrow so I got some scouting time in.
Before the game I decided to go with “hockey subs” for the first half. I figured that MP2 shouldn’t be as good as us and so I wanted to make sure that all of my players got some quality playing time. I decided I was going to sell it to the team as the idea that we didn’t play all that intensely last weekend and so this would give them the chance to be intense for 2-3 minutes. I wanted to see all out ball for the time.
The first quarter went well with our team scoring numerous transition baskets. However, we were fouling like crazy. In the second quarter we didn’t do well responding to their press at all, turning it over numerous times which lead to a lot of easy baskets. After being up virtually the entire first quarter we entered half time down by 1.
At half time I talked about how in MP couldn’t keep up with us and so that the second they got the rebound or the ball they should be thinking about getting it up court. It was the 3rd quarter that made all the difference. They couldn’t sink a shot nor could they ever seem to setup on defense before we’d gotten back. They only scored 1 in the quarter but that was due more to misses than our being good. Our 14 points, however, was not luck. I felt real good entering the 4th up now 29-17.
I gave lots of playing time to Cameron, Tom, Andrew, and Jack M who’d gotten less playing time than they deserve in other games. David only saw about 1 and half minutes in the 4th yet still managed to score 4 points. They made a nice little mini-comeback in the last minute of the game, narrowing our lead from 10-7, but even then I had one of my weakest 5 out there.
All in all a good solid victory. In fact it’s our game all season where I felt like we were in control, except for the second quarter. And I think a big part of that was the hockey subs. In the 3rd when we made our run, we were fresh and ready to go. They, however, had exhausted themselves with their press in the second. If I’d wanted we could have won a lot more, but like I said I gave lots of playing time to players who hadn’t played as much.
This was the sort of solid victory I wanted, and expected, heading into tomorrow’s must-win against LV.
Before the game I decided to go with “hockey subs” for the first half. I figured that MP2 shouldn’t be as good as us and so I wanted to make sure that all of my players got some quality playing time. I decided I was going to sell it to the team as the idea that we didn’t play all that intensely last weekend and so this would give them the chance to be intense for 2-3 minutes. I wanted to see all out ball for the time.
The first quarter went well with our team scoring numerous transition baskets. However, we were fouling like crazy. In the second quarter we didn’t do well responding to their press at all, turning it over numerous times which lead to a lot of easy baskets. After being up virtually the entire first quarter we entered half time down by 1.
At half time I talked about how in MP couldn’t keep up with us and so that the second they got the rebound or the ball they should be thinking about getting it up court. It was the 3rd quarter that made all the difference. They couldn’t sink a shot nor could they ever seem to setup on defense before we’d gotten back. They only scored 1 in the quarter but that was due more to misses than our being good. Our 14 points, however, was not luck. I felt real good entering the 4th up now 29-17.
I gave lots of playing time to Cameron, Tom, Andrew, and Jack M who’d gotten less playing time than they deserve in other games. David only saw about 1 and half minutes in the 4th yet still managed to score 4 points. They made a nice little mini-comeback in the last minute of the game, narrowing our lead from 10-7, but even then I had one of my weakest 5 out there.
All in all a good solid victory. In fact it’s our game all season where I felt like we were in control, except for the second quarter. And I think a big part of that was the hockey subs. In the 3rd when we made our run, we were fresh and ready to go. They, however, had exhausted themselves with their press in the second. If I’d wanted we could have won a lot more, but like I said I gave lots of playing time to players who hadn’t played as much.
This was the sort of solid victory I wanted, and expected, heading into tomorrow’s must-win against LV.
Friday, January 18, 2008
HP vs AH1
Sorry for the lateness of this update. I’ve been very busy lately and just haven’t had time to write this up. However, with an unexpected stomach bug keeping home from work today I’ve finally got the time.
After the behemoths of last night I was a little worried about what we’d face today. Fortunately looking at the team they weren’t nearly as intimidating as their 5th grade counterparts. HP was holding a 6th grade tournament and so we were playing after one of those games.
I decided to start the five players who were at both practices (only seemed fair) so it was Adam, Jacob, Ben, Jon, and Jack B getting the nod at the start of the game. I was not excited about this group of 5, but they did really well. Of particular note was Adam whose defense was noteworthy. In fact it was the first time he played like I’d seen him play in house league. Perhaps he’s adjusting to the size and speed of the game, at last.
The game is close in the first half actually ending tied at half time. The bad news is that we got into extreme foul trouble. The refs called a weird game with all too many jump balls, but that doesn’t excuse our fouls. I give one of my better half time speeches. I go over to the book to look at how things are and I discover that their #3 is basically their whole offense. I tell my team to focus on him, with his having scored 8 of their 14 points. The third quarter does not go our way and we’re down 25-22 heading into the 4th. The 4th quarter is just insane. Our offense clicks with tons of different kids scoring. We keep getting to with-in 1 but never manage to close the gap all together. In the end it’s our fouls that od us in with their team going 7-8 in the 4th. In particular we fould #3 all too often and he made us pay for it.
It was a disappointing loss because it was a close game and we just couldn’t pull it out. The refs didn’t help with several seemingly obvious fouls against AH not being called in the second half. Oh well.
Quick run down of our players:
Jacob – Continues to get good wide open shots and continues to fail to make them. Was a little better in the post than normal
Job – Made 4 foul shots for us and a 4th quarter basket. One of his better games
Zach – After a poor first half I had him concentrate on running the baseline and this proved more successful for him. In fact on the first play after I told him to do this he got a wide open shot (which he missed) and Jack B was like “Good coaching, Coach”. I told him after the game to expect me to use him more in this way in the future.
