Catching Up Part 1

My last post was a rather despondent post about losing Glencoe. It’s been a rocky coaching road I’ve had since then.
Long story short, that post proved not to be an overreaction. Later on in the month they played in the HP tournament, where they were knocked out in pool play (recalling that they were the defending champions). I had hoped that was going to be a wakeup call, but instead just further lost the team. And when I say the team, that’s not really fair. I really lost two of the triplets who played for me. They were 3 of the 5 best players on the team and the team leaders and caused some bad habits in a couple of the other players. The ethos of our practices was not good. And I accept full responsibility for it. I’m still learning and growing as a coach and to succeed need to invest time. I simply did not invest the time in the team, really either of the teams, that was needed to be as successful as I’d like. Part of that was coaching two teams. Part of that was a new job. Part of that with GL was the players I had and my failure to maintain a tone at practice that was needed. The management aspect of a team should be a strength. It’s very disappointing that it turn out otherwise.
In the end GL finished 3rd in league play, and bombed out in the second round of the playoffs, exactly what I thought they’d do. I nearly didn’t arrange for an end of season dinner, but I decided that no matter how the season had gone (and by some objective measures accounts it had gone well) I should have one. I announced there that I wouldn’t be coming back to the team. I received far more thanks than I was expecting. For instance, Lucas had slid into the bad habits group, but his parents both talked to me individually about how much they appreciated all I’d done and how I’d had the right priorities. This was, of course, an issue because my focus on player development over winning was not what the triplets’ father wanted. He wanted them to win. And win big. And if we’d have played zone, he would likely have been on board. But I think zone doesn’t teach the defensive skills that will help players at the next level.
Of course this goes back to one of weaknesses as a coach. While I say I value player development, I’m really not nearly as good as I’d like at teaching it. My real strength is on teaching team fundamentals as opposed to player fundamentals. So it’s not like individuals are ignored, but because I coach by myself I’ve tended to try and focus on things that have as many players as possible involved at a time to maximize our very limited practice time.
So that was GL.
And then there’s HP. While things weren’t going so well with GL in early February, I was pleased with where HP was at. While we weren’t winning a ton of games, we were competitive. And then Small Fry happened. Small Fry is an even more select program than the one I’m involved in and a whole bunch of my team’s players made that team. We had played well in group play during the HP tourney, coming from behind to almost win a game against an undefeated team (NF for those with good memories) and coming from 12 points behind with 3 minutes to win by 4, a nearly unheard of turnaround at this level. But that was with the whole team. Come Sunday and bracket play we lost more than half the team to Small Fry leaving us high and dry. And this is what it would be like going forward as the whole team placed more of a priority on Small Fry than HP. So we lost the next day, but not by a whole lot. I still felt good about things.
Until Brian and Eric, my bosses, talked to me. They wanted me to slow down play. Get the kids more in control. So I did what they said. They were the bosses after all. And we were not competitive in any of our remaining games. But I had decided that come the playoffs I was going to coach to give us the best chance of winning. Regardless of what they said.
So of course Small Fry had to strike again. There wasn’t supposed to be a conflict between the two playoffs, but there was. And so when this all came down I said I needed one of two kids, Zach or Danny, because I needed a ball handler. So Brian and the Small Fry guy divide up the players and I was supposed to get Danny. This would have been OK. Of course Danny decides to go to Small Fry instead. So we play a valiant effort, but lose. And that’s that. It was dispiriting, in a whole different way than GL.
I ended basketball in a really bad place. I needed the change of sport. I needed to go through it with another person, something I’d have with my co-coach Steve. I needed some success. I will cover baseball in my next update.

GL Tryouts Night 3: We Have a Team

Well it was the night to really see who had what. As I started tryouts, promptly at 8:15, all were there except Dante. We immediately kicked off into our 5 on 5 games. First with the fair teams. Andrew showed that he indeed deserved to make the team, as did Cameron. Jon also felt strongly positive about Dante. Tom, by virtue of his have shown up, made the team. Even better is that during one of the second set of games, Tom actually took a shot. He air balled it, but I was just so happy he actually shot the ball, as he’d become loath to do that by the end of last season.

The initial 5 on 5 was nice, but far more instructive were the uneven 5 on 5 teams. The second team made up of Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, and Tom showed that they could run, at least for a bit, with a team of Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, and Scott. At one point during the game Justin got the ball at the 3 point line, Dante was sticking back giving him space (as he’d been told to do last season by me). Justin decided to take the shot. It was gorgeous and a perfect swoosh. There were murmurs of approval. There was then a great moment (at least from my perspective) when I said, “We don’t settle for that shot after 1 pass”. The murmurs went away.

More interesting was the way Team 3 played. This had 3 players on the very close bubble: Jack M, Jake, and Noah. Noah and Jack M stood out above the others. In fact perhaps the sweetest play of the night was a pass Jack made to Noah cutting through the lane which resulted in Noah making an easy lay-up. Basically those two were competing for the last slot. Each team plays two games, with it being 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th followed by 2nd vs 4th and 1st vs 3rd.

I then sent them off for a water break and conferred with Jon. He reiterated his support for Cameron and Dante, which I both agreed with. Cameron in particular won me over with his speed on defense. I conferred with people online and with Jon in person and with all of them pushing Dante, and Dante doing much better than Jake, inside (though Jake is likely a better shooter) that suggestion was given and accepted. In the end Jon didn’t seem to have any feel for Jack, but felt that Noah would play well and admitted that he liked the family and that was likely coloring his view. I agreed Noah had a great family. However, by the end of the water break I felt that Jack was the better player and I had made the tough decision in my head.

I gathered everyone around and talked about how now was the time to be supportive of friends who didn’t make the team. How, if you made the team you needed to be committed otherwise you were stealing a place from someone else who could have been a good member of the team. I also reviewed what would happen. I would give them the note card, talk about the strengths and areas they could improve and they could either stay or go at that point.

When this was all said and done, Emily, my boss at the Park District, came into the gym upset with me for having done this. I didn’t back down, and raised the points that everyone found out equally, I told players they could walk outside the gym after they found if they wanted (and explicitly sat by the door, for just this purpose. Overall, I hope I did the right thing by these kids by giving some immediate feedback, but I don’t know. I do know I was respectful to and upbeat about every kid who didn’t make the team. Hopefully that means something, but having to confront ones peers, as they choose to do, couldn’t have been easy. It won’t be an option again for the future, which in some ways is nice, as it takes my unease out of the equation.

Notable Cuts
Kevin – My first cut. He took it really well and set the precedent of staying in the gym. I wished he had gone out and not been able to handle, seemingly, the news so well.

Noah – He could barely hold it together when I told him that he hadn’t made the team. I told him I really did think he had improved tremendously and if he kept working hard and improving that he’d stand a real good chance for next year. I specifically suggested that he play a bunch with his brother so he can play against someone bigger and work on that. I really like Noah, despite my aggravation over his lack of focus at practice. If the final decision had been between Noah and someone who hadn’t been on the team last year, I’d have given the nod to Noah. I really hope he works hard this coming year.

