My first AD I ever coached under used to schedule numerous games for my teams, which I never had a problem with. However, I used to get frustrated with the games he would schedule on Monday's or back-to-back nights because it did not give me a chance to practice and meet with my teams before the game. After having read Phil Jackson's book (about the 2003-2004 Lakers), I have come to understand that my former AD was merely doing that to give our teams tests early in the season that will benefit them later when we are playing our big tournaments and then they will be playing back-to-back games in the same day and also in successive days. Last night's game was one that fit in this category.
Having come off of a big weekend where we played some great and not-so-great ball, it was understandable that we would not have our best stuff in Monday's practice nor in Tuesday's game. On top of that, our opponent last night was one of our tougher games last season (we took 2 out of 3 from them) and is one of the bigger schools we will face. (With our conference's realignment this past spring we are not in the same conference with the "big" schools, so I have had to try to schedule as many games with these schools as we can get.)
Our opponent had several BIG boys on their squad but no real point guard. Last year our 3/4 court press was very effective against this school so we jumped into it right away last night and saw similar results this time as well. We were sloppy the whole first quarter, but did enough right to lead 14-7 when it was over. Our power forward picked up 2 fouls in the first quarter, so he was on the bench the entire second quarter and was joined by our center just a couple minutes after the 2nd began. This forced me to use a couple guys from the bench that do not usually see action this early in a game. (On top of that, our second guard off the bench did not bring his shorts to the game so he was unavailable.) Our back-up center was as big as their center, so he was able to give us a solid 3+ minutes as we protected our bigs' foul situation.
We got more sloppy in the second quarter which came from getting lazy and not having the enthusiasm we needed to compete on the level we are capable of. Our opponents put together some good offensive sets against our line-up of starters and regular bench players. We lost the quarter 12-2 and found ourselves down 19-16 at the break.
Going into the "locker room" (school kitchen), I actually felt good knowing that we would get our bigs back with 6 fouls to go on them and no one else with more than 1 foul. Plus, with everyone back on the floor we could get back into our press. We started out the second half in our press and scored the first 8 points before their best player turned to his coach to tell him he was tired. (Incidentally, this was also the same moment when a dad from their crowd yelled to their coach that they needed some "fresh legs" in the game.) Their coach responded by subbing in two small guards who were not ready to face our press.
We were able to push the lead to double digits before they took a time-out and settled down. Coming out of the time-out we fell back into our bad habits and gave them back a few baskets before closing the quarter out strong to head into the fourth with a 30-22 lead.
The last quarter was everything I want in an early game like this. Intense crowd, intense action, and my guys doing enough to get the win. We hovered at a four point lead for most of the quarter with them cutting the lead to one basket with under 30 seconds, but we were able to break their press and actually make enough free throws to keep them from catching us as we won 44-38.
Overall, we did just enough right to win a sloppy game where it was clear we were still tired from the weekend. I am hoping this does not make our boys thing they are awesome when they win like this. It is my hope that it shows them that we are a good team that could be better if we bring a high level of focus and enthusiasm to every game. We'll be off for 5 days with the holiday and then back at it with an important week next week including a game with one of our closest rivals in our conference and an overnight tournament at my former school.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
3-1 With Some Hardware
One of the reasons that I was jazzed for our own tournament this year was because it gave our guys a chance to play some good teams in a tournament setting early in the season, and we got both Sunday evening.
Our opponent in the championship game demolished both of their first two opponents in the tournament. They had a strong first five that featured a beast of a center, two extremely good guards, and two other very good role players. We had a game plan ready and believed that our first five could hang with them if we played ball the way we are capable of playing.
We headed to our designated room at halftime of the 3rd place game with only 7 players present, four of which were our starters. We were going to make a couple minor adjustments to offensive and defensive sets we had worked on, so it was a little bit troubling that our forward was not present. Before I could get into our game plan, I had to get on a few of our guys who were fully dressed but still wearing sandals instead of their shoes. In this exchange my shooting guard (who often has words for me), decided to tell me how he really felt about my asking him to be ready for a championship game. So, I told him he would not be playing the first quarter. We were now down to 3 starters present and ready to hear the game plan. Not quite the way I wanted to get ready for a game. Fortunately, within five minutes our forward showed up and our shooting guard apologized in front of the team. (I changed his punishment from a quarter to two minutes)
We started the game out sloppily, just as we had the previous game. This team was too good to come out flat against and we immediately found ourselves in a 7-0 hole. We settled down, regrouped and were able to put together a decent run to close the gap to 11-10 at the end of the first quarter, and we would never be that close again.