Jack A – Fouled out and really didn’t play that well. Got very upset about fouling out.
Josh – Played well in the 4th but had looked lack luster until then.
Ben – Probably our MVP having scored 6 points in the second to keep us in the game.
Henry – A non factor on offense and defense
Gavin – Sat a lot, but played fairly well in the 4th, despite letting his temper get the best of him. In fact he cost us a realistic shot at a 3 by slamming the ball down after they made a shot with 8 seconds left. I was NOT pleased.
Danny – Didn’t turn the ball over a ridiculous amount so that’s improvement right there, and added 4 points to boot.
Adam – Played some terrific defense in the 1st and grabbed some crucial 4th quarter rebounds, quite impressive considering his size.
Jack B – Not one of his best games, not really having done anything on offense or defense for us.
We have two games this weekend, tomorrow against WG, and Sunday against MP. I hope to get the mid season review up before the game tomorrow, but we’ll see.
After the behemoths of last night I was a little worried about what we’d face today. Fortunately looking at the team they weren’t nearly as intimidating as their 5th grade counterparts. HP was holding a 6th grade tournament and so we were playing after one of those games.
I decided to start the five players who were at both practices (only seemed fair) so it was Adam, Jacob, Ben, Jon, and Jack B getting the nod at the start of the game. I was not excited about this group of 5, but they did really well. Of particular note was Adam whose defense was noteworthy. In fact it was the first time he played like I’d seen him play in house league. Perhaps he’s adjusting to the size and speed of the game, at last.
The game is close in the first half actually ending tied at half time. The bad news is that we got into extreme foul trouble. The refs called a weird game with all too many jump balls, but that doesn’t excuse our fouls. I give one of my better half time speeches. I go over to the book to look at how things are and I discover that their #3 is basically their whole offense. I tell my team to focus on him, with his having scored 8 of their 14 points. The third quarter does not go our way and we’re down 25-22 heading into the 4th. The 4th quarter is just insane. Our offense clicks with tons of different kids scoring. We keep getting to with-in 1 but never manage to close the gap all together. In the end it’s our fouls that od us in with their team going 7-8 in the 4th. In particular we fould #3 all too often and he made us pay for it.
It was a disappointing loss because it was a close game and we just couldn’t pull it out. The refs didn’t help with several seemingly obvious fouls against AH not being called in the second half. Oh well.
Quick run down of our players:
Jacob – Continues to get good wide open shots and continues to fail to make them. Was a little better in the post than normal
Job – Made 4 foul shots for us and a 4th quarter basket. One of his better games
Zach – After a poor first half I had him concentrate on running the baseline and this proved more successful for him. In fact on the first play after I told him to do this he got a wide open shot (which he missed) and Jack B was like “Good coaching, Coach”. I told him after the game to expect me to use him more in this way in the future.
Jack A – Fouled out and really didn’t play that well. Got very upset about fouling out.
Josh – Played well in the 4th but had looked lack luster until then.
Ben – Probably our MVP having scored 6 points in the second to keep us in the game.
Henry – A non factor on offense and defense
Gavin – Sat a lot, but played fairly well in the 4th, despite letting his temper get the best of him. In fact he cost us a realistic shot at a 3 by slamming the ball down after they made a shot with 8 seconds left. I was NOT pleased.
Danny – Didn’t turn the ball over a ridiculous amount so that’s improvement right there, and added 4 points to boot.
Adam – Played some terrific defense in the 1st and grabbed some crucial 4th quarter rebounds, quite impressive considering his size.
Jack B – Not one of his best games, not really having done anything on offense or defense for us.
We have two games this weekend, tomorrow against WG, and Sunday against MP. I hope to get the mid season review up before the game tomorrow, but we’ll see.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Midseason Overview
Half way through the season seems like a good time to take stock of where the teams are at. First up is GL. I am doing this from work, so I have no stats in front of me, and am instead doing this based on my recollection, except for what I can get from the league website.
Team Overall
We stand at 5-3. A record of 10-6 would likely give us the somewhere between the 4th and 6th seeds in the playoffs. There’s good news there though. The winning percentage of the teams we’ve lost to is .710 and the teams we’ve beat is .406 with an overall total of .510. Basically in losing to WK and AH we’ve lost to two of the strongest teams in the conference. The EV loss is just unfortunate. A good test will be this weekend against LV. They’re 6-0. They likely think they’re hot stuff. But 5 of their 6 victories come against teams in the bottom 6 places. They’ve also beat LS. In other words, LV is exactly the sort of team, like LS, that we need to beat, to show that we belong in a strong second tier versus a middling tier. But basically we’re an upper half of the conference team. This is better than I expected. I expected to be somewhere between 7-9 and 9-7. At this point, and based on our remaining schedule (the winning percentage of our remaining opponents is only .400) I’d be disappointed with 9-7. My goal is 11-5 though 13-3 would not be unreasonable. So overall the team is exceeding my pre-season expectations, but basically meeting my in-season expectations, in that we’ve won the games I’d expected to win, lost the three I expected to lose, though I’m still proud at how close we came to an upset against WK.
The Players
Andrew – He’s shown slow, but steady progress over the season. He fancies himself a much better shooter than the statistics show, especially at the free throw line. He’ll miss shot after shot after shot, even in practice, but still think he can make it. I support the positive attitude, since to a certain extent it does make him better than he would be otherwise. His big problem is that he stand around far too often on offense, waiting for someone to pass to him so he can take his shot. He’s working hard to improve on defense, though I feel those demands have never really been made on him before. I think it’s a shame that he wasn’t on our team last year since I think he’d have grown a lot as a player on that team. Alas. I see him having a lot room for growth, even if he only continues his steady advancement.