Daniel – This kid did something which surprised me each night at tryouts. He kept hanging on barely and was a surprisingly tough cut. I think in most years he’d have made a GL team. A real nice kid.

Godie – The other player from last year besides Noah to get cut. I think he knew it was coming. Wasn’t a whole lot to it. He’d really have to work hard and improve a bunch just catch up to where players were this year, let alone where they’ll be in a year.

Meet the Team
So while I still feel upset and confused about the cuts, I feel an equal amount of excitement over this year’s team. I think this team is better than HP’s 6B team, and in fact I am going to try and arrange a scrimmage early on just to prove that very point. I think we are, top to bottom, a better team than last year.

Me - Hopefully I’ll be able to be a good enough coach for the talent assembled. My friend Jeff asked me if the key to being a good team was coaching throughout the season or picking the right players at the start. I said I didn’t know. If it’s the latter I think I did a good job. If it’s the former, only time will tell. I will say that I am in a much better place professionally and given my recent success at work, and coaching last year’s basketball and baseball teams I don’t lack for confidence right now. At the same time I worked REALLY hard on preparing for tryouts which I’m pleased about. Confidence and hard work are good things, I would hope, to be in a coach.

Andrew – As I mentioned I started with Kevin, which was done semi randomly, and then went down the list alphabetically telling each player. For some reason, on impulse, when I got to Andrew I asked him what he saw as his strengths and weaknesses. He identified something which I don’t remember and shooting as his strengths. He identified rebounding as a weakness. I think I perhaps did this to get a sense of his personality as he was pretty quiet overall. Anyhow, after I did this and told him he’d made the team (I immediately told all the people who didn’t make it, as I just felt that was right) he let out the biggest sigh of relief. I’ll be interested to see how he fits into the team dynamic but I think I’m going to like him.

Brian – I haven’t really talked much about him, other than that he was a given. He’s a great shooter. His ball handling skills aren’t as great as I would like and he does make passes which get intercepted. The biggest deal is that he had a rough bout of injuries a year ago. Coming into last year’s tryouts he had just gotten a cast off after 4 weeks after breaking his ankle at camp. A week after practices started he broke his other ankle. I don’t think he’d full recovered by March. However, at this years tryouts he was quick, as he was at least years tryouts. Hopefully he’ll stay injury free this season. He is a rather large hot head and can really go off on himself, and others, though more often on himself (or at me because of himself). So there’s that whole side. But he’s also a kid who, if he likes them, will go out of his way for others. I wasn’t surprised he would talk up another player after Night 1, not to tell me how to do my job, but because he was worried that the kid had had a bad tryout. He is just thoughtful, being the only player on the team, for instance, to ask me when my birthday was. On his note card, I had listed two areas for improvement. I told him the first was based completely on last year and that was playing team basketball and that he hadn’t done anything to the contrary during tryouts. Of course that was also true last year which is why I put it on the card anyway. I also talked with him on his tendency to try and play defense in a way that allows him to steal passes, at the risk of leaving his man open. When we did the triangle passing drill on Day 1, I noticed him doing this, just as he had last year. The nice thing about Brian is that I this year I start with a huge amount of built up trust with him. I know on multiple occasions he’s said, when I’m not around, that I’m awesome and his best coach ever. This has, and will, make dealing with him easier than it would have been otherwise.

Cameron – Before I talk about Cameron now, let me post what I said about him last year during tryouts

Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either.

Well that’s certainly not true any longer. Cameron has tremendous speed. He is, I believe, after Jack P and David our fastest player. Jon pointed out that you can’t teach speed like that and I had to agree. When it was time for Cameron to come up, I told him how glad I was to have seen him on the first day of tryouts cause he was the last player I cut last year. I told him that he’d improved tremendously and congratulations on making the team. My impression is that he’s more of a me first player right now rather than a team player. I am hopeful, and optimistic, that the general team ethos we have will rub off on him.

Dante – First I should say that when I was debating about whether or not to take Dante, I wasn’t fair to him. Of the three areas I was evaluating (athleticism, basketball skill, and attitude) I focused entirely on his short coming, athletic ability, rather than on his tremendous strength of attitude. I’m real glad several people focused on that and pointed it out to me. I mean the kid practically hugged me when I told him he made the team. I commented to him how his post play had really improved and he said he’d gone to a camp for that. I’ll have to ask him what camp that was since it did him a lot of good as he was a bit of a weak player inside last season and I gave him the Dirk Nowitzki award to recognize the fact that he had a pretty good mid-range shot. I told him that the big thing this season was going to be his speed. I wasn’t worried about it on offense, but was concerned about it on defense. He took this area to work on the best of anyone in that you could tell he genuinely wanted to improve on it. I told him he’d have to work hard to earn his minutes and he seemed excited by the challenge.

David – David should be the best player on the team. David should be the best player on either team in many games. He’s fast, can use either hand to dribble penetrate. Guarding him in practice is always a pain. Best of all he’s not selfish in the least. He, more than me, deserves credit for the unselfish ball we played last year. With his example, my encouragement fell on receptive ears. I will say that this tryout format allowed me to do something that I’m not sure I could have ever done otherwise and that is for me to tell David honestly how much I respect not only his basketball ability but also how he works hard to be better. I had never told him that last year. I had done so in other ways, and I think he knew that I knew how special he was but I felt it was important for me to vocalize it to him. His areas for improvement was that he needed to show more often that he was having fun playing basketball and to not feel the weight of the team on his shoulders. I told him how he knows that I don’t run the offense through one person and that already I could see people who had stepped up after he quit starting to defer to him (Lucas and Scott were both guilty of this) and that it didn’t have to be that way, so he could relax and just do his best. Finally, I told him that I was going to ask a lot from his defensively. I said that I was going to have to ask him to guard big guys this year as we have a bunch of people who can guard guards but fewer who can guard inside guys. He nodded his head in understanding. As our talk ended I commented how I was glad he’d come out as I’d heard a rumor that he was trying out for the JCC team and he chuckled in a way that told me that was not a serious consideration. That made me feel good.

Jack M – In the end Jack made the team because he’s short but he knows how to compensate for that as much as possible and he sees the court well. He is also surprisingly good at penetrating going left or right which takes defenders by surprise. I was tough on Jack. I called him over and asked him why he deserved to make the team. He talked about his ball handling and passing. I agreed with both of those areas. I asked him why maybe he wouldn’t make the team. He couldn’t come up with anything. I gave him a moment to think and he still couldn’t come up with anything. So I told him that he was one of the 10 most skilled players out there, but that I was concerned about what things would be like for him this season. How I was concerned that being a gamer the losing would bother him. I told him how he’d really stepped up for us last year when David left the team, but that there is a lot more talent on the team this year and he’d have to earn every minute he played. By this time he was incredibly choked up. I then told him he had made the team. He kind of spit out “I thought I wasn’t going to.” As I’ll talk about when I get to Tom, I didn’t really weigh the three factors equally, but I am glad to know that as a coach, I have enough credibility in Jack’s eye that even though I told him he was one of the 10 most skilled players that I would leave him off the team because of the other factors. I ended with Jack saying that I really had confidence that he’s older and more mature now and so I have confidence that he could handle these issues. I then repeated myself, not for effect, but more out of nervousness. Conciseness would have been better in this situation so it was unfortunate that I didn’t deliver this last point more effectively.