The second quarter was a mess. The officials were impossible to figure out. They allowed very physical play on the ball from defenders but not down low when two or three guys were defending a shot or going for a rebound. We made several key mistakes but also could not get back on track after a series of calls that went against us. We lost the quarter 19-2 and trailed 30-12 at the half. We made a couple adjustments to our offense and everyone of our boys was convinced we could still win the game.
The third quarter started out with more of the same. Our opponent made good plays, we made some mistakes and the officials continued to confound me. At one point one official told me that I needed to pay better attention to our offense because that was where my boys were failing the most. This started to light a fire under our guys and we immediately rattled off 8 straight points to cut the lead to 11. But then our point guard got called for traveling and our rally was over. We were down 18 at the end of 3 quarters and ended up losing 61-35.
- Offensively our bigs still do not understand what we are asking from them.
- Defensively they are not much further along.
- We were also totally lost on both ends when our shooting guard (who went 6/9 from behind the arc) was not on the floor.
- The modified offense that we used in the second half is something that we could easily incorporate into our sets from this point forward.
- Overall, I think the two intense games we played will serve us well going forward from here.
Our opponent in the championship game demolished both of their first two opponents in the tournament. They had a strong first five that featured a beast of a center, two extremely good guards, and two other very good role players. We had a game plan ready and believed that our first five could hang with them if we played ball the way we are capable of playing.
We headed to our designated room at halftime of the 3rd place game with only 7 players present, four of which were our starters. We were going to make a couple minor adjustments to offensive and defensive sets we had worked on, so it was a little bit troubling that our forward was not present. Before I could get into our game plan, I had to get on a few of our guys who were fully dressed but still wearing sandals instead of their shoes. In this exchange my shooting guard (who often has words for me), decided to tell me how he really felt about my asking him to be ready for a championship game. So, I told him he would not be playing the first quarter. We were now down to 3 starters present and ready to hear the game plan. Not quite the way I wanted to get ready for a game. Fortunately, within five minutes our forward showed up and our shooting guard apologized in front of the team. (I changed his punishment from a quarter to two minutes)
We started the game out sloppily, just as we had the previous game. This team was too good to come out flat against and we immediately found ourselves in a 7-0 hole. We settled down, regrouped and were able to put together a decent run to close the gap to 11-10 at the end of the first quarter, and we would never be that close again.
The second quarter was a mess. The officials were impossible to figure out. They allowed very physical play on the ball from defenders but not down low when two or three guys were defending a shot or going for a rebound. We made several key mistakes but also could not get back on track after a series of calls that went against us. We lost the quarter 19-2 and trailed 30-12 at the half. We made a couple adjustments to our offense and everyone of our boys was convinced we could still win the game.
The third quarter started out with more of the same. Our opponent made good plays, we made some mistakes and the officials continued to confound me. At one point one official told me that I needed to pay better attention to our offense because that was where my boys were failing the most. This started to light a fire under our guys and we immediately rattled off 8 straight points to cut the lead to 11. But then our point guard got called for traveling and our rally was over. We were down 18 at the end of 3 quarters and ended up losing 61-35.
- Offensively our bigs still do not understand what we are asking from them.
- Defensively they are not much further along.
- We were also totally lost on both ends when our shooting guard (who went 6/9 from behind the arc) was not on the floor.
- The modified offense that we used in the second half is something that we could easily incorporate into our sets from this point forward.
- Overall, I think the two intense games we played will serve us well going forward from here.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
3-0
This weekend is our school's first ever invitational tournament. Our high school is hosting it and we invited community schools that have similar educational and/or Christian philosophies as we do. It is our hope that the schools participating (none of which have their own high schools) would eventually see our high school as "their" high school.
As of 6:30pm last night we had 8 schools signed up and ready to go. As of 6:31pm we had only 7 and the school that dropped out was our first round opponent. Our boys thought that was cool, but as a coach I would have rather had the game. So, we had a bye into the semi-finals.