Brian – I’m glad Winter Break was when it was. Brian and I had had a few problems before break and the time off likely did us both good, though more him than I since I tend to be good about letting bygones be bygones. During the first part of the season he played well on offense. His commitment to defense wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and this was indeed the source of a lot of our tension. He’ll take too many risks & not move around like he should. I would, however, still consider him one of our top 5 players, but he’d be the 5th on that list. But the bigger problem, as alluded to above, is not his ability but his attitude. He’s a pessimist through and through and he shares his pessimism out loud and in a cancerous sort of way. I hope to do a better job of coaching him in the second half of the season to mitigate his negative aspects. But, as always, it’s a balancing act. Hopefully the two of us won’t fall down.
Cameron – Since break he’s decided he’s a shooter. So he’s shot a bunch of shots. And made about 2. Perhaps he could shoot, if he were shooting closer. His shooting arc, for instance, is much improved. His shots all look good, but keep missing. I have decided we’re beyond simply luck. I made a comment about it at yesterday’s practice to him. I expect we’ll see some change there. His defense has improved dramatically from the start of the season, but that’s not surprising. Basically whatever we work on at practice improves with Cameron since this is his first serious basketball season. He basically plays 7-10 minutes a game, but this doesn’t seem to phase him in the least.
Dante – Dante’s been a disappointment. He looked from tryouts and early practices, like a greatly improved player from last year. In reality he’s turned out to be the 5th grade version of what he was last year. He can sometimes have a soft accurate shooting touch. But he is slow. He disappears against bigger players. He fails to pull down the amount of rebounds you’d hope from somebody of his size. Even worse his free throw shooting has gone from rock solid to mediocre and I haven’t been able to figure out what he’s doing differently to help him get back on track. Still he’s a great kid to have on the team. I have found that playing him and Justin together often allows Dante to play better than he would otherwise, though this of course doesn’t help in terms of spelling Justin either from fatigue, or when he’s having a bad day.
David – A step above every other player on the team. However, at this higher level he’s simply incapable of consistently taking over a game at will. He still can take over a game, as he showed for a bit against AH and WK, but it’s not necessarily something which can be sustained. His inability to shed defeners has meant that he’s start taking a lot more outside shots hurting his overall efficiency. Turnovers had been a problem for him at the start of the season, but it’s gotten better, as he rises to the competition. Part of that is that I’ve avoided playing him, for the most part, at point guard until the second half. This lets him get in a groove without trying to force it too much. He’s gotten frustrated with me at times due to my tactical weaknesses at times. However, while the frustration is apparent to me, he keeps it to himself. His own struggles have meant that he’s not quite the active team leader he once was, despite still holding that position in the eyes the other players due to his skill.
Jack M – I give Jack a lot of credit. He’s matured quite a bit. I really worried what kind of effect he’d have on the team. While he was clearly discouraged in the game against AH where we were down by a lot in the 4th, he’s coping with it better. When we did all sorts of physical drills in practice, the sort that he would whine about incessantly last year, he said not a peep despite getting roughed up due to his small size. He’s the shortest player on the team and being short presents obstacles, but rather than complain and moan, he works to overcome them. I really didn’t expect it from him. I’ve rewarded him with additional starts, verbal praise, and try to get him as much playing time as possible. If he were playing Small Fry, or some other competition where he wouldn’t be dwarfed as much as he is, he’d likely be a star. I really hope he grows.
Jack P – He was doing better before winter break. He played particularly slow on Saturday. But overall we needed him to make a higher percentage of his shots while still keeping his explosiveness. He’d done this. His potential is quite high, but he’s not quite part of the social fabric of the team, which means that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves from the other players. This is nothing new. Still I’ve been happy with the progress he’s shown in taking his play to the next level and will be encouraging him to continue to do this.
Justin – He feels most comfortable on the perimeter with the ball. He’s got a sweet shot, so it’s hard to discourage this, but I think I’m going to have to, to a certain extent. We need him inside grinding away. Being a physical presence inside isn’t easy for him, but unlike Dante he’s not quite as soft, despite being nearly a rail. He’s so eager to learn I feel like I’ve failed him in that I don’t get him the 1 on 1 attention that he craves and could benefit from. Having him in the game generally makes us a much better than when he’s not in the game.
Lucas – Lucas, until very recently, had been the biggest disappointment. You might recall that when I thought I’d be losing the triplets (see note below about this) I had faith that he could be our dominant player. I hadn’t seen that. Until our game against EV. And it was then that I remembered something crucial about Lucas: he needs sustained playing time. Some players do better when they play a little, rest some, play some more. That’s how I am. Lucas is the opposite. It takes him a while to get in the flow of a game. I am hoping that EV is a turning point in that it reminded Lucas what he can do and also reminded me of how to use him.
Scott – Definitely the most underrated player on the team. It seems trite but he wants it more than the others seem to, but is happy to be in the background while his brothers get the limelight. He is simply too small to shut down kids much bigger than him as he used to be able to do, but he still has that post player mentality. He’s BY far the toughest player on the team. Not sure how much he’s improved so far this season, though.
