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.