GL Practice

I got to practice 15 minutes early and there wasn’t a kid in sight. In fact the first kid, Jack M, showed up about 6 minutes before practice began. Then, all of a sudden, the whole team was there, except Andrew (who was late again). When it looked like the team was all going to be late, I was awfully tempted to name everyone who as at practice on time starters for Sunday’s game.

After the overview of the practice, we went into continuous motion, similar to the one I did with the HP team last Saturday. Their shooting, overall, looked quite good. In particular Scott looked good, as did Andrew (after the first minute or two and he relaxed). Jack M, on the other hand, cramped up early on. He did push through it, which was nice to see versus last year when he would just give up in continuous motion. Jack P, looked as smooth as ever in what he did, but couldn’t make a shot to save his life. After continuous motion I had them shoot their two free throws. And this is where the Discontent of David settled in. He went 0 for 2 in his free throws. He has not been shooting well, overall, in his free throws. This is not good considering David will likely get more “in game practice” then any other player on the team. David was clearly unhappy with how he did there. I talked to him some to try and reassure him, but didn’t do a good job as he played unhappily the rest of practice.

After this, I used a no dribble scrimmage to work on our floor spacing and offense. They actually did so well with this, that rather than doing the shell drill, we continued to scrimmage, with dribbling only being allowed in the front court. Of course as soon as I announced this the defense went down the drain. However, overall they did a good job with trapping, and even doing a little encouraging of getting the ball to the corner. I would like to see us collapse a little more when they get into our house. After this it was time for two more free throws.

We then practiced our in bounds play. I am cautious optimistic about it since: A. They ran it correctly, versus last year when they never seemed to run it correctly. And B. Even knowing what the play was, we were still getting some looks.

We then played a few games of golf, from different spots on the floor. I had the last game be from behind the 3 point line, to emphasize how many more shots are missed from there. Where as teams were regularly getting 2 or 3 in a row from the first two spots, no team ever strung together more than 2 from the three point line, and that happened only once.

After this we did some of our 3 on 3 switch drill. They continue to do a good job of communicating pick-ups here. It was then speech time as I talked about our first game. I’m not real happy with how I said what I said, so I’m going to say it on Sunday in a better manner. Overall, I had been focusing on team skills and getting us ready, at the expense of fundamentals, these first few practices. I feel like our new players are fairly well integrated into our structure at this point, which is good. I think we’re ready for MP on Sunday. I don’t know if we’re ready for some of the new teams, such as EV, but I predict a solid victory come Sunday.

Unfortunately I’m still not sure where I stand with starters. I had toyed with the idea of doing something radical, such as making Lucas or Scott our starting point guard. However, in an effort to mitigate (unsuccessfully I’ll add) the Discontent of David, I named David our likely starting point guard talking about his ability to handle the ball well. I worry now that this only added to the Discontent as he heard extra pressure rather than praise. I think I’m going to have a pretty frank talk with him asking how I can help him giving him a few different ways I might do that.

So we have David starting at point. Justin will be starting at center and Scott will be in the line-up as well. Lucas is one of the 5 best on the team, but I kind of want to keep in him in reserve to give us a good spark with the first substitution group, and might even insert him at point there. If it’s a close game, however, he’ll be in there at the end of it. I’m really tempted to put Dante in as he’s been playing really well in practice, with the exception of his foot still slowing him down some. But that also causes substitution pattern problems as it would mean I would have both of my big guys out there at the start. Dante is likely capable of playing through the first quarter without a rest, however, so the idea of going big is tempting. Brian redeemed himself with some good defense last night and so I’m tempted to forgive him his bad drill in Animal Rebounding from last week. The group of Brian, Dante, David, Justin, and Scott is one which makes us “big” (as Scott continues to be able to play far above what his height and weight would indicate). So as of now that’s my starting five. I absolutely might change this between now and Sunday.