After the game and into Monday’s practice the big question was when did I know that they would be a good team and did I really think that we’d win the tournament the whole time. I said that except for the first few minutes of the JCC game, when it looked like we were just too tired to play any more, I really believed that we had an excellent shot at winning the tournament. I also told how I didn’t know how good of a team we’d be until after our first game, when I knew we had a very good team.
For Monday’s practice I called only a half practice. I anted us to have a little time to debrief, I wanted to do our continuous motion, and I wanted a chance to talk to each of the players individually, about goals/thoughts/etc for the end of the season. I was a fun practice where everyone was still in a good mood after the heroics of the weekend.
Here’s a look at some notes that didn’t make it into the tourney reports as well as a few things that came out of my talks on Monday with the players.
Brian – The only big downside to the whole tourney was the conflict between Brian and David. The two went at each other several times and it became a problem. When I talked to each of them on Monday I really talked about how I just would not tolerate players not getting along with each other on the court and so they needed to stop arguing with each other. Brian asked me during our chat if “I can and should shoot more”. It was a great question. Brian didn’t put big numbers during the tourney. Mainly this was because he didn’t get the ball a whole lot. In our first game against the JCC he popped a 3 pointer, just because he could. When I pulled him, he got very mad and went into his defeatist mode. Despite the disrespect he’d shown, I decided the best way to handle the situation was to just ignore him and I let him start the second half. The two of us didn’t have a conflict again the rest of the weekend. He also played good defense during the tourney, not succumbing to his desire to leave his man alone to make the steal, and set a couple of picks, basically the only player on the team to do so, for which I gave him complements. So in response to his question I said that I would have liked to have seen him get the ball more during the tourney. He’s a good shooter so I don’t mind him shooting smart shots. He really seemed to appreciate that response, which was good.
Dante – Dante, not having played any soccer this weekend, did do better than normal during the tourney. He’s still a little too erratic for my tastes, as I can’t figure out what will cause him to have a good game or not. He’s not quite the inside presence that his size would suggest. However, he did seem to find his “spot” to shoot from so that part was good. We’ll see if he can find shots from there again.
David – The big watchword this weekend was “frustration”. Besides the conflict with Brian, just having him be calm and collected on the court is important. Of course the two times we needed him to be cool, with the last second shots, he was as collected as Jordan. EVERYONE seemed to know him because he’s just that gifted of an athlete. I was typing this before our HP game today and a parent from the HP B team, which we hadn’t played with David, who remarked how good #20 is. As long as David doesn’t try to do too much we’ll be in good shape. I let David know that I plan on having him play the post more during the second half of the season. By playing him in the post it’ll open more time up at the 1, 2, and 3 positions, which is good for the kids who can only play those spots.
Gordie – Gordie is a good kid and has a speech impediment that, combined with his small stature, makes him very cute. He loves the game of basketball, that much is clear. That said he just drove me nuts. When he wasn’t asking to go in, he was giving his “look at me I’m an angel” face when it was clear I was doing a sub. Part of the reason that this was likely driving me nuts is that I knew he wanted to play and was only giving him close to, and actually a bit under, the 10 minutes of playing time I wanted to get my players as a minimum. This guilt was even more pronounced with Noah. Now, to his credit, he is very coachable and does most of the things I ask him to do. During our talk it was clear that he wanted to play point guard. I mentioned how he gets the chance to play point in his house league games, but that turns out not to be true. So basically he’s not good enough to play point on a house league team, how in the world does he think he’s good enough to play point on a travel team? He was, I believe, the only player not to get a start during the tourney. I told him he’d get a few starts and some opportunities to play point. He doesn’t have the skill set to be a good point right now, so it’ll most likely be in games against the NFs that I give him his shot at point. In a bit of statistical humor, he was our leading rebounder in the WM game, since he got the outside rebounds, where all the inside rebounds were vacuumed up by their center.
Jack M – Jack stepped it up to a new level during the tourney. His defense was fantastic. He did a great job of moving the ball around and of penetrating. Not to mention his clutch free throws. When its needed it seems like he can take up his game a notch, whether it was because the triplets weren’t there for the first game of the season (his best game before this tourney) or in this tourney against tougher competition. I was most proud of how he made progress on being confident in the team. I think he finally believes it’s a good team and that should help him going forward in being a positive contributor.
Jack P – This kid needs to take 500 shots a day. He’s our most gifted athlete on the court next to David. He can dribble through a traffic jam if needed and he guarded Luke nearly as well as David had. But his shooting percentage kills me. He’s got a pretty looking shot, which means there has to be something mechanically wrong with his shot, and shot mechanics happens to be a part where I need to be a stronger coach with, so it’s a bad fit. He’s a great complement to David, and racked up the most minutes, deservedly, in the championship game. I just wished he could make more of his shots.
Lucas – He had a great game against WM, but other than that I don’t really recall much of what he did, which means he mostly did what he was supposed to. I think he really struggled guarding some of the better inside men, which isn’t surprising that he’s still not entirely comfortable in that role.
Noah – Noah just looks lost a lot of the time out there. His sense of where he needs to be on the court, both on offense and on defense just isn’t up to snuff compared with the rest of the team. He’s another good kid, and unlike Gordie he doesn’t drive me NUTS with whether or not he’s going to get to play, but he had the lowest number of minutes in the tourney of anyone on our team. Fortunately, I think he’s the kind of kid who doesn’t mind sitting on the bench as much. He loves sitting next to me (I sit in the middle of the kids rather than at the end) and I think he enjoys hearing me talk about the game.
Scott – He has many of the best qualities of his two brothers. When we were talking I told him how if he saw his brothers getting frustrated he might be able to, where I cannot, to get him to calm. I told him if he ever felt uncomfortable saying something, that he shouldn’t, but that he might be able to say chill, where it would be meaningless coming from me.
Tom – The mystery that is Tom continues. I don’t think Tom is having as good of a time as the other kids, which is a shame. I don’t know if the problem is with me, or himself, or what. I’m going to try and give him some time at point and see if he does better there, which I think is a definite possibility. I really like Tom and I wish I could know what I could do to make him succeed and seem like he’s having more fun.
Me – Tom’s mom cracked me up. She and I were talking after the championship game. And she said to me, “Did you know you were entering them in the A tourney?” I mean what did she think it came as complete surprise to me? Perhaps this was the adult version of “Did you know they we were this good?” It was very gratifying to receive so many complements on what a well coached team they were. Of course when you’re winning there are always complements to be had. The complement I appreciated most was a comment from Lucas’s father. He sent me a congratulatory e-mail and referenced how much he liked one particular thing. David had made an awful pass in the 4th quarter of the championship game. He’d made another not so good pass a little earlier. He was really upset with himself and I told him to smile. Normally moments like that are done away from the parents, so they don’t get to hear it, but it was nice that someone heard it and though to say something about it. I think I did a good job of keeping the team on an even keel. While I talk about in baseball how Steve is the better rah-rah guy, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of getting them going when they needed it.
Refs – The officiating overall at this tournament was very good. Except for the one guy I talked about during the WM game, there weren’t any disputes or problems. There was a woman ref who reffed both of our JCC games and our game against Karzen. She was excellent. She always had a smile on her face and would naturally give an explanation if an explanation was needed to the players. She was fabulous and by far the best ref I’d seen at this level of play.
After the tournament I decided to go out and celebrate by having dinner at my favorite steak place. My parents came along as well and we had wonderful dinner. However, I was not the only winning coach in the restaurant that day. Lovie Smith was there as well and my family had finished dinner and desert just as the Colts/Pats game was ending so I got to watch the end of that game with Lovie standing about six feet away. It was a really neat experience.
Showing posts with label HP tourney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HP tourney. Show all posts
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Tourney Report: Championship Game
We had just won a game now a few minutes later we had to be ready to play for the championship. The JCC team had come over and watched at one point. A couple of parents did the same and actively rooted for us. It was clear they wanted their re-match and they were going to have it. As the Karzen game wound down I asked Brian how much time we’d have to warm up. He replied 5 minutes. In reality it was closer to 10, maybe even a bit more.
Since we’d already played two games of basketball, I didn’t bother having us do any sort of special warm-up and instead I just let them shoot. At one point I had to chase away Luke’s brother who had the audacity to shoot around with us. After it became clear we were going to have more than 5 minutes, I let them shoot around for a minute or two more than sat them down. My big focus for this game was on our help defense doing a good job of picking Luke up. We knew we were going to force him to our left, so defenders on that side had to be ready to step in for the double team if he got close to the basket.
JCC got off to a quick start. At that point I believed the game could easily turn into a blow-out. We were tired. I knew that they’d be playing their best ball and they were. Most of their points came-off of a couple plays. One was a clear-out for Luke. Now the good thing about this was that it wasn’t Luke who was scoring. Instead it was either their center scoring a put back, or someone left a little open from our double team making a shot. Still we were tired. After being down by as much as 7, we’d closed the gap to with-in three.
At half time I complemented the team on their great defense. I said we were playing a good game and that we were a second half team and we’d get this game done. We’d beaten this team once and there was no reason we couldn’t beat them again. I did also make a remark that no matter what happened in the game that we should be proud of how’d we played. Where as for the first two parts, and even into the third part, of the first half I really believed that we’d lose, and it could even be a blow-out, by the end of the first half we were playing better basketball.
Right out of half we came out and cut the game to with-in a basket. As the second half played on I was finding it harder and harder to find time to play guys like Tom, Noah, and Gordie. They all got their time in, but it was a hard thing for me to do. During the start of the third part of the second half, Luke went on his only tear of the game. In rapid succession he stole a few balls and created some exciting points to give his team a 5 point lead, after being down by 1 when his tear started. The good news out of this all, was that’s basically his whole contribution, offensively and defensively for the whole game. We had so shut down the inside game that Luke was constantly settling for three point shots. His shooting percentage was better outside the arc this game than the last game, but still nowhere near as good as what he can do inside. We had also made the proper adjustments to their two set plays and so they’d often have to run the play two or three times before they could get a shot off of it. What I was more proud of than how well we were playing him on defense as how we’d neutralized him when HE was on defense. His coaches made it clear that they expected him to stay in his zone, since when he’d wondered we’d made them pay for it.
As Luke went on this run, I was forced to call a time-out to try and stop the momentum. I pointed out that we could make up this score. We had PLENTY of time so we had to play our offense. And during the next five minutes we played some excellent basketball. All half long Scott had done an excellent job of getting rebounds, with 7 second half rebounds. However, he was tired so I put in Jack P as a post player. Jack M decided that maybe he could drive to the basket and he did so, creating all sorts of nice opportunities both in terms of baskets he made, fouls, and creating shots for others, notably Jack P. It was clear that they came out of the time-out with the philosophy that they weren’t going to let David beat them. This was fine for us. Slowly we came back. Dante all year long would shoot 6 or 7 good shots each game and often miss all of them. However, all of a sudden he was getting open in the mid-post and he drained a couple of beautiful shots. The game became a nail biter, but we continued to be down.
