Two Points: A Real Life Youth Travel Basketball Team Diary

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by path12

This is so cool. I feel like I know these kids.

I'm really glad you're still enjoying it.

Please note that if you already read the most recent entry that I edited in an important paragraph, paragraph 4, with info I'd completely forgotten to include.

It's taken me far longer to write up these tournament games than I'd like. My tentative plan is to writeup the championship game tomorrow, a tournament overview/practice report for Monday on Sunday, and Sunday's game on Monday, which would get us back on track.

[Barkeep49]

We had just won a game now a few minutes later we had to be ready to play for the championship. The JCC team had come over and watched at one point. A couple of parents did the same and actively rooted for us. It was clear they wanted their re-match and they were going to have it. As the Karzen game wound down I asked Brian how much time we’d have to warm up. He replied 5 minutes. In reality it was closer to 10, maybe even a bit more.

Since we’d already played two games of basketball, I didn’t bother having us do any sort of special warm-up and instead I just let them shoot. At one point I had to chase away Luke’s brother who had the audacity to shoot around with us. After it became clear we were going to have more than 5 minutes, I let them shoot around for a minute or two more than sat them down. My big focus for this game was on our help defense doing a good job of picking Luke up. We knew we were going to force him to our left, so defenders on that side had to be ready to step in for the double team if he got close to the basket.

JCC got off to a quick start. At that point I believed the game could easily turn into a blow-out. We were tired. I knew that they’d be playing their best ball and they were. Most of their points came-off of a couple plays. One was a clear-out for Luke. Now the good thing about this was that it wasn’t Luke who was scoring. Instead it was either their center scoring a put back, or someone left a little open from our double team making a shot. Still we were tired. After being down by as much as 7, we’d closed the gap to with-in three.

At half time I complemented the team on their great defense. I said we were playing a good game and that we were a second half team and we’d get this game done. We’d beaten this team once and there was no reason we couldn’t beat them again. I did also make a remark that no matter what happened in the game that we should be proud of how’d we played. Where as for the first two parts, and even into the third part, of the first half I really believed that we’d lose, and it could even be a blow-out, by the end of the first half we were playing better basketball.

Right out of half we came out and cut the game to with-in a basket. As the second half played on I was finding it harder and harder to find time to play guys like Tom, Noah, and Gordie. They all got their time in, but it was a hard thing for me to do. During the start of the third part of the second half, Luke went on his only tear of the game. In rapid succession he stole a few balls and created some exciting points to give his team a 5 point lead, after being down by 1 when his tear started. The good news out of this all, was that’s basically his whole contribution, offensively and defensively for the whole game. We had so shut down the inside game that Luke was constantly settling for three point shots. His shooting percentage was better outside the arc this game than the last game, but still nowhere near as good as what he can do inside. We had also made the proper adjustments to their two set plays and so they’d often have to run the play two or three times before they could get a shot off of it. What I was more proud of than how well we were playing him on defense as how we’d neutralized him when HE was on defense. His coaches made it clear that they expected him to stay in his zone, since when he’d wondered we’d made them pay for it.

As Luke went on this run, I was forced to call a time-out to try and stop the momentum. I pointed out that we could make up this score. We had PLENTY of time so we had to play our offense. And during the next five minutes we played some excellent basketball. All half long Scott had done an excellent job of getting rebounds, with 7 second half rebounds. However, he was tired so I put in Jack P as a post player. Jack M decided that maybe he could drive to the basket and he did so, creating all sorts of nice opportunities both in terms of baskets he made, fouls, and creating shots for others, notably Jack P. It was clear that they came out of the time-out with the philosophy that they weren’t going to let David beat them. This was fine for us. Slowly we came back. Dante all year long would shoot 6 or 7 good shots each game and often miss all of them. However, all of a sudden he was getting open in the mid-post and he drained a couple of beautiful shots. The game became a nail biter, but we continued to be down.

Finally with about 25 seconds they went up by 3. I called our final time-out. Basically it was just a “relax out there”. We needed a 3 and everyone knew it. I said that we would tie the game, have momentum and win in over time. I really believed that we’d either lose it in regulation or win it in over time. They had begun earlier in the half wasting time, with Luke bringing the ball just over half court and sitting there. I kept yelling at David that he had to go and guard Luke so they couldn’t keep waste time. However, it was this attitude of that we’d score, while they were just trying to hang-on that gave me such confidence. So we came down on offense and worked it around for a bit, before getting it back to David who pulls up for the jumper and drains it. We’ve tied the game. Our bench explodes. They call a time out with 8 seconds and change on the clock. By this point we were rocking the gym. The atmosphere was unbelievable coming out of the time-out they’d called.