Jack P – It is little known but September 19th besides being International Talk Like a Pirate Day is also “Give Jack a hard time at tryouts” or at least it was in GL. Unlike with Jack M, I told Jack P right off the bat that he’d made the team. I then told him that I’d considered not taking him after Night 2’s tryout. I then explained to him how it was ridiculous for me to even think about that. I told him how his speed and defense were too good to not have on the team, but that he was the lowest percentage shooter last season. And how missed shots drive me nuts. I will be explaining to everyone later how a missed shot is, in my eyes at least, the same as a turnover since we are giving up the ball every time we miss a shot. I told him that this season he was going to either have to improve his shooting percentage or we’d have to find other ways for him to contribute on offense. Jack just shook his head that he understood, but Jack is always a bit of sphinx when I talk seriously with him and so I’m not sure what was going on inside his head. I really wish if I knew it was “Coach is wrong and I’m going to show him” or “Coach is wrong and is an idiot” or “Ok I’ll have to do better” or “I’m awful”. I just don’t know. I do know that Jack was new to GL last school year and he had been a leader in Massachusetts so he’s got some good qualities there, even if he doesn’t yet have a firm place in the social structure here yet.

Justin – Poor Justin was the last kid to go. He actually talked some tonight and I think I’m going to really like him and will be a kid who I’m going to have to shield to some extent from his father. I told him how impressed I was with his shooting ability and that the 3 point shot he did was a beautiful shot. The admiration in my voice was clear. However, I also told him that he could ask people on the team about how I have sat people who have shot beautiful shots like that without working the ball. I also told him that I put on his note card as an area for improvement “It sometimes seems like you’re half a second behind what is happening” but that I wasn’t sure that was true at all. I said that I had detected something in his playing which bothered me but couldn’t place my finger on it yet but that we had a full season to figure it out. I also told him how I was real happy he came out for the team this year as I’d noticed how good he was when we played against him last year. Justin is going to be an incredible tool for us to have on offense. If he, Brian, and David can give us some credibility on the outside, causing other teams to guard us closely there, in particular Justin drawing out the big man, or forcing a team to go to zone, I think we can then use our speed to take advantage of them. The possibilities of Justin excite me.

Lucas – Lucas is a great kid. Where as last season I forced him to play post, he has grown more up than out and I’m not sure he’ll have the bulk to do that this season. I also know that we’re doing a much more sophisticated defense this year and that Lucas is going to struggle with that at first. Not a whole lot to say here as he was an easy pick as he just has a lot of good qualities, but nothing as outstanding (or negative) as some of the others. I had a real hard time, in fact, coming up with an area to work on and ended up putting “Being more of a leader on the floor” as he’s a real quiet kid but one everyone likes. He was, based on his name, the first kid to make the team. I’ll also point out that his father just LOVES me and his mother likes me a lot too. It’s nice having a couple of parents so firmly in your corner.

Scott – Scott told me he played guard a whole bunch at camp over the summer and kind of enjoyed it. I’m sure he did. I’m glad he’s willing to do that. I hope he’s still a scrappy kid as we need kids who can guard big kids. Sadly, like Lucas, he’s grown more up than out, and I don’t know if he’s big enough to play the post anymore. I hope he is though since he’s a tough defender, probably the best on the team after David. The neat thing about Scott right now is that he really doesn’t know just how good he is which makes him so absolutely enjoyable to coach since he’s got so much potential but works so hard.

Tom – Noah was probably a better basketball player during tryouts than Tom. However as I’ve said from the beginning Tom could make the team on attitude alone as long as he showed me SOMETHING. When talking about how I was looking for athleticism, basketball skills, and attitude, I talked extensively about attitude and didn’t really explain athleticism. Yet, when compiling the team I only really considered attitude as a secondary factor. It was ALMOST enough to keep Cameron and Jack off the team but in the end their talent won out. Noah was a mixed picture but overall positive in the attitude category and he didn’t make the team in favor of athleticism and skills. I’d like to think if we didn’t have so much talent I would follow my own dictum better, and in fact advocated that very position to Jon during his 4th grade tryouts for a couple of players. I don’t like it when my rhetoric and actions don’t match up so I will have to really rethink about this in the future, but for now it is simply a disappointment with myself. I think I would be less disappointed with myself if I’d considered this more in the case of Dante. I did think about it in Lucas’s case but he was a nearly automatic player so that doesn’t really count for anything. All that is a long way of saying, I think the world of Tom and he is the only evidence of my not having been completely hallow in what I said. I was quite concerned, as he’s a bit of a perfectionist, that he’d cut himself after he had a poor showing on Day 1. When I talked with Tom, I told him that while his shooting accuracy might not be there he had beautiful form and we’d work on his shooting this season together.

So that’s the team. I really do think they’re more talented than HP’s 6B team and if that’s true we’ve got a real chance of being better than the .500 team I thought we’d be. That said, practices don’t start for a month so in the meantime we’ll be focusing on HP which is meeting weekly.

Basketball starts in about 3 weeks for me. I have accepted a job, being a little mentally ill, at two different Park Districts. I will be returning to the Spartans, henceforth, GL, and will also be coaching the 6th grade B team for HP. I don't know what this will mean for my blog as blogging for one team was a lot, two would be insane. However, as I read back over last season (I am going a little stir crazy waiting for basketball to start), this is just too valuable to give up. It's interesting how perceptions change. For instance, last season early on I was very down on Lucas as a player, which was a bit unfair as he was playing a position that was completely foreign to him. What's all the more interesting about it is that with my mentally preparing not to have any of the H's back, Lucas is one of the players I will be counting on to really step up and be a force for us.

Anyhow, I have a coach's meeting for HP next Wednesday so if there's something interesting out of that I will let you know then otherwise, look for the blog to resume in some form in mid to late September.

Championship game vs MP

Most of the team had gone out to lunch together, but I stuck around at the gym. Let me just say now that the gym was just beautiful. It had wonderful hardwood floors and the officiating was top notch.

Our game was supposed to start at 12:15 and I foolishly told my team to back at the gym by 11:45. That was WAY too early and since the game on the championship court (which even had an announcer) ended up running late the kids were sitting around forever. During this time the coach of the 5th & 6th grade teams and I talked. He had observed our earlier game against MP2 and remarked how well our team passes and is patient. It was great hearing this validation from another coach. During this discussion we also talked about the idea of being each other’s assistant coaches one day a week next year. I am thrilled with this idea as I really got frustrated with my inability to work in small groups while still providing something valuable for the rest of the team. And having a second pair of eyes will just be great.