Our opponent won their first round game fairly easily and featured one player that our high school coaches thought might be worth pursuing and a pretty good point guard, plus several other role players. Like most city schools they preferred to run and play a trapping-style defense to create more opportunities to run. Offensively they did not really run sets and/or plays, just gave their two best players opportunities to create shots for themselves. Their best player was big enough and athletic enough to play any position on the floor. Our two best players, however, matched up well with these two guys and left us with a couple advantages in the other match-ups.
Originally thinking we were going to play at 9am, we scheduled breakfast at my house for 7:30. We ate pancakes, bacon and sausage and then headed to the high school for an extended warm-up/shoot around, since our game was canceled. The "first" game of the tournament was then at 10:15 and our boys sat and walked around until our 3:30pm game. That is a long time to ask middle school boys to stay "game ready"- thus we started out slow. Our inability to make shots from right in front of the hoop was killing us as we fell behind early 12-4. Their two stars we getting good looks and not missing, yet we were able to string a couple steals together and close the gap to 12-9 at the end of the first period.
The second quarter we played HOPE ball. Our guards were getting great penetration on their zone and hitting our bigs with sweet passes that got us easy buckets over and over again as we rallied to take the lead for the first time. As we were starting our run, our opponents inexplicably brought a line-up on the floor that did not include their point guard and - briefly - their star. We immediately went into our 3/4 court press and started to blow it open. They did not score their first point(s) until 2 minutes were left in the half. We won the second quarter 19-3 on our way to a 28-15 half time lead.
We were doing all the little things well, which accounted for their stars being totally knocked out of their game. Mostly, it was our guys starting to buy into our philosophy of solid, team, helping man-to-man defense combined with our guys love for and ability to fast break and hit open guys for easy baskets that put us in a great position with half of the game left.
The third quarter we managed to increase our lead by 3 with more of the same solid defense and timely shots. We lead 40-24 with one quarter to play and started the fourth by extending the lead to 20. At this point I began subbing guys out one or two at at time when I saw their coach bringing in his bench. But then he started bringing his stars back in and they were eating up my bench, so I was forced to answer with our best guys until there was not enough time for us to lose our lead. It was totally frustrating because we both could have thrown our benches out there for a good 4+ minutes and enjoyed it, but no.
So, tomorrow we play in the championship against a team with a BIG fella at center and two GOOD guards and two more good role players. We both feature a solid starting five- it looks to be a good match-up.
*****
As the tournament co-chair person, I was at the school all day and sat next to the scorer's table to help the high school students run the clock and official score book and be available to help defuse any small "fires".
The "highlight" of the day for me came early in the morning when one school had their entire team present, but no coach. He finally shows up with 6 minutes on the clock before his game. I show them to their classroom to change and he leans in to tell me that they do not have any uniforms. Three days ago our semi-final opponents called to tell me the same, so I had a set of YMCA practice jerseys for them to wear. I also had about 7 more on hand so I found them and gave them to the team with no jerseys. The only problem was that they had 15 players. So, here I am in their classroom, surrounded by 12, 13, 14 year-old boys in white t-shirts and A-shirts, putting pieces of masking tape on the front and back of their shirts and writing numbers on them in Sharpie! Only in the City!
As of 6:30pm last night we had 8 schools signed up and ready to go. As of 6:31pm we had only 7 and the school that dropped out was our first round opponent. Our boys thought that was cool, but as a coach I would have rather had the game. So, we had a bye into the semi-finals.
Our opponent won their first round game fairly easily and featured one player that our high school coaches thought might be worth pursuing and a pretty good point guard, plus several other role players. Like most city schools they preferred to run and play a trapping-style defense to create more opportunities to run. Offensively they did not really run sets and/or plays, just gave their two best players opportunities to create shots for themselves. Their best player was big enough and athletic enough to play any position on the floor. Our two best players, however, matched up well with these two guys and left us with a couple advantages in the other match-ups.
Originally thinking we were going to play at 9am, we scheduled breakfast at my house for 7:30. We ate pancakes, bacon and sausage and then headed to the high school for an extended warm-up/shoot around, since our game was canceled. The "first" game of the tournament was then at 10:15 and our boys sat and walked around until our 3:30pm game. That is a long time to ask middle school boys to stay "game ready"- thus we started out slow. Our inability to make shots from right in front of the hoop was killing us as we fell behind early 12-4. Their two stars we getting good looks and not missing, yet we were able to string a couple steals together and close the gap to 12-9 at the end of the first period.