We all knew what they were going to do. They were going to get the ball to Luke and with plenty of time. However, as they went down they were never able to find a good a shot. They ended up launching a bad shot which missed. And we headed into OT.

It really was cliché. Here we had the championship game, with a team that had made a comeback only to make a crucial late shot to tie the game and send it into overtime. That first overtime period was just a bundle of nerves. The period only lasted 2 minutes. I think each team scored 1 basket. We once again had the ball late in the period. There entire focus was so on stepping David that they left Jack M with a good shot, but it missed. We got the ball back and David took and missed a jumper. What upset me was that we all just stood around looking at it, instead of trying for the rebound. The ball actually hit the floor and bounced, meaning that JCC was doing the same thing. Still if we’d done what we should have we might have been able to heave up one last shot. But momentum was on our side. When Jack started to drive in, the coaches were clearly pained. We’d just come out of a time-out and it was clear that the message had been so strong on stop David, that the team left itself open to being beaten by one of our other players.

So now we were in the second overtime. We come out quickly and make a basket and another. They come back and make a basket of their own. On this next possession down they foul Jack M on the ground for a 1 and 1. Jack makes both of the shots and we now have a 4 point lead with about 45 seconds left. Noah asks “Can we storm the court when we win?” I say “Of course” which I don’t think they were expecting. Luke comes down and lofts up a 3, and misses, but gets fouled. Luke’s now at the line for 3 shots. He drains the first two, but misses the 3rd. I don’t know if the play was intentional or not, but they do get the rebound. The put up a shot and miss. Dante comes down with the rebound and is immediately fouled. Another 1 and 1. Dante drains both shots and that’s the game. There is a desperation 3 launched, we get the rebound, and the game is over.

There’s chest bumping and thumping. The team is absolutely stoked. We go through and shake their hands. My opinion of Luke’s father mellowed this game. He was very nice after the game. I think as the game went on he realized that we weren’t some team that had no right competing with his team, but instead was a legitimate competitor. On the other hand, his co-coach was insane and did enough yelling for the two of them. Regardless, I really felt like the better team won this game. At different points we had several players step up when needed, it wasn’t just the David show, like JCC was the Luke show.

There was a real nice ceremony where they were presented with t-shirts for second place and we were presented with our championship t-shirts. We went over to the side, I complemented them on how I often talk about what great teams do, and in this tournament we played like a great team. They posed for a couple of team pictures. It was just great. Here we were champions of an A tourney, having played two games which were as good as basketball games get. What a feeling.

Next time: tournament summary/overview and a recap of Monday’s practice.

[Barkeep49]

After the game and into Monday’s practice the big question was when did I know that they would be a good team and did I really think that we’d win the tournament the whole time. I said that except for the first few minutes of the JCC game, when it looked like we were just too tired to play any more, I really believed that we had an excellent shot at winning the tournament. I also told how I didn’t know how good of a team we’d be until after our first game, when I knew we had a very good team.

For Monday’s practice I called only a half practice. I anted us to have a little time to debrief, I wanted to do our continuous motion, and I wanted a chance to talk to each of the players individually, about goals/thoughts/etc for the end of the season. I was a fun practice where everyone was still in a good mood after the heroics of the weekend.

Here’s a look at some notes that didn’t make it into the tourney reports as well as a few things that came out of my talks on Monday with the players.

Brian – The only big downside to the whole tourney was the conflict between Brian and David. The two went at each other several times and it became a problem. When I talked to each of them on Monday I really talked about how I just would not tolerate players not getting along with each other on the court and so they needed to stop arguing with each other. Brian asked me during our chat if “I can and should shoot more”. It was a great question. Brian didn’t put big numbers during the tourney. Mainly this was because he didn’t get the ball a whole lot. In our first game against the JCC he popped a 3 pointer, just because he could. When I pulled him, he got very mad and went into his defeatist mode. Despite the disrespect he’d shown, I decided the best way to handle the situation was to just ignore him and I let him start the second half. The two of us didn’t have a conflict again the rest of the weekend. He also played good defense during the tourney, not succumbing to his desire to leave his man alone to make the steal, and set a couple of picks, basically the only player on the team to do so, for which I gave him complements. So in response to his question I said that I would have liked to have seen him get the ball more during the tourney. He’s a good shooter so I don’t mind him shooting smart shots. He really seemed to appreciate that response, which was good.