The MP team’s coach had told me that his star player was out with bronchitis, which was good news for us. It meant that both teams were playing without their stars (he knew my team’s star had left our team). This was certainly good news for us. He talked to his team for 15 minutes or so. I did gather my team and we talked, but for no nearly as long. My speech was pretty close to this: “I was just talking with another coach and we agreed that the semi-final games are almost always harder than championship games. And really we’ve already won. We get to play on the championship court, with three referees, an announcer, and we win t-shirts and a trophy. And remember, win or lose, we walk away with our heads held high because we’ll have given our best. And if we play our best, we can beat this team.”

Not win one for the Gipper, but I think it served its purpose.

The game begins and we quickly get out to a 6-0 deficit. I call a time-out and try to calm down the team. It basically works. By half the score is 15-11. At the end of the first quarter when it was 10-9, I pointed out that we’d just gone on a 10-3 run. At half Jack M points out that we basically went on a 15-5 run. This was particularly good coming from Jack as he tends to be among the most negative our players.

We hold on to the narrowest of leads through the 3rd quarter. I do get myself in a bit of trouble. I had been rotating Tom, Noah, and Gordie ever half a quarter to make sure they got a full quarters worth of play but also didn’t play in the 4th. However, I accidentally subbed in Noah during the last half of the 3rd when I should have subbed in Gordie. I realized my mistake pretty quickly, however this meant I felt I should give Gordie some playing time in the 4th. And Tom had played pretty well so I wanted to give him a couple of 4th quarter minutes anyway. Jack P needed a rest and having Jack M out there wasn’t going to work, as Brian deserved the playing time and having Jack M, Brian, Tom, and Gordie is not a good combo. This is where having Scott play point would have been so useful. I came up with another solution instead: play Lucas at point. The thing is that Lucas really is a natural guard and my playing him inside did not come easily for him, but he always did it without complaint.
Lucas went out at guard and performed very well. It was good. Eventually I got my crunch time lineup in of Jack M, Jack P, Lucas, Scott and either Dante or Brian (I believe it was Brian). And they came through. MP put on their press which just wrecked us last time we played. This time it wasn’t effective at all. They called several time outs to try and do something, but the something didn’t matter. At the start of the 4th I stated that “We are six minutes away from winning the championship. As long as we play our game we will win this.” Each timeout I said something like “We are now X minutes closer” before stating anything else that needed to be said. With about 55 seconds left and up by 3, I put us in a stall defense. Eventually they got their coaches message to foul us. The rest of the game was boring really as they weren’t close to bonus and so several fouls later Jack M ended up on the line. He sunk the first shot, icing the game and made the second shot just for good measure. We had won!

So that they could play the next game they do the trophy presentation in a separate room after we have done the team’s talk. I gather our team and talk about how we can walk away with our heads held high because we played great basketball (I am glad I remembered to return to this theme after we had won). I talked about how proud of the team I was. And I said I’d save the rest of what I had to say for the team dinner that night. We went into the awards room. When MP came in we did a really lame cheer for them, at my suggestion, which I thought was a bit of nice sportsmanship for a hard fought championship game.

They had the coaches come up and receive the trophies and then give the t-shirts to each member of the team individually. It was real nice.

One final post will be forthcoming giving a wrap-up of the season.

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.

Spartans vs. WK

I get to the game and the 5th grade boys travel team game is well under way. I find Noah and Jack P already at the game. We go and sit down on some empty bleachers and watch the game. The team filters in and we have some nice hang-out time, a luxury we don’t normally get. Finally with about 90 seconds in the game there’s a free throw at the far basket and I take the team out of the gym and we have our pregame meeting. I figure they’ll be hot to start the next game and so we can save time by doing that first. I should point out that when I get to the game more than a half hour early the entire WK team is there and sitting in a corner. Seems like a huge waste of their time, but hey what do I know?

In our pregame talk I retell the last three games of the season for my beloved 49’ers. How they have a huge game against the Seahawks, win, and then lose to Arizona, which after they beat Denver the next week proved to be the difference between making the playoffs and not. I emphasized it was Arizona. It’s nice that it was the Cardinals since even at 9 boys are going to know that they’re a laughing stock. I pointed out that the 9’ers played a great game against a good team but then had a let down game the next game against a bad team. A few of the swifter boys understood the analogy, but for our slower ones I connected the dots. I emphasized that I wanted to come out running. I named our starting five (Jack M at 1, Brian at 2, David at 3, Jack P at 4, Dante at 5)

We then head back into the gym at almost the same time that the other game had ended (must have been a lot of end of game free throws). One of the refs (we have our normal crew, meaning it is the same set of brothers) asks how long I want to warm-up. I say that 3 minutes should do it. And so three minutes goes on the clock. I have our team start with a quick set of layups and then after I’ve gotten some business squared away, we go into our 3 on 2 half-court warm-up. From where we started to where we are now on this is amazing. We’re making good quick passes that takes advantage of the space and numerical superiority. We had enough time that everyone got to go once before there was about 20 seconds left. I send our starting five out. WK comes in. Just to recap, while the previous game was going on the coach was talking at them. Clearly they then had another pre-game meeting. That’s a lot of talking.

The game starts, David tips it to Brian, standing towards our basket, Brian dribbles two steps, makes a pass to Jack P who goes in for the easy lay-up. And with-in 10 seconds we’re out to a 2-0 lead. The game was absurd. 18-0 at half. At half time we do a “name something good you saw” since there was so much. Whether it was the alley oop to David, Lucas’s rebounding (more about this later), or several other things I’ve forgotten there wasn’t too much trouble for each kid to give a specific positive.

Almost from the start I work hard to get Gordie and Noah in there and getting some playing time, trying as much as possible to put our B time out on the court. By the 4th quarter WK has still failed to score a point. By this point they were not to run a fast break, period, and had to work around for good passes. In particular I was vocally encouraging working the ball into the posts (high and low) and we had some nice looks with that, though not as many conversions as we could since poor Dante couldn’t make a shot (more on this later as well). With about 3 minutes left, WK finally scores a point. Everyone, cheered. I kind of felt bad for WK as it was kind of like if we were playing a 3rd grade travel team in terms of their skills. The WK coach happens to be commissioner of the league and he made a joke at one point about immediately moving us into the A league.

The only negative is that we still couldn’t run Indiana even against their rather hapless 3-2 defense. I really don’t know what we’re going to do when we face the killer 1-3-1 of the JCC team next Saturday.

Final score as 32-7. I was really making an effort to get our lesser players in the game more and sit people like David, but wasn’t nearly as successful as I’d like to have been as the minutes for the game were pretty universal. Let’s take a look at the players:

Brian – Got the wind knocked out of him hard one time. He didn’t play his best game on offense, but his defense was superb while guarding his man on ball. He is too willing on defense to free lance, leaving his player open, but when I told him he needed to stay on his man more he adjusted nicely.