Tom – Tom breaks my heart. He thinks so poorly of himself and he knows that others disagree with him, but he feels what he feels. He doesn’t realize how special he is, which is, to be fair, part of what makes him special. All that is old news. We were talking before the game against GV and he told me that he doesn’t enjoy team sports. And I believe it. He said that he’s just kind of in the pattern of signing up for the team so then he plays and when it comes time to sign up again he does, but he doesn’t enjoy it. I tried to find out, unsuccessfully, whether he doesn’t enjoy playing in the games (as he feels the pressure) or whether he just doesn’t enjoy the whole experience. But this is the kid who when we’re doing chants on the sidelines does it wholeheartedly and with abandon such that it draws in even kids like Brian and Jack M, who aren’t naturally inclined to such rah rah antics late in the game when they’re not in it. And the sad thing is he belongs. He can be an absolute shutdown defender. More than that his shot looks so pretty yet is off and I’m simply not a good enough coach to figure out what he is doing wrong, which upsets me.
The Coach
I do some things well. Problem is that I do a lot of things not so well. Like knowing the perfect way to counter a 1-3-1? I forget sometimes. It’s not engrained with me. I have to work at it. And I do work at things. That determination to be better is one of my strengths as a coach. But the problem is that with my coaching two teams I’m distracted. And I was burned out. It wasn’t until I was planning yesterday’s practice that I got a fire and drive and a vision of what I needed to do for the first time since the season started. But that was, to a certain extent, because I was able to focus on just GL. The mental space that I’d devoted to learning and growing my use of tactics? That’s all be taken up by my mental space doing the big picture stuff, the stuff I’m good at, with another team.
The other problem is that I don’t do nearly enough 1 on 1 stuff. Some kids like Justin beg me for it, and of course I help them then. But others who could use the help don’t get it. And that’s a shame, since I do have skills to offer them. Skills that I hate taking away practice time to teach, since it’s so valuable and there always seems to be some other more pressing need that we need to work on and improve. It’s a time like this that I miss having an assistant coach who I could turn over a group drill to while I do some work with a player or even vice versa.
My coaching two teams though has caused this team to suffer. But I think that just might be the way it has to be. I give myself a C- as a coach so far this season. The things that I’ve done well come from my understanding of knowing that if a team does X its chances of victory are greater, where other coaches might not always appreciate the importance of X. For instance I think our lack of scrimmages helps us far more than it hurts us, since it frees up time for other, more focused activities. I think my emphasis on having a high shooting percentage as a team is a HUGE advantage for us over other teams. But beyond these lessons I just don’t think I do such a good job of growing their skills. On my list of priorities then, I do poorly on #1, improving their skills, I do very well on #2, having fun, and #3, winning games, I do pretty well in how I prepare a team even if my in-game tactics don’t help us as much as they ought to.
Looking Forward
This weekend should be an interesting one for us. We play MP2, which seems to only barely belong in the A conference, on Saturday. We should beat them in a game that I would think would be like GV: We’re comfortably ahead the whole game though never feel dominating or in control. On Sunday we play LV. I really don’t know how good they are. This is a game that’s a must win for us. It’s a game I’d be hyping a lot more were it not for what comes on Tuesday. On Tuesday, with no practice on Monday due to Martin Luther King Day, we play JCC. A JCC team that I’ve learned not only tried to recruit away the triplets, but, according to Brian who would definitely know such things, tried to recruit Lucas with the lie that the triplets had already gone over to JCC. They are, not just rivals, but our arch enemies. Hopefully good will win over evil.
Coming soon, an update on HP’s last game and on Thursday (most likely) a midseason report for them.
Team Overall
We stand at 5-3. A record of 10-6 would likely give us the somewhere between the 4th and 6th seeds in the playoffs. There’s good news there though. The winning percentage of the teams we’ve lost to is .710 and the teams we’ve beat is .406 with an overall total of .510. Basically in losing to WK and AH we’ve lost to two of the strongest teams in the conference. The EV loss is just unfortunate. A good test will be this weekend against LV. They’re 6-0. They likely think they’re hot stuff. But 5 of their 6 victories come against teams in the bottom 6 places. They’ve also beat LS. In other words, LV is exactly the sort of team, like LS, that we need to beat, to show that we belong in a strong second tier versus a middling tier. But basically we’re an upper half of the conference team. This is better than I expected. I expected to be somewhere between 7-9 and 9-7. At this point, and based on our remaining schedule (the winning percentage of our remaining opponents is only .400) I’d be disappointed with 9-7. My goal is 11-5 though 13-3 would not be unreasonable. So overall the team is exceeding my pre-season expectations, but basically meeting my in-season expectations, in that we’ve won the games I’d expected to win, lost the three I expected to lose, though I’m still proud at how close we came to an upset against WK.
The Players
Andrew – He’s shown slow, but steady progress over the season. He fancies himself a much better shooter than the statistics show, especially at the free throw line. He’ll miss shot after shot after shot, even in practice, but still think he can make it. I support the positive attitude, since to a certain extent it does make him better than he would be otherwise. His big problem is that he stand around far too often on offense, waiting for someone to pass to him so he can take his shot. He’s working hard to improve on defense, though I feel those demands have never really been made on him before. I think it’s a shame that he wasn’t on our team last year since I think he’d have grown a lot as a player on that team. Alas. I see him having a lot room for growth, even if he only continues his steady advancement.