Dante – Dante, not having played any soccer this weekend, did do better than normal during the tourney. He’s still a little too erratic for my tastes, as I can’t figure out what will cause him to have a good game or not. He’s not quite the inside presence that his size would suggest. However, he did seem to find his “spot” to shoot from so that part was good. We’ll see if he can find shots from there again.

David – The big watchword this weekend was “frustration”. Besides the conflict with Brian, just having him be calm and collected on the court is important. Of course the two times we needed him to be cool, with the last second shots, he was as collected as Jordan. EVERYONE seemed to know him because he’s just that gifted of an athlete. I was typing this before our HP game today and a parent from the HP B team, which we hadn’t played with David, who remarked how good #20 is. As long as David doesn’t try to do too much we’ll be in good shape. I let David know that I plan on having him play the post more during the second half of the season. By playing him in the post it’ll open more time up at the 1, 2, and 3 positions, which is good for the kids who can only play those spots.

Gordie – Gordie is a good kid and has a speech impediment that, combined with his small stature, makes him very cute. He loves the game of basketball, that much is clear. That said he just drove me nuts. When he wasn’t asking to go in, he was giving his “look at me I’m an angel” face when it was clear I was doing a sub. Part of the reason that this was likely driving me nuts is that I knew he wanted to play and was only giving him close to, and actually a bit under, the 10 minutes of playing time I wanted to get my players as a minimum. This guilt was even more pronounced with Noah. Now, to his credit, he is very coachable and does most of the things I ask him to do. During our talk it was clear that he wanted to play point guard. I mentioned how he gets the chance to play point in his house league games, but that turns out not to be true. So basically he’s not good enough to play point on a house league team, how in the world does he think he’s good enough to play point on a travel team? He was, I believe, the only player not to get a start during the tourney. I told him he’d get a few starts and some opportunities to play point. He doesn’t have the skill set to be a good point right now, so it’ll most likely be in games against the NFs that I give him his shot at point. In a bit of statistical humor, he was our leading rebounder in the WM game, since he got the outside rebounds, where all the inside rebounds were vacuumed up by their center.

Jack M – Jack stepped it up to a new level during the tourney. His defense was fantastic. He did a great job of moving the ball around and of penetrating. Not to mention his clutch free throws. When its needed it seems like he can take up his game a notch, whether it was because the triplets weren’t there for the first game of the season (his best game before this tourney) or in this tourney against tougher competition. I was most proud of how he made progress on being confident in the team. I think he finally believes it’s a good team and that should help him going forward in being a positive contributor.

Jack P – This kid needs to take 500 shots a day. He’s our most gifted athlete on the court next to David. He can dribble through a traffic jam if needed and he guarded Luke nearly as well as David had. But his shooting percentage kills me. He’s got a pretty looking shot, which means there has to be something mechanically wrong with his shot, and shot mechanics happens to be a part where I need to be a stronger coach with, so it’s a bad fit. He’s a great complement to David, and racked up the most minutes, deservedly, in the championship game. I just wished he could make more of his shots.

Lucas – He had a great game against WM, but other than that I don’t really recall much of what he did, which means he mostly did what he was supposed to. I think he really struggled guarding some of the better inside men, which isn’t surprising that he’s still not entirely comfortable in that role.

Noah – Noah just looks lost a lot of the time out there. His sense of where he needs to be on the court, both on offense and on defense just isn’t up to snuff compared with the rest of the team. He’s another good kid, and unlike Gordie he doesn’t drive me NUTS with whether or not he’s going to get to play, but he had the lowest number of minutes in the tourney of anyone on our team. Fortunately, I think he’s the kind of kid who doesn’t mind sitting on the bench as much. He loves sitting next to me (I sit in the middle of the kids rather than at the end) and I think he enjoys hearing me talk about the game.