The second quarter we played HOPE ball. Our guards were getting great penetration on their zone and hitting our bigs with sweet passes that got us easy buckets over and over again as we rallied to take the lead for the first time. As we were starting our run, our opponents inexplicably brought a line-up on the floor that did not include their point guard and - briefly - their star. We immediately went into our 3/4 court press and started to blow it open. They did not score their first point(s) until 2 minutes were left in the half. We won the second quarter 19-3 on our way to a 28-15 half time lead.
We were doing all the little things well, which accounted for their stars being totally knocked out of their game. Mostly, it was our guys starting to buy into our philosophy of solid, team, helping man-to-man defense combined with our guys love for and ability to fast break and hit open guys for easy baskets that put us in a great position with half of the game left.
The third quarter we managed to increase our lead by 3 with more of the same solid defense and timely shots. We lead 40-24 with one quarter to play and started the fourth by extending the lead to 20. At this point I began subbing guys out one or two at at time when I saw their coach bringing in his bench. But then he started bringing his stars back in and they were eating up my bench, so I was forced to answer with our best guys until there was not enough time for us to lose our lead. It was totally frustrating because we both could have thrown our benches out there for a good 4+ minutes and enjoyed it, but no.
So, tomorrow we play in the championship against a team with a BIG fella at center and two GOOD guards and two more good role players. We both feature a solid starting five- it looks to be a good match-up.
*****
As the tournament co-chair person, I was at the school all day and sat next to the scorer's table to help the high school students run the clock and official score book and be available to help defuse any small "fires".
The "highlight" of the day for me came early in the morning when one school had their entire team present, but no coach. He finally shows up with 6 minutes on the clock before his game. I show them to their classroom to change and he leans in to tell me that they do not have any uniforms. Three days ago our semi-final opponents called to tell me the same, so I had a set of YMCA practice jerseys for them to wear. I also had about 7 more on hand so I found them and gave them to the team with no jerseys. The only problem was that they had 15 players. So, here I am in their classroom, surrounded by 12, 13, 14 year-old boys in white t-shirts and A-shirts, putting pieces of masking tape on the front and back of their shirts and writing numbers on them in Sharpie! Only in the City!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
2-0
Last night featured two things that I have never been a part of in coaching- the first involved our offensive ineptitude and the second with the environment and behaviors of the fans and players at the game.
Our opponent last night was a team we played and beat last year. The thing I remember most about that game was the loud crowd they had and how much I enjoyed the atmosphere from a coaching/competitor standpoint. This year it was just as loud, but not enjoyable.
We started the game out by missing our first four shots, all 3 feet or less away from the hoop. We managed to get past that, though, and score a couple baskets and jump into our 3/4 court press- and we had our press working! We had their offense totally disrupted and were getting easy lay-ups on our way to an 11-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.
We started the second quarter where we left off the first scoring a quick easy bucket, and then our shooting guard (and focal point of our press) picked up a cheap second foul. As soon as he came out of the game we lost the momentum we had built through our press and our offense became stagnant. The rest of the quarter was ugly and we lead 16-9 at half time.
We felt good about things because we would put our shooting guard back in the line-up to start the half right back in our press and we should have been able to blow the game open just like in our first game. However, the SG picked up a quick third foul and came back out immediately. The rest of the third quarter was more of the second with our offense resembling more of a lunch time game than one we have been working on for four weeks. Defensively, our guys were unable to stop their guards from penetrating and our big men have not fully grasped the concept of help-defense we have been preaching and working on for almost a month now. Our opponent had the ball for the final possession of the quarter and could have taken their first lead, but we managed one good stop and found ourselves up by only one point, 20-19, heading into the final quarter.
Even with our full line-up on the floor, the momentum we handed to the home team was proving a lot for us to overcome. But, our SG played smarter, our bigs came up with a couple good rebounds, and our PG was able to get to the basket for a couple easy buckets that propelled us to a 12 point lead with under 2 minutes left. The last minute was a series of desperate shots from them and missed free throws by us, but we held on for a 37-27 win.
When I got the scorebook from one of our assistants I saw that our PG and our SG were the only guys to score! Those two guys had scored all 37 of our points. In retrospect, nobody else on the squad (of the seven that played) even came close to putting the ball in the basket.