Finally with about 25 seconds they went up by 3. I called our final time-out. Basically it was just a “relax out there”. We needed a 3 and everyone knew it. I said that we would tie the game, have momentum and win in over time. I really believed that we’d either lose it in regulation or win it in over time. They had begun earlier in the half wasting time, with Luke bringing the ball just over half court and sitting there. I kept yelling at David that he had to go and guard Luke so they couldn’t keep waste time. However, it was this attitude of that we’d score, while they were just trying to hang-on that gave me such confidence. So we came down on offense and worked it around for a bit, before getting it back to David who pulls up for the jumper and drains it. We’ve tied the game. Our bench explodes. They call a time out with 8 seconds and change on the clock. By this point we were rocking the gym. The atmosphere was unbelievable coming out of the time-out they’d called.
We all knew what they were going to do. They were going to get the ball to Luke and with plenty of time. However, as they went down they were never able to find a good a shot. They ended up launching a bad shot which missed. And we headed into OT.
It really was cliché. Here we had the championship game, with a team that had made a comeback only to make a crucial late shot to tie the game and send it into overtime. That first overtime period was just a bundle of nerves. The period only lasted 2 minutes. I think each team scored 1 basket. We once again had the ball late in the period. There entire focus was so on stepping David that they left Jack M with a good shot, but it missed. We got the ball back and David took and missed a jumper. What upset me was that we all just stood around looking at it, instead of trying for the rebound. The ball actually hit the floor and bounced, meaning that JCC was doing the same thing. Still if we’d done what we should have we might have been able to heave up one last shot. But momentum was on our side. When Jack started to drive in, the coaches were clearly pained. We’d just come out of a time-out and it was clear that the message had been so strong on stop David, that the team left itself open to being beaten by one of our other players.
So now we were in the second overtime. We come out quickly and make a basket and another. They come back and make a basket of their own. On this next possession down they foul Jack M on the ground for a 1 and 1. Jack makes both of the shots and we now have a 4 point lead with about 45 seconds left. Noah asks “Can we storm the court when we win?” I say “Of course” which I don’t think they were expecting. Luke comes down and lofts up a 3, and misses, but gets fouled. Luke’s now at the line for 3 shots. He drains the first two, but misses the 3rd. I don’t know if the play was intentional or not, but they do get the rebound. The put up a shot and miss. Dante comes down with the rebound and is immediately fouled. Another 1 and 1. Dante drains both shots and that’s the game. There is a desperation 3 launched, we get the rebound, and the game is over.
There’s chest bumping and thumping. The team is absolutely stoked. We go through and shake their hands. My opinion of Luke’s father mellowed this game. He was very nice after the game. I think as the game went on he realized that we weren’t some team that had no right competing with his team, but instead was a legitimate competitor. On the other hand, his co-coach was insane and did enough yelling for the two of them. Regardless, I really felt like the better team won this game. At different points we had several players step up when needed, it wasn’t just the David show, like JCC was the Luke show.
There was a real nice ceremony where they were presented with t-shirts for second place and we were presented with our championship t-shirts. We went over to the side, I complemented them on how I often talk about what great teams do, and in this tournament we played like a great team. They posed for a couple of team pictures. It was just great. Here we were champions of an A tourney, having played two games which were as good as basketball games get. What a feeling.
Next time: tournament summary/overview and a recap of Monday’s practice.
Since we’d already played two games of basketball, I didn’t bother having us do any sort of special warm-up and instead I just let them shoot. At one point I had to chase away Luke’s brother who had the audacity to shoot around with us. After it became clear we were going to have more than 5 minutes, I let them shoot around for a minute or two more than sat them down. My big focus for this game was on our help defense doing a good job of picking Luke up. We knew we were going to force him to our left, so defenders on that side had to be ready to step in for the double team if he got close to the basket.
JCC got off to a quick start. At that point I believed the game could easily turn into a blow-out. We were tired. I knew that they’d be playing their best ball and they were. Most of their points came-off of a couple plays. One was a clear-out for Luke. Now the good thing about this was that it wasn’t Luke who was scoring. Instead it was either their center scoring a put back, or someone left a little open from our double team making a shot. Still we were tired. After being down by as much as 7, we’d closed the gap to with-in three.
At half time I complemented the team on their great defense. I said we were playing a good game and that we were a second half team and we’d get this game done. We’d beaten this team once and there was no reason we couldn’t beat them again. I did also make a remark that no matter what happened in the game that we should be proud of how’d we played. Where as for the first two parts, and even into the third part, of the first half I really believed that we’d lose, and it could even be a blow-out, by the end of the first half we were playing better basketball.
Right out of half we came out and cut the game to with-in a basket. As the second half played on I was finding it harder and harder to find time to play guys like Tom, Noah, and Gordie. They all got their time in, but it was a hard thing for me to do. During the start of the third part of the second half, Luke went on his only tear of the game. In rapid succession he stole a few balls and created some exciting points to give his team a 5 point lead, after being down by 1 when his tear started. The good news out of this all, was that’s basically his whole contribution, offensively and defensively for the whole game. We had so shut down the inside game that Luke was constantly settling for three point shots. His shooting percentage was better outside the arc this game than the last game, but still nowhere near as good as what he can do inside. We had also made the proper adjustments to their two set plays and so they’d often have to run the play two or three times before they could get a shot off of it. What I was more proud of than how well we were playing him on defense as how we’d neutralized him when HE was on defense. His coaches made it clear that they expected him to stay in his zone, since when he’d wondered we’d made them pay for it.
As Luke went on this run, I was forced to call a time-out to try and stop the momentum. I pointed out that we could make up this score. We had PLENTY of time so we had to play our offense. And during the next five minutes we played some excellent basketball. All half long Scott had done an excellent job of getting rebounds, with 7 second half rebounds. However, he was tired so I put in Jack P as a post player. Jack M decided that maybe he could drive to the basket and he did so, creating all sorts of nice opportunities both in terms of baskets he made, fouls, and creating shots for others, notably Jack P. It was clear that they came out of the time-out with the philosophy that they weren’t going to let David beat them. This was fine for us. Slowly we came back. Dante all year long would shoot 6 or 7 good shots each game and often miss all of them. However, all of a sudden he was getting open in the mid-post and he drained a couple of beautiful shots. The game became a nail biter, but we continued to be down.
Finally with about 25 seconds they went up by 3. I called our final time-out. Basically it was just a “relax out there”. We needed a 3 and everyone knew it. I said that we would tie the game, have momentum and win in over time. I really believed that we’d either lose it in regulation or win it in over time. They had begun earlier in the half wasting time, with Luke bringing the ball just over half court and sitting there. I kept yelling at David that he had to go and guard Luke so they couldn’t keep waste time. However, it was this attitude of that we’d score, while they were just trying to hang-on that gave me such confidence. So we came down on offense and worked it around for a bit, before getting it back to David who pulls up for the jumper and drains it. We’ve tied the game. Our bench explodes. They call a time out with 8 seconds and change on the clock. By this point we were rocking the gym. The atmosphere was unbelievable coming out of the time-out they’d called.
We all knew what they were going to do. They were going to get the ball to Luke and with plenty of time. However, as they went down they were never able to find a good a shot. They ended up launching a bad shot which missed. And we headed into OT.
It really was cliché. Here we had the championship game, with a team that had made a comeback only to make a crucial late shot to tie the game and send it into overtime. That first overtime period was just a bundle of nerves. The period only lasted 2 minutes. I think each team scored 1 basket. We once again had the ball late in the period. There entire focus was so on stepping David that they left Jack M with a good shot, but it missed. We got the ball back and David took and missed a jumper. What upset me was that we all just stood around looking at it, instead of trying for the rebound. The ball actually hit the floor and bounced, meaning that JCC was doing the same thing. Still if we’d done what we should have we might have been able to heave up one last shot. But momentum was on our side. When Jack started to drive in, the coaches were clearly pained. We’d just come out of a time-out and it was clear that the message had been so strong on stop David, that the team left itself open to being beaten by one of our other players.
So now we were in the second overtime. We come out quickly and make a basket and another. They come back and make a basket of their own. On this next possession down they foul Jack M on the ground for a 1 and 1. Jack makes both of the shots and we now have a 4 point lead with about 45 seconds left. Noah asks “Can we storm the court when we win?” I say “Of course” which I don’t think they were expecting. Luke comes down and lofts up a 3, and misses, but gets fouled. Luke’s now at the line for 3 shots. He drains the first two, but misses the 3rd. I don’t know if the play was intentional or not, but they do get the rebound. The put up a shot and miss. Dante comes down with the rebound and is immediately fouled. Another 1 and 1. Dante drains both shots and that’s the game. There is a desperation 3 launched, we get the rebound, and the game is over.
There’s chest bumping and thumping. The team is absolutely stoked. We go through and shake their hands. My opinion of Luke’s father mellowed this game. He was very nice after the game. I think as the game went on he realized that we weren’t some team that had no right competing with his team, but instead was a legitimate competitor. On the other hand, his co-coach was insane and did enough yelling for the two of them. Regardless, I really felt like the better team won this game. At different points we had several players step up when needed, it wasn’t just the David show, like JCC was the Luke show.
There was a real nice ceremony where they were presented with t-shirts for second place and we were presented with our championship t-shirts. We went over to the side, I complemented them on how I often talk about what great teams do, and in this tournament we played like a great team. They posed for a couple of team pictures. It was just great. Here we were champions of an A tourney, having played two games which were as good as basketball games get. What a feeling.
Next time: tournament summary/overview and a recap of Monday’s practice.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Tourney Report: Karzen Game
For Lunch we went to a well known hot dog/hamburger place in HP. Scott had suggested we go to Hooters (which considering there isn’t a Hooters anywhere near by was a particularly amusing suggestion), while Brian was pushing hard core for Wendy’s. However, my suggestion won out when I said that if we went there they’d be able to see what I looked like when I was 10 (I played on a basketball team that they sponsored). Not to mention I knew that they had TVs that we could watch the Bears game on, before heading back to the rec center for what I hoped would be two more games.
We caravaned over there. Gordie’s, Noah’s, and Jack P’s mothers insisted on paying for my lunch, which was very nice of them. Lunch was a very nice affair. The kids all sat together and talked and then watched the Bears game together. I sat with the parents, doing stuff on my laptop, while they all talked and gossiped. Dante’s father and I talked a little bit and he asked me the very legitimate question of why I didn’t go for the three point shot late in the HP game when it would have tied the game. I answered that I felt that we had a better chance of making the basket and stealing the ball than making the shot. In reality? I blew it. Lunch was a real nice way to kill a couple of hours. Towards the end the kids got a little antsy, but it wasn’t too bad, and it was a great team experience.
During lunch a conversation which began towards the end of the WM game continued. Basically the question was would I be coaching the fifth grade team. I gave a non-committal answer along the lines of “I would love to move up with the team, but it’s a long time between then and now so who knows.” Dante’s father had said, even before that “Who do we need to write to about keeping you?” I smiled and he went, “No seriously, who?” It was a very gratifying experience. Part of this conversation, with the players, was also would everyone on the team make it again next year. I obviously had to tread very carefully here. My answer was “I love the team we have this year. Next year at try-outs I’ve got to choose the best 10 or 12 players for the team. I would be thrilled if we had the same team, but I’ll have to put together the best team.”