Brian – I’m glad Winter Break was when it was. Brian and I had had a few problems before break and the time off likely did us both good, though more him than I since I tend to be good about letting bygones be bygones. During the first part of the season he played well on offense. His commitment to defense wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and this was indeed the source of a lot of our tension. He’ll take too many risks & not move around like he should. I would, however, still consider him one of our top 5 players, but he’d be the 5th on that list. But the bigger problem, as alluded to above, is not his ability but his attitude. He’s a pessimist through and through and he shares his pessimism out loud and in a cancerous sort of way. I hope to do a better job of coaching him in the second half of the season to mitigate his negative aspects. But, as always, it’s a balancing act. Hopefully the two of us won’t fall down.
Cameron – Since break he’s decided he’s a shooter. So he’s shot a bunch of shots. And made about 2. Perhaps he could shoot, if he were shooting closer. His shooting arc, for instance, is much improved. His shots all look good, but keep missing. I have decided we’re beyond simply luck. I made a comment about it at yesterday’s practice to him. I expect we’ll see some change there. His defense has improved dramatically from the start of the season, but that’s not surprising. Basically whatever we work on at practice improves with Cameron since this is his first serious basketball season. He basically plays 7-10 minutes a game, but this doesn’t seem to phase him in the least.
Dante – Dante’s been a disappointment. He looked from tryouts and early practices, like a greatly improved player from last year. In reality he’s turned out to be the 5th grade version of what he was last year. He can sometimes have a soft accurate shooting touch. But he is slow. He disappears against bigger players. He fails to pull down the amount of rebounds you’d hope from somebody of his size. Even worse his free throw shooting has gone from rock solid to mediocre and I haven’t been able to figure out what he’s doing differently to help him get back on track. Still he’s a great kid to have on the team. I have found that playing him and Justin together often allows Dante to play better than he would otherwise, though this of course doesn’t help in terms of spelling Justin either from fatigue, or when he’s having a bad day.
David – A step above every other player on the team. However, at this higher level he’s simply incapable of consistently taking over a game at will. He still can take over a game, as he showed for a bit against AH and WK, but it’s not necessarily something which can be sustained. His inability to shed defeners has meant that he’s start taking a lot more outside shots hurting his overall efficiency. Turnovers had been a problem for him at the start of the season, but it’s gotten better, as he rises to the competition. Part of that is that I’ve avoided playing him, for the most part, at point guard until the second half. This lets him get in a groove without trying to force it too much. He’s gotten frustrated with me at times due to my tactical weaknesses at times. However, while the frustration is apparent to me, he keeps it to himself. His own struggles have meant that he’s not quite the active team leader he once was, despite still holding that position in the eyes the other players due to his skill.
Jack M – I give Jack a lot of credit. He’s matured quite a bit. I really worried what kind of effect he’d have on the team. While he was clearly discouraged in the game against AH where we were down by a lot in the 4th, he’s coping with it better. When we did all sorts of physical drills in practice, the sort that he would whine about incessantly last year, he said not a peep despite getting roughed up due to his small size. He’s the shortest player on the team and being short presents obstacles, but rather than complain and moan, he works to overcome them. I really didn’t expect it from him. I’ve rewarded him with additional starts, verbal praise, and try to get him as much playing time as possible. If he were playing Small Fry, or some other competition where he wouldn’t be dwarfed as much as he is, he’d likely be a star. I really hope he grows.
Jack P – He was doing better before winter break. He played particularly slow on Saturday. But overall we needed him to make a higher percentage of his shots while still keeping his explosiveness. He’d done this. His potential is quite high, but he’s not quite part of the social fabric of the team, which means that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves from the other players. This is nothing new. Still I’ve been happy with the progress he’s shown in taking his play to the next level and will be encouraging him to continue to do this.
Justin – He feels most comfortable on the perimeter with the ball. He’s got a sweet shot, so it’s hard to discourage this, but I think I’m going to have to, to a certain extent. We need him inside grinding away. Being a physical presence inside isn’t easy for him, but unlike Dante he’s not quite as soft, despite being nearly a rail. He’s so eager to learn I feel like I’ve failed him in that I don’t get him the 1 on 1 attention that he craves and could benefit from. Having him in the game generally makes us a much better than when he’s not in the game.
Lucas – Lucas, until very recently, had been the biggest disappointment. You might recall that when I thought I’d be losing the triplets (see note below about this) I had faith that he could be our dominant player. I hadn’t seen that. Until our game against EV. And it was then that I remembered something crucial about Lucas: he needs sustained playing time. Some players do better when they play a little, rest some, play some more. That’s how I am. Lucas is the opposite. It takes him a while to get in the flow of a game. I am hoping that EV is a turning point in that it reminded Lucas what he can do and also reminded me of how to use him.
Scott – Definitely the most underrated player on the team. It seems trite but he wants it more than the others seem to, but is happy to be in the background while his brothers get the limelight. He is simply too small to shut down kids much bigger than him as he used to be able to do, but he still has that post player mentality. He’s BY far the toughest player on the team. Not sure how much he’s improved so far this season, though.
Tom – Tom breaks my heart. He thinks so poorly of himself and he knows that others disagree with him, but he feels what he feels. He doesn’t realize how special he is, which is, to be fair, part of what makes him special. All that is old news. We were talking before the game against GV and he told me that he doesn’t enjoy team sports. And I believe it. He said that he’s just kind of in the pattern of signing up for the team so then he plays and when it comes time to sign up again he does, but he doesn’t enjoy it. I tried to find out, unsuccessfully, whether he doesn’t enjoy playing in the games (as he feels the pressure) or whether he just doesn’t enjoy the whole experience. But this is the kid who when we’re doing chants on the sidelines does it wholeheartedly and with abandon such that it draws in even kids like Brian and Jack M, who aren’t naturally inclined to such rah rah antics late in the game when they’re not in it. And the sad thing is he belongs. He can be an absolute shutdown defender. More than that his shot looks so pretty yet is off and I’m simply not a good enough coach to figure out what he is doing wrong, which upsets me.