The good news was that we won in a hostile, rowdy environment and we learned who our real on-court leader is. On the negative: Our big men were absolutely absent. No points, a couple rebounds, and zero real defense. Only one guy truly was unfazed by the environment, two that were able to function productively. The other guys were in over their heads in regards to having poise in pressure situation- which actually was a very good experience for them this early in the season. This, hopefully, helps us out later (even this weekend) when we have tense games trying to win trophies.
Our opponent last night was a team we played and beat last year. The thing I remember most about that game was the loud crowd they had and how much I enjoyed the atmosphere from a coaching/competitor standpoint. This year it was just as loud, but not enjoyable.
We started the game out by missing our first four shots, all 3 feet or less away from the hoop. We managed to get past that, though, and score a couple baskets and jump into our 3/4 court press- and we had our press working! We had their offense totally disrupted and were getting easy lay-ups on our way to an 11-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.
We started the second quarter where we left off the first scoring a quick easy bucket, and then our shooting guard (and focal point of our press) picked up a cheap second foul. As soon as he came out of the game we lost the momentum we had built through our press and our offense became stagnant. The rest of the quarter was ugly and we lead 16-9 at half time.
We felt good about things because we would put our shooting guard back in the line-up to start the half right back in our press and we should have been able to blow the game open just like in our first game. However, the SG picked up a quick third foul and came back out immediately. The rest of the third quarter was more of the second with our offense resembling more of a lunch time game than one we have been working on for four weeks. Defensively, our guys were unable to stop their guards from penetrating and our big men have not fully grasped the concept of help-defense we have been preaching and working on for almost a month now. Our opponent had the ball for the final possession of the quarter and could have taken their first lead, but we managed one good stop and found ourselves up by only one point, 20-19, heading into the final quarter.
Even with our full line-up on the floor, the momentum we handed to the home team was proving a lot for us to overcome. But, our SG played smarter, our bigs came up with a couple good rebounds, and our PG was able to get to the basket for a couple easy buckets that propelled us to a 12 point lead with under 2 minutes left. The last minute was a series of desperate shots from them and missed free throws by us, but we held on for a 37-27 win.
When I got the scorebook from one of our assistants I saw that our PG and our SG were the only guys to score! Those two guys had scored all 37 of our points. In retrospect, nobody else on the squad (of the seven that played) even came close to putting the ball in the basket.
The good news was that we won in a hostile, rowdy environment and we learned who our real on-court leader is. On the negative: Our big men were absolutely absent. No points, a couple rebounds, and zero real defense. Only one guy truly was unfazed by the environment, two that were able to function productively. The other guys were in over their heads in regards to having poise in pressure situation- which actually was a very good experience for them this early in the season. This, hopefully, helps us out later (even this weekend) when we have tense games trying to win trophies.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
1-0
This week started out not so awesome. Not even 15 minutes into Monday's practice I had to send home one of our 8th graders (a major contributor) because his attitude and effort stunk. This episode highlighted my biggest problem with the team so far- I cannot settle on 5 guys to start for us that represent what we want our program to be about. So, with our first game looming I graded each guy on our ABC's - Academics, Behavior, Character and on how much they could help the team basketball-wise. I introduced our starters Tuesday and went to work from there.
Wednesday during the day I was informed that a mother of one of our 7th graders (a potential starter down the road) was pulling her son from the team because of his behavior and grades. This represents one of the things I strongly dislike about coaching middle school teams. First, I have to totally agree with a parent of a 12 year old who says that she needs to clamp down on her son's foolishness. He's 12 years old and if he does not get serious now, he might not learn his lesson until it is too late. Also, middle school parents tend to be very reactive with grades and such and often choose not to let the athletic department (ie. me) go through our probation and suspension steps to deal with kids and their grades. Alas, he is off the team unless he makes some changes (unlikely) or Mom has a change of heart (also unlikely).
Thursday rolled around and brought with it our first game of the season, but not without some drama first. A 7th grader built up a hefty quote writing punishment from Wednesday and he and I agreed that if it was not finished by Thursday morning, he could not suit up Thursday night. He did not have it finished. Down to 9 on the roster.