I was thrilled about something I had heard from the triplet's (and their step-mom). During the interim on Saturday between games Brian and I were talking. He told me that next year they planned on trying out for an And1 team. My heart sank. I asked if he was planning on doing two teams, and he responded, weakly, that he was. I think we'd be a really competitive B league team with-out the triplets but we wouldn't be as good as we are. The idea that we might lose them compounded my misery after the HP loss, and tempered some of my excitement from the JCC win. Well, during the game as we were talking about whether I'd pick the same team next year, David said, "I hope that it would be the same 10 people. We are such a good team." Step-mom also indicated how much all of them loved basketball this year. Losing David would be bad, but I think we'd still be a great team. Losing all the triplets would be catastrophic as they are 3 of our 4 or 5 best players, easily.
Just before half time in the Bears game we headed back to the gym. We caught some of the 4B and 5B championship games. More importantly we waited a long time. Games were still far behind schedule on our court. This meant that JCC was already comfortably ahead by the time our game began. I knew from watching the other team that this team would be scrappy. It was also clear that their coach spent a lot of time on fundamentals. Even in warm-ups they were doing defensive slides and such.
During the first part of the first half the game was a virtual tie, even a little bit in their favor. They played us real well. We seemed a little off balance. They weren’t any bigger than us, but they were really out rebounding us. They wanted the ball more than we did, which was just an amazing thing to happen to our team. In a tough game like this it can be a game of Russian Roulette to see who’ll blink first on calling a time out. While they had an early edge, we had fought back some, again thanks to very good ball movement and use of the post, and with about 6 minutes left in the half, the other coach blinked first and called a time-out. I had decided to call one at 5 minutes to get my last group of subs in and make the rebounding comment.
We have a small lead at half, but again it is the first part of the second half where we make our mark. What had been a close game, with us up by about four at half, suddenly became a game where we were very much in control. Our control only increased as the half went on. Finally with about 5 minutes left we were up by 13. I just couldn’t see them closing the gap, so I went with a weaker line-up with the intent of starting the players on the bench at the start of the JCC game.
At the same time I was backing off, Karzen made a push. The started a very effective press that we just didn’t have the skill on the court to beat. And slowly, bit by bit, they worked their way back. Finally it got to the point where I needed to insert Jack M with about 2 and a half minutes left just to make sure the game didn’t get out of hand. The combo of Jack P and Jack M were able to break through their press. Press break is something I had anticipated we’d really need, but never gotten around to teaching. David is practically a one man press breaking machine. And even if he’s stopped Scott, Brian, Jack M, and to a lesser extent Tom, Lucas and Jack P, all understand the basics of how to beat a press so it seemed like a poor use of time. Fortunately as it got late in the game they were forced to foul us and we did well on our free throws. We ended up winning by a far too close six points. A situation like this is difficult. If it weren’t for the pressure of the JCC game, I’d likely have inserted more of our a unit back into the game. You don’t want momentum to swing so far that your team is helpless to counter act it. However, JCC had finished their game well before the end of our game, and I wanted to give our players as much of a rest as possible. This game never got out of control, but it was might close there for a while.
So we had done it. After an inauspicious beginning we’d reached the tournament final. However, I was not confident. Perhaps the late swing in Karzen had contributed, but knowing that we’d have to play another near perfect game against JCC to beat them just did not inspire confidence. I was left in the trick position of trying to get us ready for another game against the JCC, while also not setting up a situation where we’d feel like failures if we came up short. It was in this mental state that we headed next door to play our now clear foes.
We caravaned over there. Gordie’s, Noah’s, and Jack P’s mothers insisted on paying for my lunch, which was very nice of them. Lunch was a very nice affair. The kids all sat together and talked and then watched the Bears game together. I sat with the parents, doing stuff on my laptop, while they all talked and gossiped. Dante’s father and I talked a little bit and he asked me the very legitimate question of why I didn’t go for the three point shot late in the HP game when it would have tied the game. I answered that I felt that we had a better chance of making the basket and stealing the ball than making the shot. In reality? I blew it. Lunch was a real nice way to kill a couple of hours. Towards the end the kids got a little antsy, but it wasn’t too bad, and it was a great team experience.
During lunch a conversation which began towards the end of the WM game continued. Basically the question was would I be coaching the fifth grade team. I gave a non-committal answer along the lines of “I would love to move up with the team, but it’s a long time between then and now so who knows.” Dante’s father had said, even before that “Who do we need to write to about keeping you?” I smiled and he went, “No seriously, who?” It was a very gratifying experience. Part of this conversation, with the players, was also would everyone on the team make it again next year. I obviously had to tread very carefully here. My answer was “I love the team we have this year. Next year at try-outs I’ve got to choose the best 10 or 12 players for the team. I would be thrilled if we had the same team, but I’ll have to put together the best team.”
I was thrilled about something I had heard from the triplet's (and their step-mom). During the interim on Saturday between games Brian and I were talking. He told me that next year they planned on trying out for an And1 team. My heart sank. I asked if he was planning on doing two teams, and he responded, weakly, that he was. I think we'd be a really competitive B league team with-out the triplets but we wouldn't be as good as we are. The idea that we might lose them compounded my misery after the HP loss, and tempered some of my excitement from the JCC win. Well, during the game as we were talking about whether I'd pick the same team next year, David said, "I hope that it would be the same 10 people. We are such a good team." Step-mom also indicated how much all of them loved basketball this year. Losing David would be bad, but I think we'd still be a great team. Losing all the triplets would be catastrophic as they are 3 of our 4 or 5 best players, easily.
Just before half time in the Bears game we headed back to the gym. We caught some of the 4B and 5B championship games. More importantly we waited a long time. Games were still far behind schedule on our court. This meant that JCC was already comfortably ahead by the time our game began. I knew from watching the other team that this team would be scrappy. It was also clear that their coach spent a lot of time on fundamentals. Even in warm-ups they were doing defensive slides and such.
During the first part of the first half the game was a virtual tie, even a little bit in their favor. They played us real well. We seemed a little off balance. They weren’t any bigger than us, but they were really out rebounding us. They wanted the ball more than we did, which was just an amazing thing to happen to our team. In a tough game like this it can be a game of Russian Roulette to see who’ll blink first on calling a time out. While they had an early edge, we had fought back some, again thanks to very good ball movement and use of the post, and with about 6 minutes left in the half, the other coach blinked first and called a time-out. I had decided to call one at 5 minutes to get my last group of subs in and make the rebounding comment.
We have a small lead at half, but again it is the first part of the second half where we make our mark. What had been a close game, with us up by about four at half, suddenly became a game where we were very much in control. Our control only increased as the half went on. Finally with about 5 minutes left we were up by 13. I just couldn’t see them closing the gap, so I went with a weaker line-up with the intent of starting the players on the bench at the start of the JCC game.
At the same time I was backing off, Karzen made a push. The started a very effective press that we just didn’t have the skill on the court to beat. And slowly, bit by bit, they worked their way back. Finally it got to the point where I needed to insert Jack M with about 2 and a half minutes left just to make sure the game didn’t get out of hand. The combo of Jack P and Jack M were able to break through their press. Press break is something I had anticipated we’d really need, but never gotten around to teaching. David is practically a one man press breaking machine. And even if he’s stopped Scott, Brian, Jack M, and to a lesser extent Tom, Lucas and Jack P, all understand the basics of how to beat a press so it seemed like a poor use of time. Fortunately as it got late in the game they were forced to foul us and we did well on our free throws. We ended up winning by a far too close six points. A situation like this is difficult. If it weren’t for the pressure of the JCC game, I’d likely have inserted more of our a unit back into the game. You don’t want momentum to swing so far that your team is helpless to counter act it. However, JCC had finished their game well before the end of our game, and I wanted to give our players as much of a rest as possible. This game never got out of control, but it was might close there for a while.
So we had done it. After an inauspicious beginning we’d reached the tournament final. However, I was not confident. Perhaps the late swing in Karzen had contributed, but knowing that we’d have to play another near perfect game against JCC to beat them just did not inspire confidence. I was left in the trick position of trying to get us ready for another game against the JCC, while also not setting up a situation where we’d feel like failures if we came up short. It was in this mental state that we headed next door to play our now clear foes.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tourney Report: Spartans vs. WM
Following our dramatic last second victory over the JCC we looked at the following as our “road to the championship”:
12 game versus WM – The team is in the A division and was winless when we played them.
If we won that we’d have a 4 o’clock game against the winner of the other pool, which was a team called Karzen. Basically they were a group of players recruited by this guy named Karzen from a tennis academy in a nearby suburb (this was the A team of the same group that had played and defeated HP in overtime).
If we won both of those games we would be in a 5 o’clock championship. JCC had a similar path to the finals.
Now our 12 game against WM was not going to start on time since WM had a game at 11 (owing to the fact that on the original schedule the earliest Sunday game was to be 2 and so they’d rescheduled a league game). The Park District thought we’d start at 12:15, but I always found that to be an optimistic outlook. Still I had the team get there a little before noon in anticipation of an “on-time” start.
Of course this was not to be. We ended up playing a couple of games of lightening with a ref (I even knocked him out of one game, which we joked wasn’t likely my best move). There was a lot of random waiting. The best thing to come out of the waiting was that the team agreed we’d go to lunch following the game.
Finally just after 12:30 they got their fifth player there. We started the game moments later, when they had six or seven of their players there. I had been warned by several players on my team that they had a kid who was HUGE. They weren’t exaggerating. This kid was likely 5”5’ and 190 pounds and, as someone on our team (I think it was Noah) later said, “I didn’t realize a kid so big could also be so fast”. For whatever reason, my guess being he’d played a lot earlier, he didn’t start.
With the exception of this player at center we were pretty much stronger than them top to bottom. By the third part of the first half we had the game solidly in hand, though certainly not out of reach of WM. After half, with a lineup that did not include David nor Scott (who had the thankless job of guarding the huge guy most of the time and consequently had worked himself into foul trouble) we came out and went on a role. We increased, in 5 minutes, or lead from 5 to 15. This would not have been a lineup I’d have expected to go on such a run, but several people seemed to get hot at once including Jack M, who did a nice job of playing point and on defense after having had a couple of lackluster games at point, and Lucas, who finally seemed willing to take shots in the game and not just on put backs. After that it was never really a game. We won the game by 18.
Of note was that the ref who played lightening with us was a real jerk towards the opposing coach. At one point in the first half the coach was unhappy with a travel call (based on the kid carrying the ball). The ref said something to the effect of “Coach if you taught your players how to play I wouldn’t have had to call that travel”. Which was like WHOA. Then at the start of the second half, WM was EXCEEDINGLY slow at coming out of their huddle. In order to make-up for lost time, half time had been shortened to 1 minute, so basically just a time-out. Finally WM comes out of the huddle. There is then some confusion over which way they were going and the ref called over and back on the kid. His argument was that he’d stated several times which way they were going, he had. But c’mon they’re 9 years old. He didn’t favor us, in the sense that calls were called the same going both ways, but I was still glad to know that we wouldn’t be seeing him again (he’d mentioned that this was his only game of the day officiating).