Scott – He has many of the best qualities of his two brothers. When we were talking I told him how if he saw his brothers getting frustrated he might be able to, where I cannot, to get him to calm. I told him if he ever felt uncomfortable saying something, that he shouldn’t, but that he might be able to say chill, where it would be meaningless coming from me.

Tom – The mystery that is Tom continues. I don’t think Tom is having as good of a time as the other kids, which is a shame. I don’t know if the problem is with me, or himself, or what. I’m going to try and give him some time at point and see if he does better there, which I think is a definite possibility. I really like Tom and I wish I could know what I could do to make him succeed and seem like he’s having more fun.

Me – Tom’s mom cracked me up. She and I were talking after the championship game. And she said to me, “Did you know you were entering them in the A tourney?” I mean what did she think it came as complete surprise to me? Perhaps this was the adult version of “Did you know they we were this good?” It was very gratifying to receive so many complements on what a well coached team they were. Of course when you’re winning there are always complements to be had. The complement I appreciated most was a comment from Lucas’s father. He sent me a congratulatory e-mail and referenced how much he liked one particular thing. David had made an awful pass in the 4th quarter of the championship game. He’d made another not so good pass a little earlier. He was really upset with himself and I told him to smile. Normally moments like that are done away from the parents, so they don’t get to hear it, but it was nice that someone heard it and though to say something about it. I think I did a good job of keeping the team on an even keel. While I talk about in baseball how Steve is the better rah-rah guy, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of getting them going when they needed it.

Refs – The officiating overall at this tournament was very good. Except for the one guy I talked about during the WM game, there weren’t any disputes or problems. There was a woman ref who reffed both of our JCC games and our game against Karzen. She was excellent. She always had a smile on her face and would naturally give an explanation if an explanation was needed to the players. She was fabulous and by far the best ref I’d seen at this level of play.

After the tournament I decided to go out and celebrate by having dinner at my favorite steak place. My parents came along as well and we had wonderful dinner. However, I was not the only winning coach in the restaurant that day. Lovie Smith was there as well and my family had finished dinner and desert just as the Colts/Pats game was ending so I got to watch the end of that game with Lovie standing about six feet away. It was a really neat experience.

[Barkeep49]

For some reason I jumped ahead an hour and instead of leaving at 12:40, I left at 11:40. I had spent the morning playing the Europa Universalis 3 demo through again, so it was a nice time to sit and do the tournament summary wrap-up that I had planned on doing. The HP team got there very early. I saw one of the players I knew as I was walking in and I asked how they’d done in the third game of the tourney. He said, “We lost, but we’ve gotten a lot better since then. Just wait.” I smiled. What a great attitude to have. It’s been a week since you got killed 41-16 and that’s your attitude. That’s awesome. Of course I was confident that we were going to beat HP.

The coach of the team and I had a nice talk. Poor guy is clearly pretty depressed and so I was quite complementary saying how I hope they’re in the other bracket from us, which I guess isn’t actually true. As far as likely #4 seeds go I think they’d be the team I would like to see the most, though granted I haven’t see LS yet and they currently have an outside shot at the #4 (though this outside shot does go down when you consider the fact that they have two games against us and 1 against MP1). Anyway he clearly appreciated the kind words I sent his way, though you could tell he wasn’t too happy about the knowledge that we had players this time that we didn’t have last time. I did find out that the kid who I noticed sitting by himself was a kid who missed a last second shot the game before, who then refused to play in the second game. This led to a nice talk about how there’s as much learning at this age to be done mentally as there is physically. All in all it was a very pleasant talk.

The previous game ended and I see that the officiating team for the game will be the woman ref I really like and the ref from the WM game who really likes us but is a bit a jerk. We then had 15 minutes to warm-up, which really felt like too long. Luke’s brother had a game in the next gym over and so I actually invited him to shoot around with us, until we started doing lay-up lines. In our pre-game talk I introduced what will be a motif for us the rest of the season: the bull’s-eye. I explained how every team is going to have us circled on their calendars because we’re the #1 team in the league. Noah went “Cool we’re circled” which I found amusing. Tom was on a ski trip this weekend so unfortunately we only had 9 players. I told them that HP’s big problem is that they missed a lot of shots so I was going to go with a good rebounding team of David, Gordie, Scott, Dante, Lucas. I then planned at between 4 and 3:30 minutes to sub in the other 4 players leaving Lucas in there.

