Exhibition Game vs JCC 1

So I started typing this post up on Tuesday December 19th. Then I got sick and never got around to finishing it. Until now. I will make a note where I started writing so far after the fact, just so you know where my memory might be a little hazier.

Last night was our exhibition game against JCC team 1. When I got to the gym I knew we were going to have a much closer game than I had anticipated. Their whole team was already there and they were a big team. Even more worrisome I saw a player on their team who I knew, Luke, and I knew him to be an exceptional athlete. For whatever reason we were slower than normal in arriving. Eventually we get all of the players I was expecting. Or rather we get the 8 players we’re going to have for the night. Noah, it had been decided, would miss the game due to injury. Scott, who I’d decided to give the nod to start to over either David or Jack M, was sick. I really hate going to the game and finding out there that a player will be missing. Someone needs to let me know ahead of time.

Anyway we do our warmup. All the while they are blaring music into the gym. It was pretty annoying, honestly, and a couple of my players moaned about it. It did create a funny situation where I was giving our pregame talk and I was having to scream and then all of a sudden the music went off and so in midsentence I switched to a normal volume. It gave us all a good laugh. With Scott not being there my plans to go with a large lineup were somewhat foiled. I had decided it was a good situation to not start David, and so on a spur of the moment I decided to go with Gordie as our fifth starter, along with Dante, Lucas, Jack P (playing point), and Tom. Gordie was actually playing the three here.

Dante did a nice job with the tip, something he hasn’t shown any particular ability to do before this. We did get off to an early 2-0 lead. However, that was when their star basically took control. After the first possession I had Jack P guard him, though Jack P was clearly outmatched in this case. When the first quarter ends it’s 8-6 and it’s a good ball game.

The second quarter was the difference maker. They came out in a 1-3-1 defense and absolutely destroyed us. They had been playing a 2-3 with a little man in the first quarter. We could get nothing going on offense. It didn’t matter rather we ran our zone breaker or our motion, they were shutting us down and not letting us find good shots. Matters hadn’t been helped in the first quarter that David, seeing that the other team was good, decided to try and be the hero and on his first two possessions down launched two ill advised shots. I gave him a quick pull, but I knew if we were going to compete in this game that we’d need his skills so I had him back in there in the second quarter. However, the combination of the good team, plus having their star player beat him a couple times on offense, threw David out of sorts.

However, the whole first half, really even through the second quarter, about the only foul the refs would call would be on our team doing something to their star. Now I’m not saying that they weren’t fouls, because they were, but at the same time we weren’t getting any where near the calls that they were getting. Talking to the refs in a situation like this is something that is currently beyond my comfort zone. I don’t ever complain, whether it’s baseball or basketball about the officiating. And there were things that they weren’t calling, such as Dante’s repeated 3 second violations, that benefited us. However, the home team advantage with the fouls was a bit much to swallow. Anyhow, the second quarter was a disaster for us and we go down by 8 into half. David guarded 3 for most of the second quarter, and was clearly frustrated on both offense and defense. Things just weren’t happening the way David was used to them happening. It didn’t help that since #3 was such a good ball handler even our full court man-to-man proved ineffective as even David simply couldn’t keep up with him the full length of the court. And let’s not forget David is VERY fast.

At half our team is shell shocked. I start to talk about some things we need to do differently, but it’s clear that our team is somewhat tuned out. I ask for someone to tell a joke to try and loosen the mood and get them to relax. The problem is that David comes up with “the refs”. This gets everyone to smile but isn’t quite as productive as I’d have liked. I do manage to get a couple of actual jokes out of them I then tell the team how this is our first real basketball game. We all know we’re still in this game, but the spark that the team normally has just isn’t there.

The third quarter doesn’t go particularly well for us. We are actually shutout, the first time we’ve failed to score at least one basket in a game all season. Even worse is that a couple minutes into the quarter David goes down hard and gets injured. He landed hard on his elbow. Honestly I think it was as much a frustration injury as anything. The good news is that we finally being to contain #3. #3, like oh so many players, has a tendency to go right every time and so we begin to play some better help defense knowing this.

We enter the 4th quarter down by 10. In the 4th quarter David says he’s ready to go back in. The good news is that we start to play our basketball game. We actually get the lead down to 6 at one point. However, we’re never able to get it closer than that. Our fast break offense had clicked, for the first time all game, and we were finding good shots on offense, partly thanks to some coaching on my part. But the baskets just don’t go in. And in the end we go down 26-16. To be honest while the margin of defeat doesn’t surprise me a whole lot, I am surprised we only managed 16 points. Our transition offense is normally just so good that we can score practically 16 points on that alone.