The Coach
I do some things well. Problem is that I do a lot of things not so well. Like knowing the perfect way to counter a 1-3-1? I forget sometimes. It’s not engrained with me. I have to work at it. And I do work at things. That determination to be better is one of my strengths as a coach. But the problem is that with my coaching two teams I’m distracted. And I was burned out. It wasn’t until I was planning yesterday’s practice that I got a fire and drive and a vision of what I needed to do for the first time since the season started. But that was, to a certain extent, because I was able to focus on just GL. The mental space that I’d devoted to learning and growing my use of tactics? That’s all be taken up by my mental space doing the big picture stuff, the stuff I’m good at, with another team.
The other problem is that I don’t do nearly enough 1 on 1 stuff. Some kids like Justin beg me for it, and of course I help them then. But others who could use the help don’t get it. And that’s a shame, since I do have skills to offer them. Skills that I hate taking away practice time to teach, since it’s so valuable and there always seems to be some other more pressing need that we need to work on and improve. It’s a time like this that I miss having an assistant coach who I could turn over a group drill to while I do some work with a player or even vice versa.
My coaching two teams though has caused this team to suffer. But I think that just might be the way it has to be. I give myself a C- as a coach so far this season. The things that I’ve done well come from my understanding of knowing that if a team does X its chances of victory are greater, where other coaches might not always appreciate the importance of X. For instance I think our lack of scrimmages helps us far more than it hurts us, since it frees up time for other, more focused activities. I think my emphasis on having a high shooting percentage as a team is a HUGE advantage for us over other teams. But beyond these lessons I just don’t think I do such a good job of growing their skills. On my list of priorities then, I do poorly on #1, improving their skills, I do very well on #2, having fun, and #3, winning games, I do pretty well in how I prepare a team even if my in-game tactics don’t help us as much as they ought to.
Looking Forward
This weekend should be an interesting one for us. We play MP2, which seems to only barely belong in the A conference, on Saturday. We should beat them in a game that I would think would be like GV: We’re comfortably ahead the whole game though never feel dominating or in control. On Sunday we play LV. I really don’t know how good they are. This is a game that’s a must win for us. It’s a game I’d be hyping a lot more were it not for what comes on Tuesday. On Tuesday, with no practice on Monday due to Martin Luther King Day, we play JCC. A JCC team that I’ve learned not only tried to recruit away the triplets, but, according to Brian who would definitely know such things, tried to recruit Lucas with the lie that the triplets had already gone over to JCC. They are, not just rivals, but our arch enemies. Hopefully good will win over evil.
Coming soon, an update on HP’s last game and on Thursday (most likely) a midseason report for them.
GL Post-Winter Break Report
Well it’s been too long since I’ve last updated. I talked in my last post about the need for a break. I made the very consciencous decision to basically ignore basketball for my 3 weeks off. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed.
Today I’m going to focus on GL. I hope to get an HP update (which will have less to cover) later this week. We reached about the midway point in terms of league games with both teams so I will also be doing a mid-season overview soon.
On to GL’s update. We’ve had 3 games since Winter Break ended and have met with varying levels of success.
GL vs EV
EV is a major city. When I played middle school basketball they were always a team that would just run over us. Anytime my middle school beat any of the EV middle schools every student in the building would know about it since it was a major upset. They are big. They play basketball well.
However, for whatever reason, their 5th grade team is unremarkable. But a problem arises. We are scheduled to play them on the Sunday before winter break ends for GL. And I will be missing the triplets and Justin. In other words four out of my five best players, with only Jack P being there. I attempted to reschedule, with out success, as they claimed they had no open gym time. It was, to say the least, more than a little frustrating.
Still I like the team I have. Jack M and Lucas both played much larger roles for us last season than they have had the chance to play this year. I go into the game cautiously optimistic. My confidence diminishes somewhat when Andrew doesn’t show. That leaves us with 6.
The first quarter we look good. We also have a bizarre sequence where early on the EV coach, for no good reason, rubs the ref the wrong way and gets a technical. It was a completely unjustified call. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 8-6 but that’s because they destroyed us for a bit with their zone trap. We seem to have gotten the hang of how to beat it and I become hopeful that we can contend this game.
Unfortunately the second quarter blows a big hole in that plan. Their trap becomes even more effective and we can’t get a shot to fall. I don’t have the stats in front of me but Jack P reverted back to his old low shooting percentage ways. As we needed more from him I can’t be too surprised about this, especially as most of his shots came from the side, a place that is far more difficult to make it from.
During the 2nd quarter, Andrew’s mother arrived and told me that he was at tennis. Father had been told to pull him from tennis to get to basketball, but had not done so. He was now very upset both about losing at tennis and about being late to the game. She said it sounded like he wasn’t going to show and if that was alright. I pointed out that we had 6 kids and could really use him. He showed up during the 3rd quarter.
And in the 3rd quarter we were playing a 2-3 zone. With the exception of some quick time at a practice on how to beat a zone, I’ve never really taught zone defense. Half time was a crash course in such play. I did it simply because we were now down by 14 and all six of our players were spent. If we were to mount a come back I figured it would have to be in the 4th. I basically hoped it would give our players a chance to rest a little while keeping us, somewhat, in the game. And it did exactly that. We actually ended the 3rd down by 2. A reminder about how dominant zone can be at this age, when a group that is basically unfamiliar with it can learn it well enough to hold a team’s scoring down.