We got off to a slow start. They were playing a zone and while we were getting some good lucks we weren’t making any of our shots. The group I had in there did exactly what I had asked of them, really rebounding well. Even when I inserted our subs the game remained close, with the score at the end of the first quarter 4-4.

At the start of the second quarter I explained that I wanted to use a full court man-to-man and that whoever was guarding the inbounder was to try and trap the person to whom it was inbounded. This did not work, because only a couple of the players actually guarded their man full court, so I called a 30 second time-out. When we got back on the court we did a much better job of executing our trap and they were forced to call 2 time-outs in order to attempt to cope with our press. We got up by as much as 9, but entered half only up by 6 or 7.

At half we were relaxed and a little unfocused. I remained upbeat. I was uninspiring. We were playing like the better team and I was confident that we’d turned the corner at half and would put them away in the third.

HP came charged up out of their half time and made a real game of it. We were never up by less than 5, but for a while it seemed like it could be anyone’s game. However, we went on a nice little run to end the quarter and went back up 9, 21-12. I was, to be honest, disappointed with how we were playing. We didn’t have any passion this game, we were just going through the motions. I explained that we needed to put this team away. We were up by 9, a margin we’d managed to come back from (not mentioning that we’d never done it in the 4th quarter) and we needed to cement the game against a team that wasn’t as good as us. And the team responded. We went on a 6-0 run, at which point I called a time-out PURELY to congratulate them on really doing a nice job of finishing. I backed them off a little on D, but I didn’t give them any instructions about offense. We ended up scoring 19 points that quarter and won the game 39-16. I really should have slowed us down some on offense, but the game had “felt” close so it wasn’t as bad of sportsmanship to win like we did. Plus it had the positive effect of letting Noah and Gordie, in particular, have time on the court when we were running the ball As we shook hands, the HP coach said, “Hey it was close for 3 quarters” and I smiled, graciously, though I have to admit that secretly I was happy inside at how we’d closed them out.

Brian: He was the star of our 4th quarter. He was driving and making, driving and dishing, and playing an all around great game. He whined at half about having to play PG, but, as I will tell him tomorrow, we both wanted him to get more touches and by playing PG he got those touches. He did some showboating at one point for which he received a reprimand, though I didn’t take him out. It was a warning and hopefully it won’t happen again. He was so happy with how we was playing that my gentle reprimand didn’t even set him off, which was good. If it happens again, I think I’ll do the pull him for a moment to remind him and let him go right back in maneuver.

Now granted this was easier with only 9 players, but I was really pleased that the fewest minutes anyone played in the game was nearly 13 minutes (or half the game) and that the median time played was 15 minutes (by David). Basically everyone played this game just about equally, which made me glad. Except for our two MP games, this will continue to be a big goal of mine going forward.

Dante: They moved their post players around more than most of the teams we played so he was out on the perimeter a fair amount. You could tell he wasn’t really comfortable there. Dante did a real nice job of playing full court man to man, even getting a legitimate steal off of his charge at one point, which was nice to see.

David: When our shots started not to fall, David put it on himself to make things happen. HP played a tight zone so he started settling for outside shots. The first time I let it go, the second time I pulled him. My parents knew that he had been pulled for taking bad shots, as did the players on the bench. I was happy to issue the reminder to the team that I treat people fairly (though not necessarily equally). More problematically was the fact that we went on our 19-4 fourth quarter run without David, as he sat for the whole quarter. Now this should have been great news. And it is great news. The problem is that I think that we’ve all become too David centric on offense. I really I tried to combat this some by putting him in at post, but I’m not sure this was the solution to the problem. I am very wary about discussing the problem directly with either David or the team, as I think doing either could have some damaging effects. It is a bit of a dilemma for me.

Gordie: Gordie got the start and did pretty well this game. He’s doing a lot better at avoiding getting trapped. I hope that this keeps up. Gordie has, remarkably, found the low post as a place to get the ball and found several good shots from just outside there this game, and scored a couple of baskets. It should be noted that every player on our team scored at least one basket this game which was a very nice thing to have had happened.

Jack M: Didn’t quite reach the level of performance as he had in the tourney, but played another nice game offensively and defensively.