Dante – So I think I’ve discovered the reason why he hasn’t been playing well in several of our games: soccer. Turns out he’s had a soccer game before our basketball game on several of the days he hasn’t done well. Yesterday when he played well? No soccer. I need to get a hold of his soccer schedule so I can know I which Dante is going to show.

David – I was really trying to sit him a lot and he still got 11 minutes of play. I told him that he’d played ¾ of the game yesterday and would be playing a lot in the tourney, so he was going to sit more today. David, being David, found this perfectly reasonable and gave no complaint.

Gordie – He had his best game to date, which isn’t saying much. Excepting the first game (when we only had 7 players) he had the most minutes he’s had. Overall he did some things well, but in a game where 7 of our 10 players had a positive WS (Dante and Jack M were the others with negative ones), and remembering that for the season only 4 have positive WS, one could expect him to have played well against a clearly over matched team and he still managed to turn over the ball 5 times.

Jack M – I’m not really sure why he didn’t play better. This is a team he should have eaten alive. I especially thought with the start he’d do better, but perhaps he put more pressure on himself and that negated the implied confidence boost. He led the team in minutes so perhaps fatigue had something to do with it as well.

Jack P – He actually did very well this game with his shooting percentage, which is the biggest thing which holds him back. I was happy, in other words, with the game he played. He made a couple of fast break layups which is what I have been hoping to see.

Lucas – At half someone gave as their positive all of the rebounds Lucas had. I agreed it was definitely a positive. However, when the game ended and I looked over the stats I had no idea of just how right this was. Lucas had a team-high (for the season) 12 rebounds. He was just eating them alive out there. Amazing.

Noah – He scored two baskets, which was nice for him. Still a huge liability on defense and a smaller one on offense. I was sad to see I had only gotten him 13 minutes of play. I’d rather have seen this in the 15-17 minute range.

Scott – Scott only played 8 minutes, and if it hadn’t been for a late game “shift change” we did he’d have only had 7 minutes. Something was wrong with Scott’s ankle. He denied that he was hurt in any way, but I don’t think that’s true (just as it wasn’t true with Noah). Hopefully he’ll be at 100% by Saturday.

Tom – Tom saw time at 1, 2, 3, and 4 today. I was hoping one of those positions would really ignite him and we could see explode. Sadly, nothing clicked. I had thought he’d turned a corner with how he was playing before break, but perhaps he just had a couple of good games. I maintain there is potential with him that we’re not seeing.

No practice tomorrow. Instead I will preview the HP tourney a bit (not that I haven’t been talking about the JCC team enough already).

Spartans vs. NF1

Another day, another victory. There were a few hiccups. Like the fact that Northfield had a 1:45 start time. We ended up starting closer to 1:30 and it all worked out. When I announced that Scott would be playing the 3, he freaked. I guess he didn’t feel capable of playing a wing in our offense. It got to the point where I said “You can play the three, but if you really insist you can’t then I have to start someone else.” And so Jack P got the nod. So we go out with a starting five of David, Dante, Lucas, Jack P, and Gordie.

It’s clear from the start that we’re a substantially better team. The other coach used 3 of his 5 timeouts in the first quarter, and I hardly had my killer’s row out there. The group did well. I sub in Noah and Jack P with about 2 and a half minutes left in the first quarter and it soon becomes clear that Noah is playing injured. Noah had his game time limited accordingly, though I probably still over played him relative to his injury. At the end of the first quarter it’s 8-0. We quickly come out on a tear in the early second quarter and are soon up 12-0. NF didn’t come out with a press until about 3 minutes in the second quarter which unfortunately for them was about the same time that I put David back in. They try and run their press once, except David simply dribbles through it like swiss cheese. It’s certainly not the press break method I recommend but we never did see the press again. We have a commanding lead at half time and a ref, who we hadn’t had before, gives me the “we’re going to put them down softly” speech. OK.

The second half is not noteworthy except NF comes out in a zone towards the middle of the 3rd quarter. And let me tell you they looked hapless in it. So I basically do a line change we go with Indiana, our name for our zone breaker. And we can’t run it. We run the initial progression just fine, but when it comes time to get the ball back to the other side of the court the offense just falls apart, which is roughly the same time it falls apart in practice. At least it’s clear what we need to work on. We continue to run Indiana and some ineffectual practice with it, but I do gain a pretty good understanding of what some players need to work on. At one point Tom was in at the 3 and was completely not running it right and so I pulled him and was diagramming the play when he made some disparaging comments about himself. While I disagreed with David’s overall assessment on Friday I could not disagree with the idea that Tom does say an awful lot of negative things about himself. I told Tom I wanted to talk with him after the game.

The game ends and we’ve achieved another easy 37-12 victory. The second quarter seems to be our bugaboo as we allowed 6 points in it, 4 in the 3rd, and only 2 in the 4th. Though we did get sloppy in the fourth giving them better looks than I would have liked. On a personal note, except for Noah, I did an exceptional job of distributing playing time today. Everyone else had between 12 and 16 minutes of playing time. Considering if things were perfectly equal everyone would have 14 minutes, I think that’s pretty damn good.

Let’s look our individual players:

Brian – Played fairly well in his time. He had a great second quarter, which he played all of, but cooled off in the second half. In particular I think he was cheating too much on defense which allowed his man some easy shots.

Dante – Dante has been in a slump. I’m going to talk to him tomorrow before the game and tell him I want him to go hard on the boards. He had a few open shots he couldn’t quite convert, but more importantly his rebounds are way down.

David – He had an amazing 11 points in only 12 minutes and 9 shots. At this level getting 50% shooting is incredible, but that’s David. I told him at half that he wouldn’t be seeing much second half playing time, which of course he understood, and actually had him in as the 4 in Indiana in the 3rd quarter which he did a nice job with. I did get annoyed with him when after he had an early foul he was playing slack defense against their point guard. This was a kid who was practically dribbling at his shoulder. I actually subbed in Jack M at one point just to get some tighter pressure in the first quarter, but unfortunately they subbed the kid out at the same time. I called my only timeout in the second quarter to give David a mild scolding and tell him that this kid is nowhere nearly as impressive as the kid he was guarding last week, though this kid went with the “head full of steam” method of getting across half-court which proved to be effective. This wasn’t even a case of treating David differently as I think I’d have been equally upset if either of the Jacks, for instance, had played defense like that.

Gordie – He felt proud at how he did. He talked about how he took better shots and I agreed. He only took two shots and made one of them. He did have 5 turnovers so that part of his game still needs work, but this was his best game to date. Of course on the Win Score measure I use for productivity he still had a negative number, but it was less of a negative number. If we can cut down on his turnovers he could find some more playing time, though I’m not quite sure what role I would have for him, since we don’t exactly need a short kid who can’t guard all that well on either offense or defense. Nevertheless, I was happy for Gordie and how he played and the better shot selection was a huge first step.