In the 4th I unleashed the dogs. Unfortunately we couldn’t make a shot. We were ALL over them with our press. Lucas played like an absolute demon, stealing the ball any time he got close to it. We played hard and scrappy to the end, losing 40-28, but I couldn’t be upset with how they played. They played their absolute hearts out. Bad shooting, and fatigue did us in. I’m quite confident that with our top 4 there that the game wouldn’t have been close. In fact if we even had 8, I think we’d have won since fatigue wouldn’t have been nearly the issue that it was with 6.
GL vs GV
Due to some other commitments of mine we were forced to only have our 1 hour Monday practice the week back from break. Fortunately we play one of the bottom dwellers, GV, for our first game on Saturday. GV comes out in a bad 1-3-1 which we struggle to beat. Most of our points came off transitions. We were patient with the ball but it was basically just a “pass the ball around the perimeter” fest. Fortunately we just far out striped them in raw ability. Our rust showed pretty clearly as we weren’t intense and we weren’t scrappy. We phoned in a 27-16 victory. I am proud of the fact that we only allowed 16 points. I knew from talking to LS’s coach that GV was a poor shooting team. I told our team that we’d let them take the outside shots and focus on getting rebounds and they did this well. It ought to have been a rout, but our offense just never got started. We won because of superior talent, not because of how we played and I told the team as much. I knew that this sort of lackluster play wouldn’t cut it against AH, who we played that night.
GL vs AH
It’s been interesting that this year in several of our games we’ve come out very strong in the first few minutes before fading a little. This is the exact opposite of what we did last year when we’d start off slow, often very slow, before finding our footing. So for the first few minutes against AH it looked like we might have a shot. But then AH’s superior talent came through as they went on an 11-0 run to end the quarter. We once again played hard for four quarters but were outclassed and lost 40-28. That’s alright as there’s not a lot you can do about that. What I’m more upset about is the fact that we continued to take outside shots against AH’s man to man. We have become afraid to drive and pass inside. Normally the other team is bigger than us, but I refuse to concede the paint, a place we can get to with cuts, screens, and some aggression.
Practice
So it was with that philosophy that I planned yesterday’s practice. As I was sitting at home, I got charged up about basketball for the first time since break. I was upset with how the team played in both games and I became determined to do something about it. This determination showed, I feel, as we had a really good practice.
We had a quick discussion of what we did well in both games, and we could have done better against GV. No one brought up what I consider the most amazing thing we did during the weekend: David, Lucas, and Brian all drew charges against GV. I hadn’t really ever talked about doing this, as I think 5th grade is a little young, but it fit in the general idea of playing tough that is my goal for the week. In recognition of this feat all three players started off even on their permissions/suicides (the motivational/discipline tool I use).
I decided, for the first time I think in my two seasons of coaching, to skip continuous motion at the start of practice. Instead we went right into Animal Rebounding, the drill I use more than any others to promote aggression, and inside play. Next we did a new drill. In this drill players were on two teams and each had a number. One team was on one side of the half court circle, the other on the opposite side. I would then roll a basketball towards one side and call a number and then roll the basketball to the other side and call a different number. The players whose numbers I called played 1 on 1 for 15 seconds. If they scored their team got a point. No score equaled no point for their team. They really enjoyed this drill. Brian and Scott both moaned that their opponents were fouling. In Brian’s case he was slightly justified as Andrew plays rough, but mostly legal; part of it just is that Brian doesn’t like contact. On the other hand, Lucas, bringing his hockey skills to bear, knows how to be dirty without getting caught. I warned him his team would lose substantial points if I saw him playing dirty. Scott issued no more complaints after that. It was noticed how Tom didn’t score frequently but neither did he let his opponent score much either.
We then did another drill, which I don’t recall what it was. Finally we ended with some 3 on 2, 2 on 3. We hadn’t done this for a while, but it proved to be quite successful. They played hard on defense, and did the sort of things on offense that are required for success. I was quite pleased.
We end our practice with those needing to run, running, and went home. Wednesday will, with the exception of some work on our half court trap, be more physical drills, but fun ones. Hopefully they’ll be tough and excited for the games this weekend. More on these games, and a midseason review of the players, to come tonight.
Today I’m going to focus on GL. I hope to get an HP update (which will have less to cover) later this week. We reached about the midway point in terms of league games with both teams so I will also be doing a mid-season overview soon.
On to GL’s update. We’ve had 3 games since Winter Break ended and have met with varying levels of success.
GL vs EV
EV is a major city. When I played middle school basketball they were always a team that would just run over us. Anytime my middle school beat any of the EV middle schools every student in the building would know about it since it was a major upset. They are big. They play basketball well.
However, for whatever reason, their 5th grade team is unremarkable. But a problem arises. We are scheduled to play them on the Sunday before winter break ends for GL. And I will be missing the triplets and Justin. In other words four out of my five best players, with only Jack P being there. I attempted to reschedule, with out success, as they claimed they had no open gym time. It was, to say the least, more than a little frustrating.
Still I like the team I have. Jack M and Lucas both played much larger roles for us last season than they have had the chance to play this year. I go into the game cautiously optimistic. My confidence diminishes somewhat when Andrew doesn’t show. That leaves us with 6.
The first quarter we look good. We also have a bizarre sequence where early on the EV coach, for no good reason, rubs the ref the wrong way and gets a technical. It was a completely unjustified call. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 8-6 but that’s because they destroyed us for a bit with their zone trap. We seem to have gotten the hang of how to beat it and I become hopeful that we can contend this game.