It was really interesting because this was the first game where we were clearly out rebounded. When he was in there their center grabbed a HUGE amount of the boards, offensively and defensively. He also displayed a pretty soft touch on farther out shots. This kid needs a little help on his inside offensive game, and assuming puberty doesn’t completely wreck his coordination, could be a dominating force, but it was not to be on Sunday. In a gam
I had entered the tournament figuring us to be a middle of the road A team in terms of quality of play. The game against HP did nothing to change that estimate. When I crunched the stats of the JCC game I discovered we’d played nearly perfectly. Turnovers were WAY down compared to our normal games, even ones against inferior teams like NF. This took some of the wind out of my sails. I was VERY confident that we would see JCC again entering the day, as I thought we matched up well against the teams we’d have to play today. Knowing that we had managed to just squeak out a 1 point victory when we played our best game, statistically, of the season? Not encouraging. The only redeeming factor was that while most players were at their best, David’s shooting percentage was terrible. It was actually bad in both of the games Saturday, so that was a ray of hope. Of course that could also mean we had fallen into the trap of “David feels like he has to do everything to help us win”, which wasn’t so far from the truth in the JCC game.
On the other hand, where we might have won the JCC game because of one player, this was our best team game yet. Every player on the team, except Tom, had 2 or more shots. The most anyone shot was 10 shots and most players had multiple good looks. Several parents remarked how well we spread around the ball. It was certainly a good TEAM game. This gave me some hope about our future chances should we meet the JCC in the finals.
I had expected to win this game easily, and it was nice that we did so and it was then off to lunch we went.
12 game versus WM – The team is in the A division and was winless when we played them.
If we won that we’d have a 4 o’clock game against the winner of the other pool, which was a team called Karzen. Basically they were a group of players recruited by this guy named Karzen from a tennis academy in a nearby suburb (this was the A team of the same group that had played and defeated HP in overtime).
If we won both of those games we would be in a 5 o’clock championship. JCC had a similar path to the finals.
Now our 12 game against WM was not going to start on time since WM had a game at 11 (owing to the fact that on the original schedule the earliest Sunday game was to be 2 and so they’d rescheduled a league game). The Park District thought we’d start at 12:15, but I always found that to be an optimistic outlook. Still I had the team get there a little before noon in anticipation of an “on-time” start.
Of course this was not to be. We ended up playing a couple of games of lightening with a ref (I even knocked him out of one game, which we joked wasn’t likely my best move). There was a lot of random waiting. The best thing to come out of the waiting was that the team agreed we’d go to lunch following the game.
Finally just after 12:30 they got their fifth player there. We started the game moments later, when they had six or seven of their players there. I had been warned by several players on my team that they had a kid who was HUGE. They weren’t exaggerating. This kid was likely 5”5’ and 190 pounds and, as someone on our team (I think it was Noah) later said, “I didn’t realize a kid so big could also be so fast”. For whatever reason, my guess being he’d played a lot earlier, he didn’t start.
With the exception of this player at center we were pretty much stronger than them top to bottom. By the third part of the first half we had the game solidly in hand, though certainly not out of reach of WM. After half, with a lineup that did not include David nor Scott (who had the thankless job of guarding the huge guy most of the time and consequently had worked himself into foul trouble) we came out and went on a role. We increased, in 5 minutes, or lead from 5 to 15. This would not have been a lineup I’d have expected to go on such a run, but several people seemed to get hot at once including Jack M, who did a nice job of playing point and on defense after having had a couple of lackluster games at point, and Lucas, who finally seemed willing to take shots in the game and not just on put backs. After that it was never really a game. We won the game by 18.
Of note was that the ref who played lightening with us was a real jerk towards the opposing coach. At one point in the first half the coach was unhappy with a travel call (based on the kid carrying the ball). The ref said something to the effect of “Coach if you taught your players how to play I wouldn’t have had to call that travel”. Which was like WHOA. Then at the start of the second half, WM was EXCEEDINGLY slow at coming out of their huddle. In order to make-up for lost time, half time had been shortened to 1 minute, so basically just a time-out. Finally WM comes out of the huddle. There is then some confusion over which way they were going and the ref called over and back on the kid. His argument was that he’d stated several times which way they were going, he had. But c’mon they’re 9 years old. He didn’t favor us, in the sense that calls were called the same going both ways, but I was still glad to know that we wouldn’t be seeing him again (he’d mentioned that this was his only game of the day officiating).
It was really interesting because this was the first game where we were clearly out rebounded. When he was in there their center grabbed a HUGE amount of the boards, offensively and defensively. He also displayed a pretty soft touch on farther out shots. This kid needs a little help on his inside offensive game, and assuming puberty doesn’t completely wreck his coordination, could be a dominating force, but it was not to be on Sunday. In a gam
I had entered the tournament figuring us to be a middle of the road A team in terms of quality of play. The game against HP did nothing to change that estimate. When I crunched the stats of the JCC game I discovered we’d played nearly perfectly. Turnovers were WAY down compared to our normal games, even ones against inferior teams like NF. This took some of the wind out of my sails. I was VERY confident that we would see JCC again entering the day, as I thought we matched up well against the teams we’d have to play today. Knowing that we had managed to just squeak out a 1 point victory when we played our best game, statistically, of the season? Not encouraging. The only redeeming factor was that while most players were at their best, David’s shooting percentage was terrible. It was actually bad in both of the games Saturday, so that was a ray of hope. Of course that could also mean we had fallen into the trap of “David feels like he has to do everything to help us win”, which wasn’t so far from the truth in the JCC game.
On the other hand, where we might have won the JCC game because of one player, this was our best team game yet. Every player on the team, except Tom, had 2 or more shots. The most anyone shot was 10 shots and most players had multiple good looks. Several parents remarked how well we spread around the ball. It was certainly a good TEAM game. This gave me some hope about our future chances should we meet the JCC in the finals.
I had expected to win this game easily, and it was nice that we did so and it was then off to lunch we went.
Tourney Report: JCC Game
Jack M could not hide his thoughts that we were going to lose to JCC. During the time in between games I had taken some time to talk to him, again, about the importance of a positive attitude. Now in fairness, I felt a good deal of trepidation myself about the game, but the idea of having a positive team attitude is an incredibly important thing to me. I also talked to David about his frustration. As the HP game slipped away, David’s frustration grew and grew and this was not helpful for us as a team or for him individually. I approached him under the guise of “what is frustrating you out there?” and we had a good conversation. I emphasized the need to use the whole team. It was a good discussion.
After a little bit of warm-up, our team sat down for our pre-game meeting. The pre-game meeting revolved around, #3, Luke. When we played the team last time they were basically a one man show and so we talked about forcing Luke to his left. I talked about how happy I was to have the chance to play this team again since I didn’t think we had done our best the last time we played them. I said that I don’t think anyone, including me, was ready last time for how good this team was. We would be ready this time and it would make the difference. At least, I thought to myself, I hoped it would.
The game began. Luke tried his best to go to the right, but David, being the monster defender that he was, kept forcing him left. Luke was clearly uncomfortable with this. His coaches kept yelling “If he’s giving you the left, go left.” The game was hard fought the whole first half. We started off strong, as I think the HP game had us in game shape. The first half was fought tooth and nail, but by half time we were up to a four point lead.
A big controversy occurred late in the first half. JCC called its second time-out, as we continued to build momentum. It was clear what had happened: the rules as sent to me via e-mail said 3 time outs per half, a lot of time outs. I asked a question about this before our first game and was told 3 per game but obviously the JCC coaches had never been informed. In the end the decision was made to give each team 3 time-outs per half. This meant that my saving of all my time outs was for naught.
It was easy to be positive at half. The focus was on momentum. We also talked about the 1-3-1 zone they would sometime play. In the first half the JCC had done a good job of forcing us to score in transition or to settle for longer shots. We were fighting hard for rebounds and getting some put-back points, but the zone was doing exactly what it had been designed to do. I pointed out a few ways we could do better against the zone.
For subbing purposes I had every 5 minutes inserted 2 or 3 (and once in a while 4) players into the game. So I sort divided the halves into 4 parts. During this first part the game remained virtually unchanged. We did have our most remarkable possession of the season. We got the ball at half and held onto the ball, basically just passing it around, for 54 seconds before we found a good shot. The patience on that possession was just amazing. We didn’t end up with a basket, but it was an just an incredible display of passing and team work.
During the second part of the half I rested David. Jack P did an admirable job, both here and in the first half of guarding Luke. Where as David sat in both halves, Luke sat about 2 minutes, if even that, the whole game.
It was during the 3rd part that things changed dramatically. We were up by 4 points about half way through the part when Luke went on a tear. He started stealing every ball around him and taking them in for baskets. We got a basket here and there, but he got 7 points, including an incredibly lucky 3 point shot, in a space of only about 2 minutes. Luke’s 3 point shooting was actually a big bonus for us. There were several times where he just settled for the three, with his coach’s encouragement, and he missed a lot of the time and since we’re a good rebounding team we got the rebound a lot of the time. I’m guessing that in the long run this might not be a bad strategy, since many teams won’t out rebound them, but I am about as virulently against shooting regular 3 pointers at this age as you can get.
So now we’re entering the last part of the game and we’re down. And then we get down by some more, losing by 3 with about 90 seconds to go. I call our second time out (I had called one after the lucky three to try and calm the momentum, which was largely successful) and tried to get our team back on track. With 30 seconds left to go we narrow the game to 1. We get the ball with 14 seconds left in the game and I call our final time-out. I explain that there’s plenty of time left and we need to get a good shot. I tell them that I want to work the ball around since it’s likely we would get a good shot that way. My thinking was that they would so overload coverage on David, who has been playing his normally fantastic game, that they would leave someone else open.
JCC came out of the time-out and their defense was tough. We made a few passes around the perimeter of their zone and nothing was happening. Finally David gets the ball back. The clock is ticking down. I call on him to shoot. He pulls up just behind the free throw line and NAILS a jumper with 2.5 seconds left. JCC immediately calls their final time-out. In the huddle my speech is simple “We all know where this ball is going to go, to Luke. Make sure they in-bound the ball so the clock starts, and then pick-up your men at half court. Don’t foul.”
The ball is in bounded. Luke sprints up the court. He launches his final shot on the sideline, by our bench, just behind the half court line. The ball goes up and it’s got a real shot. My heart absolutely sinks as the ball looks might good. But it turns out to be long and we win the game at the buzzer. Luke literally crumples to the floor.
We did it. We had beaten, at the last second, the one team who had beaten us. Our team goes wild. We shake hands and I immediately pulled away by the conference organizer, before I can even talk to my team, for an explanation of some time changes for the next day. At the time I didn’t realize this, but our win basically finished us in second in our pool. We did discuss the various possibilities, but I predicted that JCC would blow-out HP. Eric, the HP Park District tournament organizer was skeptical, but I knew that’s what would happen. When he called later, he told me I was right and that we’d gotten the second seed.
I was so happy that we beat the JCC team. As the game went on I grew to dislike the JCC coaches more and more. They were loud. They didn’t promote team basketball. Their players didn’t look like they were having as much fun as we were. After the game as we shook hands they were clearly stunned. While we’d both said before the game how much we were looking forward to this match-up, I honestly don’t believe they thought for a moment we could beat them. What is funny is that after the first game we’d played against them I’d told one of the coaches how Luke was just not comfortable being forced left. So it should have come as no surprise that we forced him left. As we were shaking hands I had said “I think we’ll play each other again” with the only way of that happening is if we met in the championship. If we could beat the JCC, at that moment I knew that we really could win it all.