Jack M – Clearly he was disappointed at not starting, though to his credit he didn’t say a thing. He did get very annoyed, however, that NF kept running their play “Brady Quinn”. I am not quite sure why they had an offensive set named after a QB. It was basically just a motion offense. But Jack did not like it. He was a pretty much non-factor until the 4th quarter when he exploded for six easy points.

Jack P – Jack actually led our team in minutes but didn’t do anything exceptional or poor. His defense wasn’t quite up to its normal stuff, so perhaps he was still feeling the after effects of his sickness. On the good side he only had two fouls so that part was good. Of course I’d rather have another foul or two and get some better defense.

Lucas – I’m going to make Lucas our MVP. He came up with the second highest win score for the game, and is actually third on the team for the season (behind Scott and David). He played some really nice help defense, mostly to make up for Brian’s lackings. And he had a HUGE stuff, where he came out of nowhere to prevent an easy basket on a sidelines play. Good enough for a game MVP and it gives me a chance to remind the team how important role players are. The just scoring baskets doesn’t make you a great player.

Noah – As discussed above was injured. He will not be playing in our exhibition game to give his ankle some time to rest.

Scott – Led our team in rebounds with only 5. We had a lot fewer rebounds this game than previous games and I’m not quite sure if it’s because we just allowed fewer shots or were getting out rebounded. I think it’s the latter and not the former, however.

Tom – Played pretty well in his time in the game. After the game I told him in no uncertain terms that he belonged on the team, was an important member of the team, and I was not going to tolerate him being so negative about himself.

For tomorrow’s game I think we’ll go with a starting lineup of Dante, Lucas, Tom, Jack P, and either David or Jack M. I think we’re in a good place heading into winter break and hope we’re in as equally a good place when we come back January 8, so essentially 3 weeks of no basketball, which is a long time. And then we have a killer schedule: MP1, our only competition for best in the league, some other shlubs, and then the HP tourney. I talked about this some at practice on Friday and will be doing so again tomorrow, but we need to stay in shape over break, otherwise we could be in some real trouble when we come back.

Spartans vs. MP2

Well yesterday was going to be where the rubber met the road. We were going to face MP2. Their park district facility was HUGE and was very nice. We were playing on one of their gyms. When I got there some kids soccer team was finishing their practice. They were supposed to be done by 11:30, but didn’t end up finishing until 11:50, which was fine. The first thing we did once we got the court was to run through our inbounds place, with no defense, once with everybody (so in two groups). They ran the play well so that was good.

As we did our lay-up lines I realized just what awful form we have while shooting lay-ups. It’s no surprise we can’t make them in a game when we can’t really shoot them. And thinking back on it, I realized that we never did spend time on them in practice. I think it’s going to be layup boot camp this week at practice. Our poor layups continued in the game with Dante missing three easy layups and Jack M missing many an easy layup. In fact Jack M took 9 shots during the game and made ZERO of them.

MP2 is a big team compared to us. In fact their center is HUGE for a 4th grader. With Dante not starting I worry about his ability to just absolutely dominate us. Fortunately, he turns out to be a bit of an oaf and is pretty much a non-factor while in the game.

The game begins. I decided to give Lucas the start so we had a starting lineup of Lucas at 5, Scott at the 4, Jack P at 3, David at 2, Jack M at 1. As is usual we get off to a slow start. We also have trouble matching up. This would be a problem that would plague us throughout the game. I think that one of the reasons for this is that the numbers on the front of their jerseys were small and on the shoulder. This made it harder when I told some players to switch, which I did more than in other games, and when they subbed as such. It wasn’t a huge problem, but it was certainly an issue.

Anyhow, right off the bat it becomes clear from their first possession that they have a PG, #3, who is UNBELIEVABLY fast. He is also short. In fact he might have been shorter than all of the players on our team, and let’s not forget we’re a short team. After that first possession, which resulted in a lay-up, I quickly assign David to guard him. Our first possession down, we, without running our zone breaker, quickly destroy their 2-3. Unfortunately, we take 3 good, open, shots, and fail to convert any of them before they get a rebound.

At first, it looks like we’re going to be in real trouble. They have guys who can make outside shots. They have this killer point guard. They run a good play, with a couple of variations. However, as the first quarter goes on we slowly pull ahead. And there is one reason for it: David. When I told my dad after our last game that he was our best player, my Dad was somewhat dumb founded. And I don’t blame him. In the NF2 game David didn’t really do much of anything. This game, however, he just took over. Besides shutting down #3, he also created numerous fast break opportunities. He ended the game with 17 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 steals in 22 minutes of play.

When the second quarter starts David is exhausted and so I take him out for a breather. I assign Jack P to guard #3 and he does a nice job. Because of the speed of their team, I decide we will not try and press them at all. They do come out with a press. We struggle at first with it, almost to the point where I was going to call a time-out, but then things start to click for us and we are able to break it. Also, I’m proud that we forced them to switch to man to man during this quarter as we’d been getting so many good shots against their zone.

When the half comes we are comfortably ahead, by about 7, but the intensity of a game would suggest a much closer score (remembering that 7 is a lot of points for 4th graders). At half I diagram the play that they have been running. The play is quite simply a series of picks. Something must have clicked because in the 3rd quarter we held them to only 2 points. It was our best defensive effort of the season. We go up by about 14. Their best shooter, #12, was clearly frustrated by our defense. So frustrated he started crying. Why the coaches kept a player in the game who was crying is beyond me. Sub out the kid, let him compose himself and then send him back out on the court. His frustration almost caused an injury when he stupidly crashed into Brian chasing a ball at the end of the 3rd quarter.

When the 4th quarter comes we are on the verge of being able to dominate the game. I send out a slightly weaker unit to start the 4th quarter. However, their press, which was pretty good in the second, is now very good. It also doesn’t help that we can’t make any of our lay-ups. The momentum seems to be swinging back in their favor. However, we are able to reassert ourselves and though it gets to with-in 9 that is as close as it gets. We end the game with a solid victory. I wish I could tell you the final score, but I forgot that since it was an away game our book wasn’t being used and I needed to write down the final score. We won by about 11.

Overall, it was a good performance. The final score, whatever it may be, does not indicate how close a game it felt. Gordie’s step dad said as much as we left the gym, so I clearly was not the only person who felt that way. However, the fact that we won by as we did, against what is clearly one of the better teams in the conference, does give me concern that our cockiness will only become more of a problem. I also feel a little bad for MP2. They just lost two games in a row, both by good margins, and so they are going to be sitting at 1-2 despite being one of the best teams in the conference.

Taking a look at our players:

Brian – He played very well. Well enough to most likely earn a start in our next game. He found good shots, made a good percentage of them. He also played pretty good defense.

Dante – Dante had an off game. He was a non-presence. He played 19.5 minutes and only had 2 rebounds. Now granted he was playing against some big guys, but against NF2 he was rebounding against a kid bigger than him and he still came up with the boards.