Jack P: His shooting makes me so sad. He shot 1 for 11 today. I think we might be reaching the point where I need to say something. Now he did some amazing moves. On one move he went up for a lay-up realized he was going to get stuff and changed it into a hook-shot. There were a couple of other moves that were amazing. Of course he missed all of the accompanying shots. The one shot he made was a funny play where HP had just switched back to man and he drove in and the defense disappeared so he was left all alone in the lane. He sunk an easy 5 footer. I don’t want to tell him not to shoot, but my normal way of telling someone not to shoot, “better shot selection”, doesn’t work with him, since most of his shots are shots that taken by themselves should be shot.

Lucas: He looked lost out there today on offense. A couple of passes to him turned into turnovers because he was not expecting the pass. I think it might be a good time to review some post playing with him, as he’s the type of player who needs reminders on a lot of the mental aspects of the game, as he’s not the brightest player on our team.

Noah: While Lucas was looking clueless, Noah did a nice job of not looking clueless. He did a pretty good job of defending against HP’s point guard during the 4th quarter even, which was good to see.

Scott: Scott played some time at wing, which did not make Scott happy. It seems like it was my day to upset the triplets by playing them at positions that they didn’t want to be at. In the long run if Scott has ambitions of playing High School basketball, which I’m guessing he does, then he’ll need to learn how to play guard, as that’s what he’d be on that team. Some early exposure now seems like a long term investment and so I’m going to present the issue to him that way. Of course because I assign him to play wing on offense, he has to come up with 14 rebounds, nearly all defensive. Way to stick it to me.

This was clearly a let down game. It happens to be a let down game we won by 23, but still a let down game. One thing of note that has not happened, and which I’m happy about looking forward; while eating lunch last week with the team the triplet’s step-mother stated how her husband was going to get Super Bowl tickets if the Bears won. The Bears won, of course. All week long I’ve been waiting for the phone call/e-mail telling me that they were going to miss our two games next weekend. So far that hasn’t happened. I don’t think it’ll be a problem against either of the teams, but I don’t know anything about Lincolnshire, other than the fact that they seem very good at winning games against inferior teams by large margins, and losing games against teams that are better. In other words, if left unchecked they can put up a lot of points, so it would be nice to have some of our better defenders, in the triplets, around for the game to make it an easy game. But if it’s not to be I remain optimistic that we could still beat them.

[Barkeep49]

I've been having a real hard time finding the motivation to write lately. Will hope to catch up soon.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I've been having a real hard time finding the motivation to write lately. Will hope to catch up soon.

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

[Barkeep49]

Ok it’s time to bring this to some closure. My plan is to somewhat rapidly go through the regular season, do some more detailed description of the playoffs, and give some overall season reflections. I am not quite sure why I stopped writing, so I’m going to blame the month of February which is just a nasty month and often seems to sap the energy out of me.

When we last left we were facing a game without the triplets. I actually did a writeup for the game which I never posted. Here it is:

It’s clear from their other games that this could be a real trap game for us. We don’t have three of our best players (remembering that the Triplets are out of town at the Super Bowl) and they’ll be a team which could take advantage of that. We do our pre-game routine. As I’m talking to the team Jack M is being obnoxious, for about the eighth time, about who is starting and so while I had intended to start him he ends up starting the game on the bench.

The first quarter is close. Neither team really gets anything going which is our pretty typical first quarter. The son of the coach is both the tallest player on the team and their ball handler. Dante gets very excited about the fact that he is guarding a guard. It’s pretty funny. In the second quarter, the close game is maintained. I don’t have us do any sort of full court press because I am frankly very concerned about fatigue setting in. At half time the game is tied at 10.

I keep the half time speech short. I really believe at this point that we’ll gut out a win. We’re a team that’s shown a lot of fortitude, and this is where all the confidence that’s made practice hard should pay off. Except the third quarter begins. They sink a couple of threes and we can’t seem to work the ball well on offense. Our normally tight man to man, gives way to sloppy man to man. A tie becomes a two point lead, then a five, and finally a seven point lead by the time the quarter ends. There was likely a point in there where I should have called a time out. Except that momentum just gradually swung in their favor. This gradual swing meant that there was no time where I was like “it’s time to call a time-out” to try and calm it down. This was likely still a mistake on my part.

Going into the fourth I know that the game is going to be an uphill climb. Gordie already has four fouls going into the fourth. He would not be in the five I’d want in there at the end of the game (that group being Jack M, Jack P, Dante, Lucas, and Tom) so I decide that I’ll leave Gordie in there and let him just foul out rather than pull him. I talk about how we’ve scored lots of points in quarters before, so this game could still be ours.