[Note: This is me typing far after the fact.] Funny thing happened in the 4th as well. Somehow after a time out we got 6 players in the game. I realized this, and not right away I’d add, when I only had two player sitting next to me on the bench. My first reaction was to get mad at the missing player for leaving the bench without my permission. That was when I looked at the court and realized we had six players in the game. I got the refs attention who let us score a basket as he tried to count our players. I kept point it out to him and he finally whistled the game to a stop. A player was pulled out and we got to keep our basket. I’m not quite sure how we got 6 players in the game in the first place but it had to have been my fault somehow.

After the game I pull the team together. We do a longer than normal post-game talk since there will be no practice again until after Winter Break. I really attempt to emphasize the importance of staying in shape over Winter Break and even hand out a log for them to record physical activities that they do. I don’t honestly expect more than 2 or 3, if that, to keep the log in any serious fashion, but it was just another way for me to emphasize the importance of staying in shape.

Taking a look at our players from the game:

Brian: Actually had the second most minutes on the team. He’d have had more until he started with the “you hate me” stuff again during the game and so I put him on the bench for a bad attitude. I really have to have a talk with about it since I don’t hate him, though clearly we need to work on some things between us.

Dante: Dante is just playing bad basketball. Now granted he was up against some really big guys but I don’t quite know what to do with him. He’s clearly trying hard out there and just coming up short. It’s times like this that I wish we had video so I could really take the time to analyze what he’s doing.

David: The other team’s assistant coach and I were talking after the game and one of things we talked about was what a talent David is. It’s hard not to recognize what a gifted player he is and I feel very fortunate to have him on the team. I think we’d still be a pretty good team with-out him, as our dismantling of HP, who appears to be above average, shows. However, I’m VERY happy that we do have him on the team.

Gordie: I let him have some crunch time minutes, as I feel players should get to experience all aspects of the game and will always try to have one of our end of the bench players in at crunch time so they get that kind of development. That said the kid needs to work on his shot selection and turnovers. He was 2 for 8 from the field, not actually a terrible shooting percentage at this age, but the real killer is the 7 turnovers he had. I set-up my stats spreadsheet to shoow stats/28 minutes (meaning if they played a full game) and Gordie has 11 turnovers/28 more twice as many as the next highest person.

Jack M: Jack also sat on the bench more than he might have otherwise due to some negative comments he made (about our ability to come back). As I have mentioned before he has a delicate psyche and so the music before the game really bothered him as did the poor reffing. I would go so far as to suggest it had an impact on his game play. Hopefully when he starts our next game some of the confidence will return.

Jack P: Did a good job of attempting to guard #3 despite being out matched. Gained some valuable experience as a PG. Jack had moved from Massachusetts over the summer and I learned before the game that there he played almost exclusively guard, which is obviously different from the forward/center positions I am asking of him. After giving him some time as guard I like him better in those other spots, which is nice considering that there are more minutes available there as well.

Lucas: He turned in another solid performance. He is clearly more comfortable the more chances he gets in our offense and at playing help defense. The stats that have been kept have really helped tune me into the little things he does much faster than if I just had to go off of observation.

Tom: Tom had a pretty good game. And he didn’t make any self-depreciating comments which was good.

Overall I’m glad we lost. It should hold off our getting too cocky which had been a concern of mine. And like I said after the MP2 game, we were never out of the game and it’s possible we could defeat this team were we to play them again.

My big concern is how in shape we come back from winter break. We have a BRUTAL schedule coming up. Our first practice back is January 8th. We have another practice on Friday. We then play MP, our competition for best in the league, on Saturday and WK, a team which is 1-3 thanks to its victory against one of the NF teams, on Sunday. Then we have no practice due to Martin Luther King Day and then we have at least three games in the tourney that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And then it looks like we might not be able to reschedule our Sunday game so we’d have a game then too. I still haven’t received word whether or not we got accepted into the A bracket, but I hope we did. So in some ways, with so much basketball, it’s good to be rested. But if we’re out of shape, oh am I dreading the game against MP. However, all this basketball is very exciting and I’m looking forward to what should be a fun couple of weeks.