This weekend was our conference's tournament. Having finished the regular season 7-0 we were the #1 seed. Using a traditional bracket we drew the #8 seed in our first round game. When we played this team during the regular season we won 56-13 using two five man line-ups that basically split the game time 50-50. This time around my plan was to let our starters start the game and the third quarter, get their points and get minutes for our bench guys. For the first two minutes, it looked like our starters did not even want to be in the gym as we actually trailed 4-0. We settled down and scored the next 40 points though leading 16-4 at the end of the 1Q, 36-4 at halftime, and 51-7 at the end of the 3Q on the way to winning 68-13. Highlights of the game were 1) scoring the most points in a game this season even with a running clock for the entire second half and 2) our least used player (our very own "Rudy") was actually our high scorer with 13 points. He simply could not miss. His made shots included one 3 pointer and a couple head-fakes + one dribble + shot- just like we practice. Everyone on the team and - especially his mother - was pretty jacked for his "coming out" game. It was a good way to start the tournament.
*****
Our semi-final game was against the #4 seed whom we had previously beaten by only 5. In that game, we were up by 22 points in the fourth quarter before sleep walking and holding on at the end to win. The have a couple guys who rebound and run well, but they are driven by their best player who is a stocky 61" and dribbles well and attacks the basket well. Last time we contained him with our best all-round player and our 6'2" center.
The tournament, to this point, had played out anything but normal. In the first round the #6 seed shocked the #3 seed with a 3-pointer at the buzzer to win and then turned around and beat the #2 seed in their semi-final to advance to the championship game. This did not matter much to us since we have beaten them (and the #2 seed) by 20+ in the regular season. If we could handle our business we looked to be able to claim our championship the next day. And then our best all-round player inexplicably did not physically show up for our semi-final game. And he did not call me or anyone else with his whereabouts. And the rest of the team inexplicably could not function in his absence.
Our only problem was with our opponent's best player, who feasted upon our lack of skill defensively and our soft post players on his way to 22 first half points. Offensively, we were getting all the shots we wanted but next to none of them were going in and our bigs could not and would not rebound to save their lives. After the 1Q we were only down 7-3, but by half time we were down 31-15.
Needless to say, we had a lot of work to do and were sorely missing our point guard/forward/center who - along with our shooting guard - make up 27 of the 36 points a game we average. Add to this, our shooting guard had 3 foolish fouls by half time so I had to sit him to start the second half.
We came out determined to stop their star's penetration and shored up our defense with a 2-1-2 zone. Our defensive intensity kicked in (we held our opponent scoreless for the 3Q) and our bigs grabbed some boards but we could still barely score and trailed 31-20 heading into the fourth quarter. In the 4Q we cut the lead down to 7 once, 9 a couple times, but nearly every time we would get the lead to single digits we would blow one (or more) lay-ups and could never get the game down to two possessions. In the end we lost 37-26 and had no one to blame but ourselves. We could have used the 13pts and extra man that our missing player brings, but he could not be blamed for our inability to grab rebounds and our failure to execute defensive principles that we have worked on for over 10 weeks now.
I spoke to my missing player later last night and his story does not match up entirely with the story I got from the team family that usually drives him to the game. Some sort of apology and punishment is clearly warranted, but how severe has to be determined before tomorrow. For this team to build any kind of momentum going into the next two weeks - and the two biggest tournaments of the year - we need to win tomorrow and we need to win big.
*****
As we were getting dressed in our locker room for the 3rd place game, it was understood that none of us wanted to be there- we all wanted to be preparing for the championship, but since that was not our reality we all agreed that we were ready to take out our frustration on our opponent. Our missing player was back but would sit out the first half as punishment for going AWOL last night.
Our opponent had struggled mightily in their semi-final loss with their opponent's full court press. We used our press to run out to an early xx-xx lead. They settled down a little but not enough to make up for the points they lost to turnovers and we lead xx-xx at the end of the 1Q. The second quarter they got their press break going and actually won the quarter 9-7 leaving us ahead xx-xx at half time. The whole quarter was characterized by our mistakes: both our starting bigs picked up their second foul and came to the bench, my starting point guard could not get his attitude together and came to the bench, and our press was leaking. The lone bright spot was our shooting guard who was finding his touch again.
Half time was another of our painfully-too-often "what will it take to get you guys to understand that when we stick to our game, our game plan we are a very good team" talks. Having yet to make a statement with our play and also now having our MIA player back, we were in a good spot to break the game open- which is exactly what we did.
Starting out with our press again we scored a quick 6 with ease. When they did break our press we stopped them quickly and our two best scorers went to work inside and out and we flew to a xx-xx lead at the end of the 3Q. In the 4Q, we dropped out of our press, but now our defense was mostly going and offensively we were still getting any shot we wanted. The final score was xx-xx. We finally did exactly what we wanted and it felt good. The silver lining of the win was that we ended up getting home in time to catch 3/4 of the Super Bowl and our 3rd place trophy was literally only about an inch smaller than the championship trophy.
Hopefully we can carry this momentum into next weekends big Lutheran school tournament.
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