We come out playing hard, but LS realizes that this game is in their grasp. With 3 minutes to go in the game we’re still down by 7. Gordie fouled out with about 4 minutes left, which considering how he’d been playing was better than I expected. When two minutes left comes around we’re down by five. We’ve long been in full court man to man mode, but we just can’t seem to close the gap. And that’s when Lucas goes on a tear. He seems to be everywhere at once. It was probably the most dominating single game performance we’ve had. While there have been times where David’s seemed to be everywhere on offense, or David and Scott being everywhere on defense, we’ve never had a player do it on both ends. In those last two minutes, Lucas easily had four or five steals plus quite a few rebounds. Suddenly there are 34 seconds left in the game and we’re down by a basket and they’ve been forced to call a time-out. A game which I honestly believed to be out of reach suddenly is very close.

34 seconds, however, is an eternity in basketball and I know it’s far too soon to get our hopes up. I tell the team that we have plenty of time to close the gap. I complement them on how well they’re playing. The two teams exchange baskets and there is a stoppage of play with about 15 seconds left, with them having the ball. I call a time-out. I explain that we need a stop and we need to score quickly. I tell them that if we tie this in regulation we’ll win it in overtime so we’re just looking for a good shot for two points, so don’t rush or panic. Our home crowd is pumped up. We do what it takes on defense and get the ball back. Jack M comes driving down the court and drives right by three players for a great looking lay-up and

misses. But wait there is a foul. I call a time-out. I explain that if Jack makes the first shot, great. If he misses the first shot that he should intentionally miss the second shot. If for either reason the second shot is missed we need to rebound and put it right back up as there is now a second and change left on the clock. If they were to get the rebound we need to quickly foul. Jack does indeed miss the first shot. The other team calls a time-out, no doubt telling them the importance of getting the rebound. Jack goes out there. I’ve reminded him that the ball needs to hit the rim. He throws the ball up and it hits the rim, but as soon as he does that he rushes into the lane. It’s an OBVIOUS lane violation. This effectively ends the game.

I am, admittedly, disappointed, in the result. For three quarters we played as well, if not better, than the team. We made an amazing comeback and nearly won. More frustratingly is the fact that I honestly believe part of the reason we lost is we just got tired. You give me one more player, and we win. With the triplets? We win easily. In the post game speech I talk about how we lost for two reasons. One is that we just got tired. The second is that we didn’t play defense 100% of the time and they made us pay in the third. I, do, however, focus on the positives of the fourth quarter. I remind them that we have another game the next day against NF2.

The next day rolls around. I am not concerned at all about our play against NF2. In the first part of the first quarter we don’t show that we’re a much better team and the reffing annoys me. They don’t call clear travel violations, for instance. However, at the end of the first quarter we snap out of stupor and we end up by 8. I let them know that we’ll do some full court press, but that if we score one basket we’ll have to stop. We get the ball at the start of the quarter, score one basket, and just continue our momentum. Shortly after the start of the quarter I restrict our team’s running of fast breaks.

At half we have a good discussion about sportsmanship. I explain that it’s not good sportsmanship to just score a lot of points because we can. I talk about how we’re more athletic than them and we play better as a team than they do so what are we really proving by scoring a lot?

We win the game in a convincing manner. There were more details no doubt but they have long ago been forgotten.

[Izulde]

Sorry to have missed out on this, but that tournament win was freaking HUGE! Congratulations!

[Barkeep49]

After our double header our next game is against MP2. We completely dismantle them and based on their poor showing of sportsmanship at the HP tourney, I let the team score 50 for a final score of 50-31. Not sure what got into me, but there you go.

We then have a weekend off, because of President’s Day. That is when a bit of drama arises, though it could have been far more disastrous than it was. Our next game is against NF1. While we are waiting there, I learn that David won’t be at the game due to conflicts with another team from his caregiver. As we’re standing around I learn from Brian who sort of lets it slip that this might not be a one time thing but instead he might have to quit the team. As I have heard nothing along these lines I don’t let it bother me.