David – As discussed above he was our game MVP. It’s been nice how we’ve had a different player be our MVP for each game, without it even being forced. I’d really like each of the players to be named game MVP at least once during the course of the season, though clearly, as in baseball, some of them are going to be more stretches than others. David will likely sit a lot against NF, our next opponent, as a way of making sure other kids get their chances.

Gordie – Gordie only saw 6 minutes of playing time. I do feel bad as I knew he hadn’t played a whole bunch but I thought he’d played more than that. I think I’m going to start him as well in our next game as a sort of “make-up”.

Jack M – Jack M kept finding good shots, as discussed, he just couldn’t make them. In fact at the end of the game, he kept getting fouled and actually went to the free throw line 10 times. He shot 4 of 10 from the line, which given his size and age, is a pretty good performance. These refs didn’t call lane violations so Jack got lucky there as he had quite a few of them.

Jack P – This was also not Jack’s best game. I believe I’ve mentioned before how I use something called Win Score to measure a player’s efficiency. The goal is to get above .100/minute. Jack, in the two games we’ve kept stats, has had a negative score. I feel like this doesn’t capture the good stuff he does on the court, but does temper some of my enthusiasm for him. He did limit his playing time in this game by getting into repeated foul trouble.

Lucas – Lucas played well. He was actually open quite a bit. However, many times when he was open he wasn’t ready for the ball, even if he was on the strong side. We’re going to work on remembering that feeding the ball into the post is one of our offensive rules. If Lucas continues to play well, and Dante does not, it will lead to an unexpected change of playing times.

Noah – Noah made his first basket of the season, meaning all of our players have now scored, which is nice. He looked particularly lost in breaking the press, which considering we haven’t really practiced breaking the press isn’t his fault.

Scott – Had a solid performance again. It’s great that he can guard guys so much bigger than he. I thought he’d played a lot and was surprised to see he had “only” played about 18 minutes (I’d have thought it was in the 20s).

Tom – In the 3rd and 4th quarter he was WIDE open repeatedly and Jack M and Brian just didn’t get the ball to him. It was frustrating for me, and no doubt frustrating for Tom.

So this game left little doubt that we’re a good team. I am going to be emailing Emily shortly letting her know we wish to play in the A bracket of the HP tourney. It is exciting and nerve wracking to think that the biggest challenge we have right now is over confidence.

Snow Day

Well it’s a snow day here and that means no practice tonight. Love it as a teacher, hate it as a coach. So this means we are once again losing practice time. It really is adding up at this point and I grow very concerned about our longer term prospects.

The big question, then, is who to start, and what kind of rotation I want to do, for Sunday’s game. Jack M, Jack P, Scott, Tom, Dante, and David all can make a legitimate case for starting. Of that group, in some ways I want to bring Jack P off the bench, since he’s the most versatile of that group after David, who I am obviously going to start. But I still think Jack could be our third best overall player. How do you sit your third best overall player?

If, instead, I went based off of skill that would lead to Tom sitting. However, I don’t like how that leaves us for subs. Brian and Lucas are going to each see minimal playing time, most likely 3 or 4 minutes in each half. I basically want Lucas playing the 4 position, for reasons previously mentioned. Brian, is an unknown. Before his injury I’d had him penciled in as a starter. Now, besides not having a real feel for how I want things done (not the biggest minus considering we play just a step above organized chaos) , he’s still getting his feel for running, jumping, shooting, etc back. The kid has spent, essentially, the last 3 months with a broken ankle on one of his feet. It’s got to have an effect on his body if not his psyche.

With Noah not being there, that leaves Gordie and one other player as my main substitutes and Gordie is essentially only good in the guard positions. Despite the fact that the 3 spot is nearly a guard on our team, he doesn’t seem so comfortable with it. The problem is that at some point, Dante is going to need to rest. When he does I will need a center and that leaves me two choices, basically, Jack P and David. Both have their pluses and minuses. Jack P is serviceable there, but since he’s inside more he ends up with higher percentage shots (he took a whole lot of shots at our last game). David can man the position better, but then again he can do most things better and so limiting his touches of the ball seems counter productive. Perhaps I’m over thinking the whole thing, as if they’re doing the offense right, which they won’t, even the center is on or near the perimeter a fair amount.

One could make an argument that having David, as point guard, Tom, as the other guard, some combination of Scott and Jack P as forwards, and Dante as center is our best unit. In fact, I would be willing to make that argument. However, I just can’t bring myself to not start Jack M. First, he earned it by how well he played last week. Second, considering how well he played last week, it would have an especially damaging effect on a player who is somewhat delicate to begin with. So Jack gets the start. Further, having Jack bring the ball up means Jack is less likely to take a silly shot when he gets the ball, so it makes sense for him to play point, rather than David who is our best point guard.

As I would like to use Tom more as a guard and less as a 3, I think Scott will get the start as the three, Jack as the 4, and Dante as the five. As I like to remind the team, it’s a long season so I will have time to play around with that. This is one of those times that writing things down has helped to clarify my thoughts. And while it’s perhaps not my favorite starting five, I do think it will be our best starting five.

Reader nfg22 writes:

4 whole points in the second half? Thats unnaceptable...oh wait that was defense..J/k...Great game...honestly that is smothering defense. If you can keep the other team to an average of 4 points a quarter you should go undefeated...

I would agree that 4 points in the second half was terrific, though part of that was luck, as they had several open layups that they missed. I agree that if we can play defense like that it means we should be a contender in any game we play.

Reader Izulde writes

Fantastic first game! That kind of victory has to make you feel good, and I think it really showed off the importance of your conditioning them early on in the season. Now you can focus on the finer points.

Maybe try switching Lucas to a sub role if you get more guys in? Maybe if he's only in as a reserve, he'll gradually get more acclimated to the system and whatnot.

Lucas, as I believe I noted in Friday's practice report, will see limited playing time for the moment and, as mentioned, saw the least playing time. I have already made one adjustment keeping him at one position. I hope he'll learn that one position, where to start on offense, how to move with it, what kind of tricks to do guarding a man, etc. He's really the best fit to play center when Dante is out, but I had Jack playing there this game to try and simplify things for Lucas. I mean it's hard not to like the kid, since he finds me after every practice, and did so after the game, and said thanks. I'm sure his parents have him do it, but it sort of exemplifies the nice kid that he is, so hopefully he'll pick things up and be able to contribute fully to the team.

Thursday morning I woke up and made the final cut, Cameron. When I was telling the story to a friend, explaining how I took Gordie he quipped “So your receiving corp in football would be TO and Randy Moss?” Have to admit that stung a little. I did retort that taking Cameron was the equivalent of putting in Kerry Collins in as your QB “nice enough, but do you really want Kerry Collins?”

