10-2 and Our 2nd 2nd Place Trophy

This weekend our tournament was only about 6 blocks south and 4 blocks west of us at a local Lutheran school. It was a 10 team tournament and we were one of the two teams that had to await an early game to find out who our opponent was. We drew the host school, which is one of the two games that I was told last year (by my principal) that I must win (The other game is against our sister school). The host school was where my principal got his start in education and we still have several strong relationships with their staff. They (and our sister school) are probably the closest thing we have to a rivalry.

As I talked to other coaches leading up to the tournament and while at the tournament, it became apparent to me that our team had played several more games than most - if not all - of the participants. Some teams had played as few as 2 games before this weekend, while we had already played 9 (it would have been 10 if not for snow last Tuesday). This gave us an advantage since we have already - in theory - worked through many of our early season mistakes.

Last year when we played the host school, we jumped on them early, they rallied and then it was a decent game before we pulled away at the end. This year we repeated the first step (scoring the first 10 points of the game), but then we decided not to let this game play out the way last year's had gone.

One our opponent settled down in the first quarter they were able to run a few good sets and we lead 15-6 heading into the second quarter. The game stayed pretty much the same for the next six minutes and we took a 27-11 lead into the locker room. So far this season, the third quarter has predominantly been our quarter and we kept it so outscoring our opponent 14-6 on our way to a 41-17 lead with one quarter to go. The fourth was an even matched six minutes as the final score was 57-32.

*****

Our semi-final game was against last year's champion. This team is the only team not from a local school (they travel up from Illinois). Last year's squad gave us our first loss of the season and our only loss before Christmas. They bring a troop of kids (19 this year) and are the most organized and systemic middle school squad I have ever seen. Their talent level was down this year, but they still can throw any guy from the bench into the game and get exactly what the coach wants anyway.

It was evident from the first possession that their plan against us was to be deliberately patient as they ran through their offensive sets multiple times before even attempting their first shot. (Imagine the first game Gene Hackman coached in Hoosiers - only way more passes.) Our guys had probably never even seen a team do this before, let alone played against one doing it versus them. Their first possession took nearly two minutes off the clock before they scored, after which they came right at us with their typical hard nosed man-to-man defense. Our guys responded poorly and chose not to run our offense and abruptly turned it over. Back to defense again and more picks, passes and patience. When we did get the ball back it was more frustration and poor improvisation. With about 2 minutes to go we called a time-out trailing 4-0. We managed one basket - one basket - before the end of the quarter and trailed 8-2.

The second quarter was a near carbon copy of the first. Our opponent was dead set on working through every last cut and pass option of their offense before shooting. Defensively they were everywhere causing our boys nothing but headaches. We again found a way to get ONE basket, but also held them to just five points before our point guard hit a shot from just inside half court to close the gap to 13-7 before half time.

We made two adjustments at half time, the first was to get a seventh grader off our bench and into the game and the second was to tighten up our defense picking them up at 3/4 court. This - combined with our point guard waking up - allowed us to shut them out for the entire third quarter and lead 15-13 heading into the fourth. From there it was a fairly exciting game. With a little under two minutes to play, they hit a three pointer to take an 18-17 lead. We came out of our time-out and were stopped offensively. With just under a minute to go, our eighth grade forward - who has struggled up to now to understand our defensive concepts - found himself guarding his man out at half court. His man caught a pass and turned to face our guy with the ball right out in front of him. Our forward swatted the ball out of his hands, took it up court, switched sides and made the lay-up to pull us ahead 19-18. We got a stop on the following possession and then were fouled a couple times to get into bonus free throws. Out point guard made two to put us ahead 21-18. After taking a time-out our opponent set up a series of picks to free up their best three point shooter, but we had the perimeter blanketed and he air balled his attempt. Our point guard got the rebound and was fouled again. This time nerves took over and he front ended his first attempt. There was a scramble to get the rebound and our assistant (who keeps the book for us - meticulously) had us as getting the next jump ball- but the official score keeper did not. So, our opponent had the ball needing to go the length of the floor in less than 4 seconds with no time-outs and down by three. They ended up not even getting a shot off as we redirected their dribbling enough times to run the clock out and we were on to the championship with an ugly 21-18 victory.

*****

Our opponent in the championship round was a short, fast, good team. They only had one guy even 5'10" tall but they made up for their lack of size with a trapping defense and a lot of running. While our semi-final game was a deliberately slowed down game, the championship was the polar opposite.

The first quarter went about as well as we could expect it to, considering our opponent was a good team. They chose not to start out in their press and they had little difficulty breaking ours. Our top two scorers combined for 12 points and we lead 14-10 heading into the second.

We ran into some foul trouble in the second quarter as three of our starters picked up their second foul. I am of the conservative-Larry Brown approach when it comes to players and fouls. I always sit guys down for the rest of the first half when they get 2 fouls so as to have 3 to play with in the second. With a little over 3 minutes to go in the second, we were down by five and had only two starters on the floor with three reserves (one of which barely ever gets minutes). I was about to put my point guard back in - so as not to let the game get away from us - when the reserve guys started playing lock-down defense and our shooting guard hit some big shots. These elements allowed me to save all our guys in foul trouble and give us a little momentum heading into half time tied at 24.

The third quarter was played at a frantic pace and this ultimately proved to be a bad thing for us. Guys who were normally clutch for us were missing several easy baskets and as a result were too upset to play good defense. We managed a few good stops and a few good shots, but trailed 33-31 with one quarter to go.

At this point in the game it was clear to us that our bigs (center and power forward) were only hurting us as they proved incapable of using their size to our advantage, so we went with our smaller line-up for the rest of the game. The quarter was everything you would expect a championship fourth quarter to be between two evenly matched teams all the way down to a minute to go with the score tied. We were on defense and had a mental lapse leading to a lay-up and then on the ensuing inbound pass, our normally-good-at-making-decisions guard had his pass intercepted for another lay-up and a foul. We were now down 4 and took a time-out. Not out of the game yet, we regrouped and headed back out for the free throw. On a FT, the shooting team has two guys in addition to the shooter who are available to rebound and the other team (us in this situation) have four, leaving two guys to cover the shooter on the rebound. The shooter missed his free throw and, sure enough, got his own rebound. He made another bonus free throw, we squandered another possession and were forced to foul again. They made two free throws to lead by seven and we made a meaningless three pointer at the buzzer to cut the final margin to 46-42.

The loss was frustrating on so many levels.
- For two straight games we let our opponent dictate what kind of game we would play.
- Our bigs do not understand how to play as true post players.
- Our top two scorers missed, between them, thirteen lay-ups.
- For two straight games we failed to run offensive sets that we have been practicing since October, because our opponent played fierce defense.
- Our guys seem to really think they are something. They are athletic and have ability, no doubt, but - at this point - they do not understand that they need to work to be great. This is our biggest challenge with one week to go before Christmas break.

We still have 4 tournaments left this year, 2 of which are big tournaments. We are good enough to challenge for titles in all four, but our level of commitment and our attitudes are standing in our way, for now.