Thursday's game was against my church's school's team. Size wise they are very comparable to us, but talent wise - at least the last two seasons - we are a couple steps ahead of them. When I set the game up I mentioned to their AD that we had a pretty good squad so we would not mind them having 9th graders suit up (since their school goes through 12th grade) and they agreed to do just that. It did not end up mattering too much.
We played 7 minute quarters (one more minute than we are used to, one less minute than high school games) which made the game feel much longer than normal (which made sense since it was 25% longer) and allowed extra minutes for guys to play. One of our starters missed practice the day before so he did not get to start, but our line-up needed only a minute or so to get into our rhythm. Once we got our first basket we were able to use our press to create a series of easy looks- though we missed a LOT of them- and we rolled to an 18-6 lead heading into the 2Q.
The next quarter we lost some steam due to our opponent settling in to the game plus our rotating through a couple line-up changes and continually missing point-blank shots. Even with the extra minutes we managed to stay out of foul trouble and won the 2Q 9-8 to take a 27-14 lead into half time. The third quarter was much of the same as the second, in that we were sluggish and they had a couple good series that allowed them to get a little momentum. The school just opened their gymnasium this year, so there is a lot of excitement about the facility. Thus, they had a good sized crowd on hand and at this point in the game their team started giving them something to get loud about. We did enough right, though, to lead 34-20 heading into the last quarter.
Typically, we jump on teams in the 3Q, but in this game we "decided" to wait until the fourth to do it. Eventually, we wore them down and - although we still missed an obscene amount - made a lot of lay-ups. We won the quarter 17-4 on our way to winning 51-24.
Overall, it was good to get so many minutes on a regulation sized floor. Defensively, we are very good when our press is clicking. Once other teams break it, we still have some work to do. Offensively, we are at our best when we are running and pushing the pace. When teams force us to work through our half court sets, we still do not run our most basic sets with high competence. The next three weekends are our big tournaments, how well we bear down and defend and play "our" game will determine whether or not we win anything of significance.
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Saturday night was our last conference game and the only thing standing between us and a perfect conference record and a regular season championship. Our opponent had one really good player and not a whole lot else. This was fortunate as three of our starters were in trouble - 2 of which I benched for the first quarter due to their behavior in one of our assistant's class.
We played the first quarter much like a team with 2 non-starters starting and one more starter starting for the first time this season (maybe ever for him). We were sluggish, slow and disorganized and actually lost the 1Q 9-8. At the start of the second quarter we had our regular starters in, but not much of a rhythm (which was understandable with two starters having to sit much longer than they were used to- kind of like what Rip Hamilton is now going through for the Pistons). Our press produced enough easy baskets to give us the lead 24-18 at half time.
Our biggest concern in the second half was to not allow our opponent to hang around, since teams that can stay within striking distance tend to build momentum believing they can win the game. We did not have our typical outburst in the third quarter but we did what we had to to win the quarter 14-4 and take a 38-22 lead into the fourth. The last quarter was typical for a game out of reach except for a tense 30 seconds when our lead (which had ballooned to almost 20) fell to 11 with our opponents shooting a free throw. I had to put our starters back in for a couple possessions to get the clock under 2 minutes and the lead back to over 15.
The game ended with one of our guards - who does not get a lot of minutes or shots - making a sweet spin move and nailing a jump shot as time expired to the great delight of the bench and his mom. We won the game 50-35 and the regular season conference championship with a 7-0 conference record. The conference tournament is next weekend and we have put ourselves in the best position possible to win that- if we have a good week of disciplined preparation.
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