After a little bit of warm-up, our team sat down for our pre-game meeting. The pre-game meeting revolved around, #3, Luke. When we played the team last time they were basically a one man show and so we talked about forcing Luke to his left. I talked about how happy I was to have the chance to play this team again since I didn’t think we had done our best the last time we played them. I said that I don’t think anyone, including me, was ready last time for how good this team was. We would be ready this time and it would make the difference. At least, I thought to myself, I hoped it would.
The game began. Luke tried his best to go to the right, but David, being the monster defender that he was, kept forcing him left. Luke was clearly uncomfortable with this. His coaches kept yelling “If he’s giving you the left, go left.” The game was hard fought the whole first half. We started off strong, as I think the HP game had us in game shape. The first half was fought tooth and nail, but by half time we were up to a four point lead.
A big controversy occurred late in the first half. JCC called its second time-out, as we continued to build momentum. It was clear what had happened: the rules as sent to me via e-mail said 3 time outs per half, a lot of time outs. I asked a question about this before our first game and was told 3 per game but obviously the JCC coaches had never been informed. In the end the decision was made to give each team 3 time-outs per half. This meant that my saving of all my time outs was for naught.
It was easy to be positive at half. The focus was on momentum. We also talked about the 1-3-1 zone they would sometime play. In the first half the JCC had done a good job of forcing us to score in transition or to settle for longer shots. We were fighting hard for rebounds and getting some put-back points, but the zone was doing exactly what it had been designed to do. I pointed out a few ways we could do better against the zone.
For subbing purposes I had every 5 minutes inserted 2 or 3 (and once in a while 4) players into the game. So I sort divided the halves into 4 parts. During this first part the game remained virtually unchanged. We did have our most remarkable possession of the season. We got the ball at half and held onto the ball, basically just passing it around, for 54 seconds before we found a good shot. The patience on that possession was just amazing. We didn’t end up with a basket, but it was an just an incredible display of passing and team work.
During the second part of the half I rested David. Jack P did an admirable job, both here and in the first half of guarding Luke. Where as David sat in both halves, Luke sat about 2 minutes, if even that, the whole game.
It was during the 3rd part that things changed dramatically. We were up by 4 points about half way through the part when Luke went on a tear. He started stealing every ball around him and taking them in for baskets. We got a basket here and there, but he got 7 points, including an incredibly lucky 3 point shot, in a space of only about 2 minutes. Luke’s 3 point shooting was actually a big bonus for us. There were several times where he just settled for the three, with his coach’s encouragement, and he missed a lot of the time and since we’re a good rebounding team we got the rebound a lot of the time. I’m guessing that in the long run this might not be a bad strategy, since many teams won’t out rebound them, but I am about as virulently against shooting regular 3 pointers at this age as you can get.
So now we’re entering the last part of the game and we’re down. And then we get down by some more, losing by 3 with about 90 seconds to go. I call our second time out (I had called one after the lucky three to try and calm the momentum, which was largely successful) and tried to get our team back on track. With 30 seconds left to go we narrow the game to 1. We get the ball with 14 seconds left in the game and I call our final time-out. I explain that there’s plenty of time left and we need to get a good shot. I tell them that I want to work the ball around since it’s likely we would get a good shot that way. My thinking was that they would so overload coverage on David, who has been playing his normally fantastic game, that they would leave someone else open.
JCC came out of the time-out and their defense was tough. We made a few passes around the perimeter of their zone and nothing was happening. Finally David gets the ball back. The clock is ticking down. I call on him to shoot. He pulls up just behind the free throw line and NAILS a jumper with 2.5 seconds left. JCC immediately calls their final time-out. In the huddle my speech is simple “We all know where this ball is going to go, to Luke. Make sure they in-bound the ball so the clock starts, and then pick-up your men at half court. Don’t foul.”
The ball is in bounded. Luke sprints up the court. He launches his final shot on the sideline, by our bench, just behind the half court line. The ball goes up and it’s got a real shot. My heart absolutely sinks as the ball looks might good. But it turns out to be long and we win the game at the buzzer. Luke literally crumples to the floor.
We did it. We had beaten, at the last second, the one team who had beaten us. Our team goes wild. We shake hands and I immediately pulled away by the conference organizer, before I can even talk to my team, for an explanation of some time changes for the next day. At the time I didn’t realize this, but our win basically finished us in second in our pool. We did discuss the various possibilities, but I predicted that JCC would blow-out HP. Eric, the HP Park District tournament organizer was skeptical, but I knew that’s what would happen. When he called later, he told me I was right and that we’d gotten the second seed.
I was so happy that we beat the JCC team. As the game went on I grew to dislike the JCC coaches more and more. They were loud. They didn’t promote team basketball. Their players didn’t look like they were having as much fun as we were. After the game as we shook hands they were clearly stunned. While we’d both said before the game how much we were looking forward to this match-up, I honestly don’t believe they thought for a moment we could beat them. What is funny is that after the first game we’d played against them I’d told one of the coaches how Luke was just not comfortable being forced left. So it should have come as no surprise that we forced him left. As we were shaking hands I had said “I think we’ll play each other again” with the only way of that happening is if we met in the championship. If we could beat the JCC, at that moment I knew that we really could win it all.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Tourney Report: Game 1 vs. HP (A Team)
The day of the tournament was finally here. I get to the facility nice and early. I have two games to chose from watching, with HP playing in one and MP2 in the other (I had originally thought it would be MP1 in this tourney, but evidentially not). I decided to watch the HP game and while I did so I decided to keep stats myself, just to see how hard/easy it is to do. One of the parents there and I started talking. HP was playing this team called Karzen, which turns out to be their coach’s name. The team I was watching, in the B conference, were really mostly 3rd graders, with their connection being attendance at a tennis facility in a nearby suburb. I later learned that this was their first game, which you would never know. However, while I was watching HP has handling them easily.
Right on time, my team started to arrive. The HP team had already arrived much earlier (why do kids need to be 45 minutes early to a game at their own facility?) and we established that I was to be the home team. This caused some consternation from the HP team, as they figured since they were at home they’d be home, but it was agreed we’d wear our home jerseys as it was scheduled.
As I’m sitting there, who should arrive, but Michael. Michael, for those of you who didn’t read my dynasty, and I had a long meeting at the end of the baseball season. The baseball season had not been particularly well run and I had written a long letter with very constructive suggestions for the future. Michael was the boss, at the time, of the person who ran the baseball league. We talked for a moment, with him being surprised o see me, as he knew I wasn’t an HP coach, but I explained I was coaching Glencoe. Then, in a moment which is VERY unlike me, I said “And we’re going to win your tournament.” Did I really believe this? Not so much, but the words came flowing out of my mouth.
We finally get to game time. It is clear from the start that this will be a good game. We get off to a quick 2-0 lead before falling behind. I somehow messed up my sub sheet and so I end up winging it. The game is fairly low scoring in the first 6-8 minutes, remembering that we’re playing two 20 minute halves with a running clock which only stops in the final two minutes of a half or for a time-out. The game opens up a bit after that and HP pulls ahead, by as many as 4 or 5. However, right before half we narrow the gap and on a late shot we actually pull ahead by a point.
At half time, I remind them that we can be a great second half team. I feel confident that this game is one we can win. They’re a good team, but we do tend to do better in the second half. We go out there and it’s neck and neck for a while. Just as we look to be pulling ahead, we hit a brick wall and HP comes roaring back. Highland Park pulls up by 5. Despite our best efforts we end up losing by 3. It was a disappointing loss to be sure, since this was a team we could have beaten.
We were not the happiest team in the world after this loss. And there was a fair amount of anxiety over the fact that our next opponent was the JCC. It was hard to think that we wouldn’t start of the tourney 0-2.
Luckily we had a little over an hour to kill before our game. I took in a game between HP and MP2. HP, despite having a comfortable lead going into the second half of their first game, ended up losing the game in OT. HP never bounces back and gets destroyed by MP2. It was a bit of awful sportsmanship as the final score was something like 51-19 and unlike some of our lopsided victories, MP2 played all out the whole game, though they did have their reserves in the game for most of the second half. It really made me mad to see them so needlessly run up the score.
The game on the court we were to play on finally ended and we started to warm-up against our foes, JCC.
Sorry for the slowness of this update. I hope to have the JCC update tomorrow. I do promise to be caught up before our next game on Sunday (no practice Friday).
Right on time, my team started to arrive. The HP team had already arrived much earlier (why do kids need to be 45 minutes early to a game at their own facility?) and we established that I was to be the home team. This caused some consternation from the HP team, as they figured since they were at home they’d be home, but it was agreed we’d wear our home jerseys as it was scheduled.
As I’m sitting there, who should arrive, but Michael. Michael, for those of you who didn’t read my dynasty, and I had a long meeting at the end of the baseball season. The baseball season had not been particularly well run and I had written a long letter with very constructive suggestions for the future. Michael was the boss, at the time, of the person who ran the baseball league. We talked for a moment, with him being surprised o see me, as he knew I wasn’t an HP coach, but I explained I was coaching Glencoe. Then, in a moment which is VERY unlike me, I said “And we’re going to win your tournament.” Did I really believe this? Not so much, but the words came flowing out of my mouth.
We finally get to game time. It is clear from the start that this will be a good game. We get off to a quick 2-0 lead before falling behind. I somehow messed up my sub sheet and so I end up winging it. The game is fairly low scoring in the first 6-8 minutes, remembering that we’re playing two 20 minute halves with a running clock which only stops in the final two minutes of a half or for a time-out. The game opens up a bit after that and HP pulls ahead, by as many as 4 or 5. However, right before half we narrow the gap and on a late shot we actually pull ahead by a point.
At half time, I remind them that we can be a great second half team. I feel confident that this game is one we can win. They’re a good team, but we do tend to do better in the second half. We go out there and it’s neck and neck for a while. Just as we look to be pulling ahead, we hit a brick wall and HP comes roaring back. Highland Park pulls up by 5. Despite our best efforts we end up losing by 3. It was a disappointing loss to be sure, since this was a team we could have beaten.
We were not the happiest team in the world after this loss. And there was a fair amount of anxiety over the fact that our next opponent was the JCC. It was hard to think that we wouldn’t start of the tourney 0-2.
Luckily we had a little over an hour to kill before our game. I took in a game between HP and MP2. HP, despite having a comfortable lead going into the second half of their first game, ended up losing the game in OT. HP never bounces back and gets destroyed by MP2. It was a bit of awful sportsmanship as the final score was something like 51-19 and unlike some of our lopsided victories, MP2 played all out the whole game, though they did have their reserves in the game for most of the second half. It really made me mad to see them so needlessly run up the score.
The game on the court we were to play on finally ended and we started to warm-up against our foes, JCC.
Sorry for the slowness of this update. I hope to have the JCC update tomorrow. I do promise to be caught up before our next game on Sunday (no practice Friday).
Saturday, January 20, 2007
January 19th Practice Report
I don’t expect this to be a very long practice report.
I strained my vocal cords this week. After not talking for all of Wednesday and Thursday I was at around 85%. However, I knew that this practice would have a different flavor since I was going to be quieter than normal.
As I’m raising the baskets a strange kid appears. Turns out Noah brought a friend with him to practice. This does not make me a happy camper. I’m a stickler about having closed practices, but since it wasn’t poor Charlie’s (Noah’s friend’s name) fault, Charlie was allowed to stay.