So basically right now we’re in a month long hiatus. My first practice is scheduled for October 23. With the Monday/Wednesday combination being bad news for Dante, and my own having commitments on Wednesdays I looked for a different day of the week for practices and came up with… Friday. Can’t wait to spend 6-7:30 on Fridays in a gym. Fortunately, after 5 weeks we can switch to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, which runs through the middle of March, making the season about 5 months long all together (and making the 10 weeks of Baseball seem like a sprint).

With the dynasty going on hold, essentially, for a month, though I will post any updates as they might happen, I thought it would be good to try and introduce the players. I’ve talked about many of these players already but let’s look at the Kid Coach's 2005-2006 4th Grade Travel Team.

I’d debated a few different ways of organizing this list. I’ve decided that I’m going to go by offensive position and, with-in position, skill, as I see it now. All players will be expected to learn 2 positions eventually as with only 10 players I need a good deal of flexibility in the players I can put on the court, especially for that game that’ll inevitably happen in February where one kid is sick, another has a twisted ankle, and a third is in Vail for the weekend.

Before I break it down by skill let me explain, roughly, what each of the responsibilities will be for each player in the offensive I am working on finalizing. This obviously could change as I work to break down what I want to run into a level that I know can be well taught to and learned by 4th graders.

1 Spot – Your traditional ball handler. He is going to be the player who’ll normally take the ball up the court. Will have primary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks, but depending on where in the offense we are, this could fall to the 2 or 3 player as well.

2 Spot – Stays primarily on the perimeter, though he will sometimes penetrate. Will often be the first look for the 1 player or else setup the first look (via screen). Has secondary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks.

3 Spot – In many ways the trickiest spot in the offense to play. Has both perimeter and post responsibilities, though because of the talent will be on the perimeter more than the post. Along with the 2 will be the first look for a pass from the 1.

4 Spot – Is primarily involved in post play, though not exclusively. He will come out of the post often either to help screen or in order to clear space for the 3 or 5. Is the least likely to shoot the ball.

5 Spot – Your traditional center. Primarily in the post. Is almost always responsible for rebounding.

You will notice that I've written about perimeter play. This is a tad misleading as while they often do their work there, I do not really want my team shooting, for the most part, beyond 10 feet. This means that we’re using the outside to create space/opportunities to work it inside. I expect to see a lot of zone so we’ll be working on zone busting skills such as quick (and skip) passes. Also important will be the concept of screening to get someone the ball not for someone with the ball.

And without further ado, this time for real, let me present my 2006-2007 4th Grade Travel Basketball Team. An asterisk means that if I fielded a basketball team tomorrow they would be starting.

½
*Noah (primary 2) Obviously positions are still fluid at this point. I have slotted Noah here tentatively because of his skills, but his size might find him in more of a 2/3 role before things are all said and done especially as we have, as expected, a surplus of guards. As mentioned before, I like his penetration skills, which shows his ability to dribble so he could even end up finding himself playing more of a 1. While his shooting form might not be the prettiest, he is accurate. During the scrimmage I said that the next time he drove in he should find a team mate to pass it to and he did exactly that suggesting he is willing to implement instruction. He did a few other things, such as mostly pay attention, that suggest he will be teachable (or in this case coachable).

Jack M (primary 1) First let me say there is a definite chance that I have the Jacks backwards. I think I have it straight, but am not sure. Anyhow, short Jack has a nice dribble and can do it with both hands. He is inconsistent, which is actually a complement at this age, at dribbling with his head up. He’s a pretty scrawny kid. Has an average attention span for a 4th grade boy, which is to say not a whole lot.

Gordie (primary 1) Gordie is a small kid. However, he’s got a good shot and better range than some of the kids taller than him. I’ve discussed him pretty indepth in my last post so not a whole lot to add here. I will just stress that the negatives that I talked about before could really impact his role on this team.

Tom (primary 2) It might seem weird that he is ranked below Gordie, who was the last player to make the team, but of course it wasn’t Gordie’s skills holding him back. I was really hoping Tom would have been be able to play a 3 for us, but he’s not there yet and I’m not sure that trying to make him into a forward, even a soft forward, is the best use of his practice time.

2/3
*Brian (primary 2) Brian is a very solid player all around. Not quite as solid is his personality. On more than one occasion he made a negative comment during tryouts. Something like that I am quite confident of my ability to stomp out. I simply don’t tolerate it. In fact, I will likely be opening our first practice with my saying something to the effect of “I’m the coach and I’m here to help you grow and to help you win. Your job as players are to listen to me and to support your teammates>” Or something like that. Anyhow, Brian is tentatively slotted as a 2/3, as I think we have some better dribblers than him, though he does have a good crossover.

3/4
*Jack P (primary 3) The more I see of him the more he impresses. He did well in our lightening game, I believe, and seems pretty solid all around. I also really liked his attitude which goes well with his, seemingly, easy going nature. I hesitate to comment too much about kid’s personalities as for the most part they’ll be different creatures in a tryout situation, what with the nerves, than during the course of a basketball season.

Scott (primary 3) The least talented of the triplets, though still pretty darn good, he seems like he’ll be well suited to these positions. Not a whole lot to comment here.

4/5
*Dante (primary 5): Again I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot. I will say that I was tempted to inquire about the soccer playing backgrounds of my players and feel particularly pleased to learn that someone I thought highly of is also a competitive soccer player as I feel good soccer players often can easily be turned into good basketball players.

Lucas (primary 5): Poor Lucas seemed somewhat surprised that I saw him as a forward/center. He seems like a real good kid. Here’s another kid who I see a fair amount of potential in and hope to see him really grow as the season progresses.

???
*David I’m not sure where to place him. I wished he had been at the 3rd day of tryouts since I think I’d have gotten a better grasp. And perhaps I am overstating his skills, but then again maybe I’m not. He’s likely going to be our point guard, because of his ball handling skills, but he could end up really at any of the positions 1-4, though realistically 4 is not likely going to be where he’d end up on offense.

I will try and post as I come up with firmer plans for things, but in all likelihood, as mentioned before, the dynasty is on a brief hiatus until practices start in October.

Tryouts

I was hoping to get this typed up before I went to tryouts today, but it was not to be. The last two days have been very informative. I really feel like good grasp of most of these kid’s skills. This is certainly a change from the first day. So that part is good. The part that is bad? Right now I have a basketball team of 9 players. I have two players on the cusp and I could end up taking one or both of them and don’t know which it’ll be.

Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight.

We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point.

Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Brian, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out.

Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A threat (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run.

Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting.

Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5:
The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots.

I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack M. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us.

That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he had surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out.

Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought.

That left 7 kids who I was undecided about:
Miles
Tom
Nick
Cameron
David R
Lucas
Gordie

Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team.

Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not substantially better than several other players. This means this postive was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams, because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid..

Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later.

David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team.

Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so.

Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family.

Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me.

Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started tryouts.

As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see.

My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is not the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category.

Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at.

The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect.

More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter.

Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part.

Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here.

Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break.

One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this.

We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice.

Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right.

I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Emily, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise.

Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good.

I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course, if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Gordie and not Cameron. But time will tell.