More disconcerting was my shooting guard- a major contributor on our squad. He was so jacked up for the game he wore his black compression shirt under his school shirt and it was clearly visible- a no-no in our handbook. Being the Dean with Super Powers to detect the slightest bit of non-compliance with our standards, I saw his shirt and asked him to take it off (like I do EVERY other student who wears a non-white undershirt that is easy to see). He refused. Again and again. When I confronted him on it later in the morning he snapped on me, calling our rules "ignorant". (Oh, the irony that middle school kids will never understand when they mis-use a word but demonstrate the meaning of a word in their mis-use of the word!) Our "conversation" culminated with my saying, "Maybe you should just go home," to which he replied, "Fine." And then went upstairs, got his gear bag, gave me his jersey and warm-ups and then went to my office and waited for me to call his dad to pick him up. In what had to be a God-ordained moment, Dad was at work. My player ripped a paper, punched a divider in my office, violently rubbed his head, sat silently for 5 minutes and then wrote the quotes I gave him. 90 minutes later he was good to go back to class, but not before he apologized for the incident. My entire relationship with this boy was spelled out in 2.5 hours. The highs and the lows. Man, I love my job! (Most days.)
We actually had very little trouble getting to the game - except for the accident that sent us down another side highway. (One of our assistant coaches this year grew up in Milwaukee so he had an alternate route ready to go via the cell phone, nice.) We got to the school at 5:15 to watch the girls' game at 5:30. Our girls only had 5 players eligible to play and 2 were late. The game started 15 minutes late and our girls' valiantly got whooped. With only one returning player from last year, the past couple of weeks have been difficult. They look to only get better from here on out.
Our game, however, was another story. Being the first game of the year, with a mish-mash starting line-up I expected to not be awesome from the jump- and we weren't. We stumbled our way to being down 10-8 at the end of the first quarter. Our offense was stagnant against their zone and our guys were not playing defense like we had taught them. The second quarter was more of the same, but we started to get better offensive possessions and some steals. We missed several lay-ups and close in shots but managed to lead 20-18 going into the break. Going into the locker room our 6'2" center had only one basket and our best all-around player had zero points.
At half time we decided to come out in our 2-2-1 zone press that worked so well for us last year. It appears it will do so also this year. A minute into the second half we lead 22-20 but got two straight 3 point shots to extend the lead to eight. One guy in our press did not really know what he was doing, but we were forcing them into enough turn-overs to pull out to a 16 point lead. We needed a couple subs at the end of the quarter to get a couple guys a break and our lead fell to 12 at the end of the 3rd quarter.
The 4th quarter, however, we turned it back up and ran away with a 58-30 victory. I was able to get our four bench players 3+ minutes at the end and all of them got some good looks at the basket, even though they did not all score.
Our opponents were really close to matching our size and had one fairly good player. They also had a really good offensive set that involved several good picks and cuts and they ran it well. Ultimately, our press disrupted this and forced them to play our tempo and style. Defensively their zone was really lazy and left our jump shooters open frequently for whatever shot they wanted.
I was troubled by our conditioning, guys were very tired at multiple moments of the game- we will need to put more emphasis on this next week. Also, our center finished the game with only 2 points. Part of that was because he plays all the way back on our press and does not get into the action when we get steals, but when we were on offense he did not get involved enough. Our guards chose not to rebound either. In games like this, we got away with these lazy tendencies, but they will need to be addressed as we go forward.
The game was fun to be a part of - good crowd, intense action, big margin of victory - and it helped the new guys finally get to see how we do what we do. Our next game is Tuesday and then we host our own tournament next weekend.
GO TIGERS!
Wednesday during the day I was informed that a mother of one of our 7th graders (a potential starter down the road) was pulling her son from the team because of his behavior and grades. This represents one of the things I strongly dislike about coaching middle school teams. First, I have to totally agree with a parent of a 12 year old who says that she needs to clamp down on her son's foolishness. He's 12 years old and if he does not get serious now, he might not learn his lesson until it is too late. Also, middle school parents tend to be very reactive with grades and such and often choose not to let the athletic department (ie. me) go through our probation and suspension steps to deal with kids and their grades. Alas, he is off the team unless he makes some changes (unlikely) or Mom has a change of heart (also unlikely).
Thursday rolled around and brought with it our first game of the season, but not without some drama first. A 7th grader built up a hefty quote writing punishment from Wednesday and he and I agreed that if it was not finished by Thursday morning, he could not suit up Thursday night. He did not have it finished. Down to 9 on the roster.