We did our continuous motion drill. Noah has taken to the habit of going to the bathroom. He did it right at the start of the drill. I was annoyed after our little agreement, which I expected him to live up to.
Following the continuous motion we ran our Zone Buster. I introduced a couple of slight changes, really more variations than anything. The players clearly don’t believe in the play, so we likely won’t run it against JCC but perhaps we can run it against HP. It’s very frustrating because I know the play works if run right and I think there’s no reason our team can’t run it correctly. Perhaps I’m just not a good enough coach to teach it. Perhaps I’m wrong about them not being capable of running the play. As I think there’s a good chance I’ll be coaching this team next year I am willing to consider the time this year an investment.
Following that work we did some work on screens. This included some double screens, which worked pretty well. We might have to try and use that in a game or two against man defense as an occasional play. It was easy and effective, though I suppose I already knew that after how MP had played against us. It was nice to see that we could execute it offensively though.
Next we worked on our fast break drill. I added a new twist in where sometimes I yelled two players names on defense to give a 4-2 advantage. We’re loads better at the fast break on both offense and defense, which is good.
Finally, I decided that we would do a scrimmage of sorts. It was a normal game of basketball, but each player on a team was allowed only one dribble (once the ball got past the half court line). The idea was to work on screens and post play. While there were some good teaching moments, the players really struggled on offense. I think we’ll do it again since we do rely a fair amount on the dribble and this really forces them to start looking at other ways besides dribble penetration, which is effective, but can be shut down and thus leads us into trouble.
We ran our suicides, I previewed the tourney a little, and we went home.
The practice went fine. We’d had a few pretty good practices and this was sort of lackluster. But some of that was by design. There was a lot more slow paced activities at this practice, since I figure we’ll have enough basketball over the weekend to tire us out.
In a couple of hours we have our first game. I hope we win it. I know the team is going to feel a little intimidated when we fact the JCC again and I haven’t quite decided on my approach. I hope to get one of the game’s recapped tonight and another tomorrow before our game, but we’ll see. I haven’t been this unsure of our team since the first game. In many ways it’s very similar since I have no clue how we stack up against the talent we’re going against. Hopefully, I’ll be as pleasantly surprised today as I was on that day.
I strained my vocal cords this week. After not talking for all of Wednesday and Thursday I was at around 85%. However, I knew that this practice would have a different flavor since I was going to be quieter than normal.
As I’m raising the baskets a strange kid appears. Turns out Noah brought a friend with him to practice. This does not make me a happy camper. I’m a stickler about having closed practices, but since it wasn’t poor Charlie’s (Noah’s friend’s name) fault, Charlie was allowed to stay.
We did our continuous motion drill. Noah has taken to the habit of going to the bathroom. He did it right at the start of the drill. I was annoyed after our little agreement, which I expected him to live up to.
Following the continuous motion we ran our Zone Buster. I introduced a couple of slight changes, really more variations than anything. The players clearly don’t believe in the play, so we likely won’t run it against JCC but perhaps we can run it against HP. It’s very frustrating because I know the play works if run right and I think there’s no reason our team can’t run it correctly. Perhaps I’m just not a good enough coach to teach it. Perhaps I’m wrong about them not being capable of running the play. As I think there’s a good chance I’ll be coaching this team next year I am willing to consider the time this year an investment.
Following that work we did some work on screens. This included some double screens, which worked pretty well. We might have to try and use that in a game or two against man defense as an occasional play. It was easy and effective, though I suppose I already knew that after how MP had played against us. It was nice to see that we could execute it offensively though.
Next we worked on our fast break drill. I added a new twist in where sometimes I yelled two players names on defense to give a 4-2 advantage. We’re loads better at the fast break on both offense and defense, which is good.
Finally, I decided that we would do a scrimmage of sorts. It was a normal game of basketball, but each player on a team was allowed only one dribble (once the ball got past the half court line). The idea was to work on screens and post play. While there were some good teaching moments, the players really struggled on offense. I think we’ll do it again since we do rely a fair amount on the dribble and this really forces them to start looking at other ways besides dribble penetration, which is effective, but can be shut down and thus leads us into trouble.
We ran our suicides, I previewed the tourney a little, and we went home.
The practice went fine. We’d had a few pretty good practices and this was sort of lackluster. But some of that was by design. There was a lot more slow paced activities at this practice, since I figure we’ll have enough basketball over the weekend to tire us out.
In a couple of hours we have our first game. I hope we win it. I know the team is going to feel a little intimidated when we fact the JCC again and I haven’t quite decided on my approach. I hope to get one of the game’s recapped tonight and another tomorrow before our game, but we’ll see. I haven’t been this unsure of our team since the first game. In many ways it’s very similar since I have no clue how we stack up against the talent we’re going against. Hopefully, I’ll be as pleasantly surprised today as I was on that day.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Assorted Items
HP Tourney
So 6 teams are in the A bracket for the tourney. I really like the format they are using. Two pools of three teams apiece. You play the other two teams in your pool. Based on your standing in the pool you then either get a bye (if you finish first) or play a team from the other pool, with the 2nd place teams playing the 3rd place teams.
About a week ago I sent Emily an email asking for a copy of the tourney rules. Today, after numerous emails and phone calls from her, I got a copy. Somehow, it does not surprise me that the HP Park District still does not have their act together. Reminds me of why I chose to coach the Spartans rather than in HP and just how right I was with that choice. Anyhow the tourney rules are:
I’m not really sure how the running clock will effect us, but I don’t think it’ll be our friend. We’re an aggressive team and we foul a lot. If the clock runs during free throw shots (which is sometimes done on running clocks and sometimes not) it’ll cut way down on possessions. On the other hand a running clock can increase the tempo of the game, and an increased tempo? Good for us.
In our pool we play HP. They’re a middle of the road team in the A bracket, 3-3, which suggests to me that we should have a shot, as I would guess we’d be a middle of the road team. I hope we win this game, because our next game is against the JCC team.
Now, that JCC team? It’s a good team. I know we didn’t play our best basketball against them. But, I’m not sure that even our best is good enough against them. I am glad we get another shot. I think we’ll be able to play #3 much better and our ball movement has looked good the last couple of games which should help us even if we can’t run our zone breaker. Of course that’s really the deal breaker. I expect us to get more transition points this game than we did last game. But even if we get more transition points, if we can’t beat their zone, which gave them numerous transition points, than we can’t beat them.
I haven’t told the team that we’re playing the JCC team again. I am glad that they’re the second game we play. I think it’ll mean they’ll come into the game warmed up and hopefully we can get off to a bit of a quick lead and place some pressure on them. Of course if we get blown out in the first game, or lose a real nail biter, we’re likely dead in the water once they see who we’re playing. On the other hand, if we can beat HP, I think we can build off that momentum and give the JCC team a surprise.
The only other team I can find out anything about is WM, another A bracket team. However, they’re in the cellar of the A bracket, having yet to win a game, so it’s likely if we can get the #2 seeding out of our pool we’ll make it into the final four.
I’m very excited to see how we fair against this tougher competition. There’s little doubt in my mind that we’ll lose more than 2 games in the regular season, and there’s an excellent chance we’ll go undefeated. If we win the post-season tourney, as I expect we will, there would be a lot of pressure to move up to the A bracket next year. This will be a preview of whether we have what it takes to succeed there.
Conference Update
We are, for the time being, the undisputed first place team, though MP is clearly nipping at our heels. We’re in good shape for the tie breaker, however, currently owning the first one (head-to-head record). The second one is points allowed in head-to-head games, so even if we were to lose to MP in the rematch, we’d just need to keep the margin of victory to with-in 12 to keep the tie breaker. After that it’s overall points allowed, and removing our game from the record, MP has been doing better than us here, allowing fewer points against the same teams. However, because of our 36 point game we are ahead here as well for the moment. Of interest is that MP is playing in the B bracket of the HP tourney. I’d have to think they’d stand a chance of doing well.
After us, there’s then the middle tier. In this grouping you have HP, MP2, and LS. MP2 is clearly the top of this heap and LS the worst. I think HP is a scrappy team and if they were to get the #4 seed in the post season tourney could upset us.
At the bottom of the barrel you have NF, NF2, and WK. None of these teams will give us any trouble, but it’ll be interesting to see how they sort themselves out.
Wages of Wins
I’ve mentioned several times that I like to use Win Score (WS) as a measure of player’s productivity. This stat (really more of a formula) came out of the book Wages of Wins, by Dave Berri (and several other authors whose names I don’t remember). This was a great book where three economists use the tools of economics to analyze sports.
They spend a lot of the book arguing that the current measures of performance in basketball do not strongly correlate to wins. In essence, they argue that scoring is over valued, and other statistics, such as turnovers, assists, rebounding, and the like are undervalued. To counter this perceived problem they formulated something called Wins Produced. This is an incredibly complicated formula. So, they made a simplified version of this called Win Score that an average fan could use from the box score to see how players on their teams performed. It is this measure that I use to evaluate my team. The formula is
I take this total and divide by minutes played to give me WS/M.
There has been some criticism of the methods that were used in this method, but none which I really felt exposed a flaw. That is until today. Over at the Saving Darko blog there is a post which suggests that while scoring might be over valued, this is because scoring is a far riskier proposition than rebounding, assists, and the such. One of the things that I like about WS is that unlike some other stats, such as PER, it recognizes the full opportunity cost of a possession. However, taken to its extreme players would have a disincentive to shoot were WS/WP to become the norm because, again, shooting is more risky.
So one needs to still encourage shooting, while looking at the other parts of the game as well. Now granted my players don’t know that I’m rating them on this, thought they do receive feedback in practice during drills/games based on what their WS is showing, but despite my thinking quite highly of WS, I still think highly of Jack P. This is a kid who shoots a lot, and misses a lot. However, his willingness to try and score, even if he’s not the highest % shooter, is helpful overall to the team. I’m happy that I intuitively made the adjustment that Saving Darko seems to be suggesting.
So 6 teams are in the A bracket for the tourney. I really like the format they are using. Two pools of three teams apiece. You play the other two teams in your pool. Based on your standing in the pool you then either get a bye (if you finish first) or play a team from the other pool, with the 2nd place teams playing the 3rd place teams.
About a week ago I sent Emily an email asking for a copy of the tourney rules. Today, after numerous emails and phone calls from her, I got a copy. Somehow, it does not surprise me that the HP Park District still does not have their act together. Reminds me of why I chose to coach the Spartans rather than in HP and just how right I was with that choice. Anyhow the tourney rules are:
1. All games are officiated under IHSA rules
2. All games have two, 20 minute running halves. The clock will stop only during the last two minutes of each half. Three timeouts per half.
3. 4th grade level may press only during the last 5minutes of each half with a 10 point limit.
4. Half times and warm-ups are five minutes long. All teams must provide a volunteer to work the table. Duties may include working the scoreboard or keeping the book
5. All teams must have light and dark color uniforms and bring them to each game.
6. No protests allowed. All scores are final.
8. Overtimes are two minutes long, 1 timeout per team no carryover.
I’m not really sure how the running clock will effect us, but I don’t think it’ll be our friend. We’re an aggressive team and we foul a lot. If the clock runs during free throw shots (which is sometimes done on running clocks and sometimes not) it’ll cut way down on possessions. On the other hand a running clock can increase the tempo of the game, and an increased tempo? Good for us.