Unfortunately the second quarter blows a big hole in that plan. Their trap becomes even more effective and we can’t get a shot to fall. I don’t have the stats in front of me but Jack P reverted back to his old low shooting percentage ways. As we needed more from him I can’t be too surprised about this, especially as most of his shots came from the side, a place that is far more difficult to make it from.
During the 2nd quarter, Andrew’s mother arrived and told me that he was at tennis. Father had been told to pull him from tennis to get to basketball, but had not done so. He was now very upset both about losing at tennis and about being late to the game. She said it sounded like he wasn’t going to show and if that was alright. I pointed out that we had 6 kids and could really use him. He showed up during the 3rd quarter.
And in the 3rd quarter we were playing a 2-3 zone. With the exception of some quick time at a practice on how to beat a zone, I’ve never really taught zone defense. Half time was a crash course in such play. I did it simply because we were now down by 14 and all six of our players were spent. If we were to mount a come back I figured it would have to be in the 4th. I basically hoped it would give our players a chance to rest a little while keeping us, somewhat, in the game. And it did exactly that. We actually ended the 3rd down by 2. A reminder about how dominant zone can be at this age, when a group that is basically unfamiliar with it can learn it well enough to hold a team’s scoring down.
In the 4th I unleashed the dogs. Unfortunately we couldn’t make a shot. We were ALL over them with our press. Lucas played like an absolute demon, stealing the ball any time he got close to it. We played hard and scrappy to the end, losing 40-28, but I couldn’t be upset with how they played. They played their absolute hearts out. Bad shooting, and fatigue did us in. I’m quite confident that with our top 4 there that the game wouldn’t have been close. In fact if we even had 8, I think we’d have won since fatigue wouldn’t have been nearly the issue that it was with 6.
GL vs GV
Due to some other commitments of mine we were forced to only have our 1 hour Monday practice the week back from break. Fortunately we play one of the bottom dwellers, GV, for our first game on Saturday. GV comes out in a bad 1-3-1 which we struggle to beat. Most of our points came off transitions. We were patient with the ball but it was basically just a “pass the ball around the perimeter” fest. Fortunately we just far out striped them in raw ability. Our rust showed pretty clearly as we weren’t intense and we weren’t scrappy. We phoned in a 27-16 victory. I am proud of the fact that we only allowed 16 points. I knew from talking to LS’s coach that GV was a poor shooting team. I told our team that we’d let them take the outside shots and focus on getting rebounds and they did this well. It ought to have been a rout, but our offense just never got started. We won because of superior talent, not because of how we played and I told the team as much. I knew that this sort of lackluster play wouldn’t cut it against AH, who we played that night.
GL vs AH
It’s been interesting that this year in several of our games we’ve come out very strong in the first few minutes before fading a little. This is the exact opposite of what we did last year when we’d start off slow, often very slow, before finding our footing. So for the first few minutes against AH it looked like we might have a shot. But then AH’s superior talent came through as they went on an 11-0 run to end the quarter. We once again played hard for four quarters but were outclassed and lost 40-28. That’s alright as there’s not a lot you can do about that. What I’m more upset about is the fact that we continued to take outside shots against AH’s man to man. We have become afraid to drive and pass inside. Normally the other team is bigger than us, but I refuse to concede the paint, a place we can get to with cuts, screens, and some aggression.
Practice
So it was with that philosophy that I planned yesterday’s practice. As I was sitting at home, I got charged up about basketball for the first time since break. I was upset with how the team played in both games and I became determined to do something about it. This determination showed, I feel, as we had a really good practice.
We had a quick discussion of what we did well in both games, and we could have done better against GV. No one brought up what I consider the most amazing thing we did during the weekend: David, Lucas, and Brian all drew charges against GV. I hadn’t really ever talked about doing this, as I think 5th grade is a little young, but it fit in the general idea of playing tough that is my goal for the week. In recognition of this feat all three players started off even on their permissions/suicides (the motivational/discipline tool I use).
I decided, for the first time I think in my two seasons of coaching, to skip continuous motion at the start of practice. Instead we went right into Animal Rebounding, the drill I use more than any others to promote aggression, and inside play. Next we did a new drill. In this drill players were on two teams and each had a number. One team was on one side of the half court circle, the other on the opposite side. I would then roll a basketball towards one side and call a number and then roll the basketball to the other side and call a different number. The players whose numbers I called played 1 on 1 for 15 seconds. If they scored their team got a point. No score equaled no point for their team. They really enjoyed this drill. Brian and Scott both moaned that their opponents were fouling. In Brian’s case he was slightly justified as Andrew plays rough, but mostly legal; part of it just is that Brian doesn’t like contact. On the other hand, Lucas, bringing his hockey skills to bear, knows how to be dirty without getting caught. I warned him his team would lose substantial points if I saw him playing dirty. Scott issued no more complaints after that. It was noticed how Tom didn’t score frequently but neither did he let his opponent score much either.
We then did another drill, which I don’t recall what it was. Finally we ended with some 3 on 2, 2 on 3. We hadn’t done this for a while, but it proved to be quite successful. They played hard on defense, and did the sort of things on offense that are required for success. I was quite pleased.
We end our practice with those needing to run, running, and went home. Wednesday will, with the exception of some work on our half court trap, be more physical drills, but fun ones. Hopefully they’ll be tough and excited for the games this weekend. More on these games, and a midseason review of the players, to come tonight.
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