More disconcerting was my shooting guard- a major contributor on our squad. He was so jacked up for the game he wore his black compression shirt under his school shirt and it was clearly visible- a no-no in our handbook. Being the Dean with Super Powers to detect the slightest bit of non-compliance with our standards, I saw his shirt and asked him to take it off (like I do EVERY other student who wears a non-white undershirt that is easy to see). He refused. Again and again. When I confronted him on it later in the morning he snapped on me, calling our rules "ignorant". (Oh, the irony that middle school kids will never understand when they mis-use a word but demonstrate the meaning of a word in their mis-use of the word!) Our "conversation" culminated with my saying, "Maybe you should just go home," to which he replied, "Fine." And then went upstairs, got his gear bag, gave me his jersey and warm-ups and then went to my office and waited for me to call his dad to pick him up. In what had to be a God-ordained moment, Dad was at work. My player ripped a paper, punched a divider in my office, violently rubbed his head, sat silently for 5 minutes and then wrote the quotes I gave him. 90 minutes later he was good to go back to class, but not before he apologized for the incident. My entire relationship with this boy was spelled out in 2.5 hours. The highs and the lows. Man, I love my job! (Most days.)
We actually had very little trouble getting to the game - except for the accident that sent us down another side highway. (One of our assistant coaches this year grew up in Milwaukee so he had an alternate route ready to go via the cell phone, nice.) We got to the school at 5:15 to watch the girls' game at 5:30. Our girls only had 5 players eligible to play and 2 were late. The game started 15 minutes late and our girls' valiantly got whooped. With only one returning player from last year, the past couple of weeks have been difficult. They look to only get better from here on out.
Our game, however, was another story. Being the first game of the year, with a mish-mash starting line-up I expected to not be awesome from the jump- and we weren't. We stumbled our way to being down 10-8 at the end of the first quarter. Our offense was stagnant against their zone and our guys were not playing defense like we had taught them. The second quarter was more of the same, but we started to get better offensive possessions and some steals. We missed several lay-ups and close in shots but managed to lead 20-18 going into the break. Going into the locker room our 6'2" center had only one basket and our best all-around player had zero points.
At half time we decided to come out in our 2-2-1 zone press that worked so well for us last year. It appears it will do so also this year. A minute into the second half we lead 22-20 but got two straight 3 point shots to extend the lead to eight. One guy in our press did not really know what he was doing, but we were forcing them into enough turn-overs to pull out to a 16 point lead. We needed a couple subs at the end of the quarter to get a couple guys a break and our lead fell to 12 at the end of the 3rd quarter.
The 4th quarter, however, we turned it back up and ran away with a 58-30 victory. I was able to get our four bench players 3+ minutes at the end and all of them got some good looks at the basket, even though they did not all score.
Our opponents were really close to matching our size and had one fairly good player. They also had a really good offensive set that involved several good picks and cuts and they ran it well. Ultimately, our press disrupted this and forced them to play our tempo and style. Defensively their zone was really lazy and left our jump shooters open frequently for whatever shot they wanted.
I was troubled by our conditioning, guys were very tired at multiple moments of the game- we will need to put more emphasis on this next week. Also, our center finished the game with only 2 points. Part of that was because he plays all the way back on our press and does not get into the action when we get steals, but when we were on offense he did not get involved enough. Our guards chose not to rebound either. In games like this, we got away with these lazy tendencies, but they will need to be addressed as we go forward.
The game was fun to be a part of - good crowd, intense action, big margin of victory - and it helped the new guys finally get to see how we do what we do. Our next game is Tuesday and then we host our own tournament next weekend.
GO TIGERS!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Week Three Thoughts
MONDAY - No school today, but we had practice and it was probably our best of the season. 10 of the 11 'A' guys showed up and they brought their 'A' attitudes and effort. I am really pleased with how the guys are picking up our defensive concepts so far. Last year we were blessed with the best player I have ever coached along with a couple big guys and a couple good shooters, thus we won a lot of games on our ability and athleticism. By the end of the year, when we were playing our hardest competition, we showed that we had not worked hard enough on defense and defensive concepts. This year it is my aim to make sure we are solid on D and so far, so good. I also got some good work out of one of our post players that will have to be a part of our plans whether or not our center gets medical clearance.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY - Not much to report other than a lot of the same. We are ready for a game which is supposed to sort of happen tomorrow with a tentatively scheduled scrimmage with a local AAU team. The guys are still struggling with our expectations for them as young men on and off the court.