In our pool we play HP. They’re a middle of the road team in the A bracket, 3-3, which suggests to me that we should have a shot, as I would guess we’d be a middle of the road team. I hope we win this game, because our next game is against the JCC team.
Now, that JCC team? It’s a good team. I know we didn’t play our best basketball against them. But, I’m not sure that even our best is good enough against them. I am glad we get another shot. I think we’ll be able to play #3 much better and our ball movement has looked good the last couple of games which should help us even if we can’t run our zone breaker. Of course that’s really the deal breaker. I expect us to get more transition points this game than we did last game. But even if we get more transition points, if we can’t beat their zone, which gave them numerous transition points, than we can’t beat them.
I haven’t told the team that we’re playing the JCC team again. I am glad that they’re the second game we play. I think it’ll mean they’ll come into the game warmed up and hopefully we can get off to a bit of a quick lead and place some pressure on them. Of course if we get blown out in the first game, or lose a real nail biter, we’re likely dead in the water once they see who we’re playing. On the other hand, if we can beat HP, I think we can build off that momentum and give the JCC team a surprise.
The only other team I can find out anything about is WM, another A bracket team. However, they’re in the cellar of the A bracket, having yet to win a game, so it’s likely if we can get the #2 seeding out of our pool we’ll make it into the final four.
I’m very excited to see how we fair against this tougher competition. There’s little doubt in my mind that we’ll lose more than 2 games in the regular season, and there’s an excellent chance we’ll go undefeated. If we win the post-season tourney, as I expect we will, there would be a lot of pressure to move up to the A bracket next year. This will be a preview of whether we have what it takes to succeed there.
Conference Update
We are, for the time being, the undisputed first place team, though MP is clearly nipping at our heels. We’re in good shape for the tie breaker, however, currently owning the first one (head-to-head record). The second one is points allowed in head-to-head games, so even if we were to lose to MP in the rematch, we’d just need to keep the margin of victory to with-in 12 to keep the tie breaker. After that it’s overall points allowed, and removing our game from the record, MP has been doing better than us here, allowing fewer points against the same teams. However, because of our 36 point game we are ahead here as well for the moment. Of interest is that MP is playing in the B bracket of the HP tourney. I’d have to think they’d stand a chance of doing well.
After us, there’s then the middle tier. In this grouping you have HP, MP2, and LS. MP2 is clearly the top of this heap and LS the worst. I think HP is a scrappy team and if they were to get the #4 seed in the post season tourney could upset us.
At the bottom of the barrel you have NF, NF2, and WK. None of these teams will give us any trouble, but it’ll be interesting to see how they sort themselves out.
Wages of Wins
I’ve mentioned several times that I like to use Win Score (WS) as a measure of player’s productivity. This stat (really more of a formula) came out of the book Wages of Wins, by Dave Berri (and several other authors whose names I don’t remember). This was a great book where three economists use the tools of economics to analyze sports.
They spend a lot of the book arguing that the current measures of performance in basketball do not strongly correlate to wins. In essence, they argue that scoring is over valued, and other statistics, such as turnovers, assists, rebounding, and the like are undervalued. To counter this perceived problem they formulated something called Wins Produced. This is an incredibly complicated formula. So, they made a simplified version of this called Win Score that an average fan could use from the box score to see how players on their teams performed. It is this measure that I use to evaluate my team. The formula is
Points + Rebounds + Steals + ½Assists + ½Blocked Shots – Field Goal Attempts – Turnovers - ½Free Throw Attempts - ½Personal Fouls
I take this total and divide by minutes played to give me WS/M.
There has been some criticism of the methods that were used in this method, but none which I really felt exposed a flaw. That is until today. Over at the Saving Darko blog there is a post which suggests that while scoring might be over valued, this is because scoring is a far riskier proposition than rebounding, assists, and the such. One of the things that I like about WS is that unlike some other stats, such as PER, it recognizes the full opportunity cost of a possession. However, taken to its extreme players would have a disincentive to shoot were WS/WP to become the norm because, again, shooting is more risky.
So one needs to still encourage shooting, while looking at the other parts of the game as well. Now granted my players don’t know that I’m rating them on this, thought they do receive feedback in practice during drills/games based on what their WS is showing, but despite my thinking quite highly of WS, I still think highly of Jack P. This is a kid who shoots a lot, and misses a lot. However, his willingness to try and score, even if he’s not the highest % shooter, is helpful overall to the team. I’m happy that I intuitively made the adjustment that Saving Darko seems to be suggesting.
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Reader Wade Moore recently reminded me of some of the troubles I’d had during baseball. My baseball co-coach, Steve, and I were at a movie on Tuesday and I was reminded of some of the incidents I’d completely forgotten. Like the time they completely forgot to unlock the equipment for us.
This is in complete contrast to the professional way my park district boss, Emily, handles things. She has been wonderful to work for and with. In fact, this week I received a couple of emails from her. The first was a message stating that the local JCC team wished to scrimmage with us. I called up the number and it turns out that they normally practice on Mondays as well, so it was no problem setting up a couple of scrimmages. We are going to be doing one on the 18th and another in February. There’s going to be a ref there, so perhaps rather than scrimmage, exhibition game is a better term. While I don’t really know the quality of their teams, from what I know in general about JCC sports I feel like we should be a better team. Regardless I am excited about two more games, since we play so few games relative to practices in basketball. Not that I don’t love practices, but some things are best taught by experiencing them at a game, or at least through a game the need to practice certain areas is reinforced.
She also gave me the dates for this year’s HP Basketball Tourney, and asked if I wanted our team to participate. This is traditionally a tourney that our travel teams participate in and I am excited about participating in it this year. More importantly, based on how we do against MP2, I’m seriously thinking of entering us in the “A” bracket. I’m worried about the fact that we’ll become complacent. If we keep winning games by 20 points, motivation becomes harder and it would be a shame not to reach our full potential because our competition wasn’t up to snuff. So, if we do well against MP I think I’ll enter us in the A bracket. I think struggling, even losing by a lot against some better teams, could be a far more valuable experience for us come mid to end of January. Of course if MP2 hands us our rears tomorrow, I think it’ll bring us back down in a hurry.
Yesterday’s practice in basketball terms was actually quite good. They understand the rotation of the zone buster offense pretty well. We need to work on improvising when there’s an actual defense (for instance making sure the ball goes into the high post), but they are mostly understanding the rotations necessary. Interestingly, Scott had the biggest problem and as a post player he’s got the easiest job of anyone. The 4 and the 5 in the offense basically just go to either the elbow (high post) or the low post. When the ball switches sides of the court they switch from the high to the low post (or vice versa). Scott simply didn’t know when to switch. Otherwise, they ran it fairly well. In particular Jack M did a nice job with doing what he needed to do. I hadn’t thought we’d be quite ready to run this offense in the game on Sunday, but I think it might be worth a shot, if they play some zone.
Speaking of zone I was asked, again, if we were going to play any zone. I then explained my philosophy of why man to man for 4th graders is the right thing for them in the long run. I used the word philosophy in my explanation and then had to explain what philosophy meant. It was a good moment for their intellectual growth, as human beings, let alone basketball players since I bet almost all of them remember what philosophy will mean.
We also did a substantially better job in setting our screens. A quick tangent, that will relate back to this. Before our practices now on Fridays, Gordie’s house league team is going to be practicing. As I was peeking in, there was one player who was amazing. He was, first of all, bigger than perhaps 2/3 of our team. And he just moved like a basketball player, shot like a basketball player. I saw him for about 3 minutes and it was clear that he could easily contend for a starting position on our team. So I turn to Jack M, who is waiting with me at that point, and ask him what grade this kid is in. Actually, I think I asked something more along the lines of “Is he in 4th grade?” Because if that kid was in 4th grade and not on the team, I was going to be very sad. However, it turns out that he was in 3rd grade. That kid could be real special next year. Anyhow, they were doing some drill and this kid was setting PERFECT screens and his teammates, because they didn’t know what to do with the ball (one kid, for instance would always forget to dribble before he shot), were actually using the screens. So, before we started our screen practice I stated how I saw the Gordie’s house league team do a better job of setting screens, because the person receiving the screen didn’t move too soon, than we had done. This seemed to get them motivated and we did a much better job of setting and taking the screen. What we should do after the screen? A work in progress. But again I was happy with what I saw.
The last basketball thing we did was practice a half-court 3-2 drill. The way it works is offensive and defensive players alternate on the baseline. The player in the center has the ball. They offensive and the defense runs out to half court and then plays 3 on 2. Our offense did well, as usual. If anything they did better than when we normally run this in practice. It seemed like a good chance to start to talk about defending the fast break, which we hadn’t spent much time on. So I thought that went well.
But that’s all we did. At minimum we should have been able to have had time to practice our in bounds drill. I had planned 15 minutes of 3 on 3 at the end of practice. However, they were OFF THE WALL. Our beginning of practice talk, which ought to have taken 2 or 3 minutes tops (all that it was, was a quick reminder that MP2 was a good team, win or lose we keep our heads held high if we gave our all and displayed good sportsmanship, to wear their blue jerseys, and to announce our two exhibition games) took forever. Finally I lost patience and we ran a suicide. After that they were too tired to say much of anything. I finished quickly with what I needed to say and we went into our continuous motion drill. And the suicide before the continuous motion drill? A killer. Noah and Brian continued their inability to jog for 10 minutes, even slowly. However, at times Jack M and Scott needed to be prodded as well, which isn’t typical. Lucas, Jack M, Dante, and David all did well, which wasn’t too surprising as I’d have pegged them as having had the most endurance.
The talking didn’t improve much. I don’t want to go to the suicide well too often, as it could just lose some of its effectiveness. I think the talking was partly because it was Friday. But again, as I alluded to earlier, I think a sense of confidence is prevalent throughout the team. Confidence I like. However, I am concerned that it could turn into over confidence. So if we have another practice were a good chunk of instruction time is wasted, I’m going to have to rethink some things. I let the team know I was disappointed in how we’d practiced, and by the end of practice they mostly had pulled it together, so that was good. However, it was a shame to have so much good basketball be overshadowed by so much other stuff.
As for starters for tomorrow’s game, I’m torn. The thing is that I don’t want to always start Jack M. I would, for instance, like to use David as our starting point guard. I’ve discussed Jack M’s limitations at other positions before so I won’t repeat them again. However, to balance his ego I need to show that starters will not be fixed before I sit him, so he realizes it’s just part of the team and not a criticism of him. So he’s starting. Our best player should start most of our games, so David is going to start. Scott was our MVP last game, and I think the previous game MVP should always start, so he’s starting.
So the question is who else do I want to start? Do I choose one other from the remaining three of our best six of Tom, Dante, and Jack P and one from the remaining four? Or do I rotate in two players?
I’m really unsure what I want to do with the starting lineup for tomorrow, beyond the three already mentioned. I think I want to start Jack P, as he’s kind of gotten the short shift, to a certain extent, in playing time in the first two games.
Looking at our remaining four players we have Brian, Lucas, Noah and Gordie.
