Two weeks ago we were recovering from a disappointing and dysfunctional 3rd place finish in our conference tournament. Now our season has become a rare, incredibly rewarding and memorable one as we won our second straight large Lutheran school tournament.
Our semi-final opponent was a team from our conference that we had played already twice this season, most recently last week in the semi-finals of our Wisconsin Synod tournament. In both cases we played sluggish and got into unnecessary foul trouble but found a way to win by 3 and 1. This time around we were ready to show them once and for all that we were the better team. Our only concern was whether or not our 6'2" center would get home (from visiting his sister at college) in time to play our 1pm game. We got our answer at 12:15 when he called me to let me know he and his family were over an hour away from Milwaukee (plus the tournament was another 30 minutes away). In the locker room we talked about how this was a statement game- we needed to make a statement to our opponent that we were the better team by beating them 3 out of 3 tries and we needed to make a statement to ourselves that even without a key player we could all step up and play great basketball.
I told our guys to be ready for a team that would be hungry to finally beat us and who would come at us with something to prove- but it was clear from the earliest moments of this game that our opponent was not going to be that team. Maybe they had already decided that they could not beat us, maybe they had all stayed up too late the night before, or maybe it was something else but they did not come out with any fire against us.
The first quarter was slow and sluggish for both teams but we were on top 8-6 when it ended. The semi-final before us featured the host school vs. a team from Chicago. The officials had turned that game into a foul and FT fest that was so obnoxious that the home fans were even ripping into the refs (by name in many cases!), so we were a little concerned that our game would end up that way as well. Despite many baffling calls (and even more baffling explanations from the officials), we were never really knocked out of our game plan. The school's gym is smaller than official size, especially on the wings where a player with over a size 10 shoe cannot physically attempt a 3-pointer. The "smallness" of the court worked to our advantage with our press. We were the only team at the tournament who used a press in every game, all game long. We won the second quarter 7-4 to extend our lead to 15-10 at the break.
The third quarter was more of the same from the first half. We forced our opponent to play our game and converted our fast break opportunities to take the quarter 12-6 and take a 27-16 lead into the fourth quarter. It was evident by this time that we had this game under control as our opponent's best player had no energy left playing the entire quarter with his jersey untucked and no real confidence against our defense. We actually lost the quarter by 1 point but won the game 37-27. All of our guys were pretty excited to have definitively beat this team a third team to move on to another championship (thus securing our name in future tournament programs again) and to have done this without our center.
I had emailed the tournament director earlier this week to let her know that our center would not be playing Saturday (because of a family trip) but would be back Sunday. I just wanted to cover our bases since it would be obvious to all that he had not been there Saturday. As it turned out our opponent in the championship was the host school and their head coach told me at the start of the tournament that he was aware of our situation. So, even though our opponent's players (and parents) did not know he was coming- their coach did.
Last week's championship was huge for numerous reasons, this time around it was all about cementing a legacy (if there is such a thing in middle school) of greatness. There was no way I could replicate my pre-game speech from the previous week so instead I prepped the guys for a game with a loud crowd totally against them, officiating that would probably go against them all game, and a chance to demonstrate who we really were. The guys were ready to go, our only question was whether or not our center would be ready for a championship game (having not played the previous three).
The environment in the gym was great. Though the gym (built in 1961- the first year of the tournament- and filled to capacity) was probably over 90% for the home team, we had our largest crowd of fans for any of our four games this weekend, complete with a couple grandparents and parents who had yet to see their kids play this year. The first quarter went exactly how we wanted it to, fast paced and intense. Our press and 1-3-1 zone were doing enough to rattle their offensive plans and our shooting guard was "getting off" hitting all three of his 3-point attempts as we rolled to a 17-11 first quarter lead. It was evident that our center was not ready for this intense of a game after a "vacation" and his back-up was also not ready.
The second quarter we had a couple boys pick up their second fouls and found the bench since we were still ahead by 4-6 points the entire quarter. We lost a little bit of steam and had some crucial mental errors (and one bogus three point play against us) in the final minute that lead to a tie score (23-23) at the break. Our half time coaches' discussion was our longest of the season thanks to the host school's cheerleaders performing at half time (thus extending the normal 5 minute intermission to 10 minutes). We noticed that our opponent had figured out our 1-3-1, so we decided to switch to our 2-1-2 and keep the press going. Offensively, we were getting the shots we wanted- we just needed our bigs to "man" up and do their assigned jobs. All 23 of our points had come courtesy of our two leading scorers and it did not appear that they were going to have any trouble getting buckets in the second half, but they were going to need some help for us to win the game.
In the third quarter other guys started to contribute. Despite falling behind early (for the first and only time in the game), we kept our composure and went to work. Our center finally settled down and gave us the defensive effort we were missing (he finished the game with 6 blocks). Our scorers scored but we also got buckets from two other guys as well on our way to a 13-8 quarter victory and a 36-31 lead with 6 minutes to play.
The fourth quarter played out the way a fourth quarter of a championship should with the crowd into it and the players battling on every possession. Ultimately, the game was decided in the final 3 minutes. Our center denied several point blank shot attempts and scored two huge baskets (his only two of the game). We found ourselves up 6 when our shooting guard stole the ball at the top of the key and raced down the foul for a lay-up that would, for all intents and purposes, seal the win. But, instead of going right to the backboard he tried to make a high-light lay-up and missed. Thus, giving our opponent one last gasp to get the game down to two possesions or less. We harassed them enough on the ensuing possession to get a turn over and the ball out of bounds under our opponent's basket. They had only three fouls at this point in the second half and went into a full court press for the first time in the game. Our two best players were able to run off screens by our center, get the in bounds passes and literally dribble out the final minute and a half never even needing to shoot bonus free throws.
There was not much to say to the boys after the game, they were stoked to win another championship, giddy about the big individual medals everyone got, and even more excited that our name would be listed as 2009 CHAMPION for years to come in the program.
In my post game notes that I write down for every game, I was hard pressed to single out crucial errors we made. All the things we did "wrong" could be chalked up to middle school boys playing in an intense championship game. Our boys did everything we asked them to do, everything we had been coaching and training them to do since October. Back then we knew we had the talent to be a good team and we set our sights on these past two weekends as the tournaments we wanted to be ready for and knew we could compete in. Yet, there were never really any moments that we ever believed (at least as a coaching staff) that this group of guys would actually pull it all together they way they have over the past eight games and truly become a great team. But they did it and they earned these two championships and the invitation to play in the Lutheran schools state tournament in three weeks.
It will be a challenge to keep our guys focused for THREE weeks when they have accomplished what they have, but at this point they have earned some space to be goofy kids. But, if we can find a way to let them enjoy their just rewards AND get them re-focused, we are primed to make some noise at State.
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