THURSDAY - No scrimmage, the other team never got back to us. Instead we ran through some warm-up drills and then ran 4-on-4 for an hour. (Our gym is regulation length but the width is about 3-4 feet too thin on each side due to the walls that are there.) I got some GREAT news during the scrimmage when our 6'2" center called me from the doctor's office and said he had been cleared to play ball again. So, what we learned from letting the guys go a little...
Our starting five is going to be good. We have the aforementioned center who will no doubt face maybe 2 or 3 players his size all season, if not less. Our shooting guard is really good at shooting. We have an 8th grader who can play any of our 5 positions and play them well. We have a guard returning from last year who understands what I want and am trying to do better than almost any player I have had in 7 seasons. We have a 7th grade point guard who will be able to run the show against most of our opponents and should get better as the season goes on. (If he can't our multi-position guy can easily be our point). These five will make a very good first unit. Defensively they are aggressive (not good for the two suburban tournaments we are going to- but great for the rest of the season in the city). Once we get our 2-2-1 zone press in place, these guys will be tough to get past.
We have 2 good subs. One is a 5'9ish" 8th grader that is raw in his skill set, but he is wicked fast, can JUMP and has shown brief flashes of athleticism that made my assistant and I look at one another and grin. If he can listen and learn and grow mechanically he will get plenty of minutes and maybe get some starts for a line up change occasionally. The other probable regular sub is a seventh grader who physically makes me think of Tayshaun Prince. Standing at maybe 5'7" his wingspan is easily 6'. He - like many 7th graders I have coached before - is in the midst of that awful adolescent span when your body will not cooperate with much of what you want to do. However, his basketball IQ is great for a 7th grader. Defensively, he really is tracking with what we are trying to do. He will be great for getting the starters extended minutes of rest.
Of the next 5-7 guys, a couple might fight for some minutes but really should see their best minutes in games we put away early and there should be enough of those.
Our first game is 6 days away and we are ready. We will not have our team shoe since guys are dragging their heels getting me the money, but everything else should be in order to get the game season underway the right way.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY - Not much to report other than a lot of the same. We are ready for a game which is supposed to sort of happen tomorrow with a tentatively scheduled scrimmage with a local AAU team. The guys are still struggling with our expectations for them as young men on and off the court.
THURSDAY - No scrimmage, the other team never got back to us. Instead we ran through some warm-up drills and then ran 4-on-4 for an hour. (Our gym is regulation length but the width is about 3-4 feet too thin on each side due to the walls that are there.) I got some GREAT news during the scrimmage when our 6'2" center called me from the doctor's office and said he had been cleared to play ball again. So, what we learned from letting the guys go a little...
Our starting five is going to be good. We have the aforementioned center who will no doubt face maybe 2 or 3 players his size all season, if not less. Our shooting guard is really good at shooting. We have an 8th grader who can play any of our 5 positions and play them well. We have a guard returning from last year who understands what I want and am trying to do better than almost any player I have had in 7 seasons. We have a 7th grade point guard who will be able to run the show against most of our opponents and should get better as the season goes on. (If he can't our multi-position guy can easily be our point). These five will make a very good first unit. Defensively they are aggressive (not good for the two suburban tournaments we are going to- but great for the rest of the season in the city). Once we get our 2-2-1 zone press in place, these guys will be tough to get past.
We have 2 good subs. One is a 5'9ish" 8th grader that is raw in his skill set, but he is wicked fast, can JUMP and has shown brief flashes of athleticism that made my assistant and I look at one another and grin. If he can listen and learn and grow mechanically he will get plenty of minutes and maybe get some starts for a line up change occasionally. The other probable regular sub is a seventh grader who physically makes me think of Tayshaun Prince. Standing at maybe 5'7" his wingspan is easily 6'. He - like many 7th graders I have coached before - is in the midst of that awful adolescent span when your body will not cooperate with much of what you want to do. However, his basketball IQ is great for a 7th grader. Defensively, he really is tracking with what we are trying to do. He will be great for getting the starters extended minutes of rest.
Of the next 5-7 guys, a couple might fight for some minutes but really should see their best minutes in games we put away early and there should be enough of those.
Our first game is 6 days away and we are ready. We will not have our team shoe since guys are dragging their heels getting me the money, but everything else should be in order to get the game season underway the right way.
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