Brian is catching up to speed quickly, but I don’t think he has several of the concepts down simply because we haven’t, for instance, run our set offense with him. In fact we haven’t practiced our set offense in a while so it’s likely time to do some review and refinement on that. Anyway, I’m not quite ready to start Brian. Especially after he tells me that he’s one of the slowest members of the team when we were running our suicide and should get the Dante +5 seconds. Perhaps he is one of the slowest members at the moment, but when I selected the team he was not one of the slowest members. In fact he was one of the quickest. No doubt his injury has slowed him down, but I don’t feel particularly inclined to cut him a break here as coddling him won’t, get him back into condition. Of course there is the fear that he rushed back before he was fully healed and is playing hurt. However, he hasn’t shown many signs of tentativeness or whatever so I don’t think that is it. So no coddling for Brian, but also no start at the moment.
Lucas is a great kid. He actually had a really good practice too and so it seems like it might be time to reward him with a start. With him being exclusively the 4 that makes it hard to get everyone into a good slot on offense. For instance, with this five only David (and Jack M) have practiced any time at 2. So David would have to go there. Scott could be a 3, but since he too has spent more time at 4, and struggled in our zone buster at that, I’m weary of making him the 3. Jack P is actually perhaps our best 3, or just slightly worse than David, however he’d need to be center in this grouping since there would be no Dante. Alternatively, I could start Lucas at center. That allows Jack to play 3 and Scott to play 4, both their best positions. But Lucas would be a little lost as center since I’ve been focusing him so heavily on the 4, for both offense and defense. Seems silly to reward a kid for hard work, only to put him in a position where you don’t think you’re giving him particularly good chances of success.
So an argument could be made for Noah. He’d fit perfectly in as a 2, which would allow David to be the 5, Scott the 4, and Jack P the 3, which I feel is a good grouping. He hasn’t started a game yet. The problem is that he was one of the most distracted kids at practice. So I definitely don’t want to even tacitly reward bad behavior.
Finally there is Gordie. Gordie can play the 2, no doubt. His effort was OK, not great not terrible, though his actual skills were good. However, I’d really rather start Lucas, considering his effort was good, he displayed some of the best basketball I’d seen, and Gordie’s already started where as Lucas has not.
As often happens what was a jumble in my mind has become clearer as I write out this blog. It seems as though we have a two way race between Lucas and Gordie.
Last game I was confident. I am now almost as nervous as I was before our game against HP. I really think there are 3 teams, us and the two MPs, who are a cut above everyone else. The question is where do we fall with-in that 3 way race? I hope the answer is at the top, and after tomorrow I will be one step closer to knowing the answer.
This is in complete contrast to the professional way my park district boss, Emily, handles things. She has been wonderful to work for and with. In fact, this week I received a couple of emails from her. The first was a message stating that the local JCC team wished to scrimmage with us. I called up the number and it turns out that they normally practice on Mondays as well, so it was no problem setting up a couple of scrimmages. We are going to be doing one on the 18th and another in February. There’s going to be a ref there, so perhaps rather than scrimmage, exhibition game is a better term. While I don’t really know the quality of their teams, from what I know in general about JCC sports I feel like we should be a better team. Regardless I am excited about two more games, since we play so few games relative to practices in basketball. Not that I don’t love practices, but some things are best taught by experiencing them at a game, or at least through a game the need to practice certain areas is reinforced.
She also gave me the dates for this year’s HP Basketball Tourney, and asked if I wanted our team to participate. This is traditionally a tourney that our travel teams participate in and I am excited about participating in it this year. More importantly, based on how we do against MP2, I’m seriously thinking of entering us in the “A” bracket. I’m worried about the fact that we’ll become complacent. If we keep winning games by 20 points, motivation becomes harder and it would be a shame not to reach our full potential because our competition wasn’t up to snuff. So, if we do well against MP I think I’ll enter us in the A bracket. I think struggling, even losing by a lot against some better teams, could be a far more valuable experience for us come mid to end of January. Of course if MP2 hands us our rears tomorrow, I think it’ll bring us back down in a hurry.
Yesterday’s practice in basketball terms was actually quite good. They understand the rotation of the zone buster offense pretty well. We need to work on improvising when there’s an actual defense (for instance making sure the ball goes into the high post), but they are mostly understanding the rotations necessary. Interestingly, Scott had the biggest problem and as a post player he’s got the easiest job of anyone. The 4 and the 5 in the offense basically just go to either the elbow (high post) or the low post. When the ball switches sides of the court they switch from the high to the low post (or vice versa). Scott simply didn’t know when to switch. Otherwise, they ran it fairly well. In particular Jack M did a nice job with doing what he needed to do. I hadn’t thought we’d be quite ready to run this offense in the game on Sunday, but I think it might be worth a shot, if they play some zone.
Speaking of zone I was asked, again, if we were going to play any zone. I then explained my philosophy of why man to man for 4th graders is the right thing for them in the long run. I used the word philosophy in my explanation and then had to explain what philosophy meant. It was a good moment for their intellectual growth, as human beings, let alone basketball players since I bet almost all of them remember what philosophy will mean.
We also did a substantially better job in setting our screens. A quick tangent, that will relate back to this. Before our practices now on Fridays, Gordie’s house league team is going to be practicing. As I was peeking in, there was one player who was amazing. He was, first of all, bigger than perhaps 2/3 of our team. And he just moved like a basketball player, shot like a basketball player. I saw him for about 3 minutes and it was clear that he could easily contend for a starting position on our team. So I turn to Jack M, who is waiting with me at that point, and ask him what grade this kid is in. Actually, I think I asked something more along the lines of “Is he in 4th grade?” Because if that kid was in 4th grade and not on the team, I was going to be very sad. However, it turns out that he was in 3rd grade. That kid could be real special next year. Anyhow, they were doing some drill and this kid was setting PERFECT screens and his teammates, because they didn’t know what to do with the ball (one kid, for instance would always forget to dribble before he shot), were actually using the screens. So, before we started our screen practice I stated how I saw the Gordie’s house league team do a better job of setting screens, because the person receiving the screen didn’t move too soon, than we had done. This seemed to get them motivated and we did a much better job of setting and taking the screen. What we should do after the screen? A work in progress. But again I was happy with what I saw.
The last basketball thing we did was practice a half-court 3-2 drill. The way it works is offensive and defensive players alternate on the baseline. The player in the center has the ball. They offensive and the defense runs out to half court and then plays 3 on 2. Our offense did well, as usual. If anything they did better than when we normally run this in practice. It seemed like a good chance to start to talk about defending the fast break, which we hadn’t spent much time on. So I thought that went well.
But that’s all we did. At minimum we should have been able to have had time to practice our in bounds drill. I had planned 15 minutes of 3 on 3 at the end of practice. However, they were OFF THE WALL. Our beginning of practice talk, which ought to have taken 2 or 3 minutes tops (all that it was, was a quick reminder that MP2 was a good team, win or lose we keep our heads held high if we gave our all and displayed good sportsmanship, to wear their blue jerseys, and to announce our two exhibition games) took forever. Finally I lost patience and we ran a suicide. After that they were too tired to say much of anything. I finished quickly with what I needed to say and we went into our continuous motion drill. And the suicide before the continuous motion drill? A killer. Noah and Brian continued their inability to jog for 10 minutes, even slowly. However, at times Jack M and Scott needed to be prodded as well, which isn’t typical. Lucas, Jack M, Dante, and David all did well, which wasn’t too surprising as I’d have pegged them as having had the most endurance.
The talking didn’t improve much. I don’t want to go to the suicide well too often, as it could just lose some of its effectiveness. I think the talking was partly because it was Friday. But again, as I alluded to earlier, I think a sense of confidence is prevalent throughout the team. Confidence I like. However, I am concerned that it could turn into over confidence. So if we have another practice were a good chunk of instruction time is wasted, I’m going to have to rethink some things. I let the team know I was disappointed in how we’d practiced, and by the end of practice they mostly had pulled it together, so that was good. However, it was a shame to have so much good basketball be overshadowed by so much other stuff.
As for starters for tomorrow’s game, I’m torn. The thing is that I don’t want to always start Jack M. I would, for instance, like to use David as our starting point guard. I’ve discussed Jack M’s limitations at other positions before so I won’t repeat them again. However, to balance his ego I need to show that starters will not be fixed before I sit him, so he realizes it’s just part of the team and not a criticism of him. So he’s starting. Our best player should start most of our games, so David is going to start. Scott was our MVP last game, and I think the previous game MVP should always start, so he’s starting.
So the question is who else do I want to start? Do I choose one other from the remaining three of our best six of Tom, Dante, and Jack P and one from the remaining four? Or do I rotate in two players?
I’m really unsure what I want to do with the starting lineup for tomorrow, beyond the three already mentioned. I think I want to start Jack P, as he’s kind of gotten the short shift, to a certain extent, in playing time in the first two games.
Looking at our remaining four players we have Brian, Lucas, Noah and Gordie.
Brian is catching up to speed quickly, but I don’t think he has several of the concepts down simply because we haven’t, for instance, run our set offense with him. In fact we haven’t practiced our set offense in a while so it’s likely time to do some review and refinement on that. Anyway, I’m not quite ready to start Brian. Especially after he tells me that he’s one of the slowest members of the team when we were running our suicide and should get the Dante +5 seconds. Perhaps he is one of the slowest members at the moment, but when I selected the team he was not one of the slowest members. In fact he was one of the quickest. No doubt his injury has slowed him down, but I don’t feel particularly inclined to cut him a break here as coddling him won’t, get him back into condition. Of course there is the fear that he rushed back before he was fully healed and is playing hurt. However, he hasn’t shown many signs of tentativeness or whatever so I don’t think that is it. So no coddling for Brian, but also no start at the moment.
Lucas is a great kid. He actually had a really good practice too and so it seems like it might be time to reward him with a start. With him being exclusively the 4 that makes it hard to get everyone into a good slot on offense. For instance, with this five only David (and Jack M) have practiced any time at 2. So David would have to go there. Scott could be a 3, but since he too has spent more time at 4, and struggled in our zone buster at that, I’m weary of making him the 3. Jack P is actually perhaps our best 3, or just slightly worse than David, however he’d need to be center in this grouping since there would be no Dante. Alternatively, I could start Lucas at center. That allows Jack to play 3 and Scott to play 4, both their best positions. But Lucas would be a little lost as center since I’ve been focusing him so heavily on the 4, for both offense and defense. Seems silly to reward a kid for hard work, only to put him in a position where you don’t think you’re giving him particularly good chances of success.
So an argument could be made for Noah. He’d fit perfectly in as a 2, which would allow David to be the 5, Scott the 4, and Jack P the 3, which I feel is a good grouping. He hasn’t started a game yet. The problem is that he was one of the most distracted kids at practice. So I definitely don’t want to even tacitly reward bad behavior.
Finally there is Gordie. Gordie can play the 2, no doubt. His effort was OK, not great not terrible, though his actual skills were good. However, I’d really rather start Lucas, considering his effort was good, he displayed some of the best basketball I’d seen, and Gordie’s already started where as Lucas has not.
As often happens what was a jumble in my mind has become clearer as I write out this blog. It seems as though we have a two way race between Lucas and Gordie.
Last game I was confident. I am now almost as nervous as I was before our game against HP. I really think there are 3 teams, us and the two MPs, who are a cut above everyone else. The question is where do we fall with-in that 3 way race? I hope the answer is at the top, and after tomorrow I will be one step closer to knowing the answer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