The game against NF is unexceptional. We go out do our thing and win. This was the first game where I went with what I called hockey subs. We had only 8 players (Tom had gotten very sick and was basically out for a month) so I divided the team into two groups of four. Every half a quarter I would yank a group and put in a new group with one player from the other shift. This was done as a way to give players equal playing time. Well David showed up from his other game just before the 4th quarter. I call him over to sit on our bench. He asks if he could play and I say of course, since I can understand his need to miss a game because of conflicts. At the end of the game their coach’s weren’t happy about this. My response simply was that I wanted every player on my team to have a chance to play. I had even alerted them ahead of time that I normally wouldn’t play him in the 4th in a game like that, but it was an unusual circumstance. Their moaning was a bit unjustified considering that he scored all of two points.

That game was on a Saturday. However, MP needed us to reschedule our Sunday game and after a lot of emails it got set for the last Sunday of the season as a double header.

We end up having a couple of weeks off then with-out a game as our game against WK has to be canceled as there is no time when we can reschedule the game. As they were the ones unable to play they have to forfeit to us, but I still rather would have played the game. Instead, the WK coach and I setup a scrimmage after the official end of the season between our team and his A team. His A team who is dominating the division. During this time it becomes clear from Scott and Brian that David will not be playing for us again. Does David or Dad ever bother to contact me? Not until March 10th, 3 weeks, essentially after it has been decided that David will quit the team, does their Dad bother to call me to let me know about this decision. I am more upset by this lack of communication than anything.

On March 11th we have our end of season double header after having been out of action for a couple of weeks. Our first game is against LS. I go with hockey subs again. After the first quarter we gain a lead and hold onto it. It is a great game to watch as we can’t quite ever put LS away but do manage to hold on for the win.

We have a few hours off before our next game against MP for the regular season championship. I am pretty exhausted as the night before I had a wedding which I didn’t get home from until after 1 o’clock (and could have stayed later). This combined with Daylight Savings means I am not at the top of my game for the first game and by the second game I am extremely exhausted. At the start of the game we’re missing Brian, Scott, and Lucas who are, I later learn, stuck in traffic due to a horrendous accident.

Anyway, we start off the game very strongly. Gordie, who missed our earlier game due to having his house league championships, comes out on fire and scores a couple of early baskets. MP gets their composure back and evens it up by the end of the first quarter. After that it’s a seesaw game until the third quarter when they build up a lead. This momentum carries into the fourth and the game has slipped away from us. This is where my coaching should have been better. One of our biggest problems though, throughout the game, was picking up our men on defense. This led to MANY easy baskets for them and was really pretty inexcusable at this point in the season.

More seriously is that early in the 4th Brian collapsed in absolute agony with his ankle. Normally when a player gets injured I go and see how they’re doing, give them a couple moments to collect themselves and then help them off the court of have them walk off. Despite my being out of it, it was quite clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. I then proceed to literally carry him off the court. Play resumes while I comfort him on the sideline. His mom is there and it’s quickly decided that he should go to the hospital. I write off Brian for the rest of the season at that point considering his past history with the ankles (having broken both of them in the past year).

The next day we have our scrimmage against WK. As predicted they are bigger, faster, and stronger than we are. We get blown-out. However, the team never gives up. Even down by 20+ we’re still scrapping away. The dismantling we faced exposed quite a few weaknesses of ours, most notably against the zone.

We end the season in second place. Overall we’d had a good season and I’m optimistic about our chances entering the play-offs. While MP will likely be a problem for us, I still believe we can take them. Despite the loss of David the team remains upbeat and confident about our chances.

[Izulde]

Your best player just up and quit?

Ouch!

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Your best player just up and quit?

Ouch!

Yeah it wasn't exactly the news I wanted .

[Barkeep49]

Whoops! I forgot all about our game against the other JCC team. This was the Monday after President’s day and would be the last full game David would play for our team. The team was looking forward to it since there were 4 or 5 kids on the JCC team that live in the same city as our team. One of the kids on the team was even a kid who tried out for our team and didn’t make it.

We get to the gym and who should be practicing with this team but our old friend Luke. Turns out that a couple of players normally on the team couldn’t make it, so the coach (not Luke’s father but the other one) imported these two players to play for them. Now granted Luke didn’t play the whole time (more like 2/3-3/4) like he would in a normal game, but this other kid did play a great deal of the time. Meanwhile I was playing my whole team. This was noticed by the parents in the stands on how I played my whole team for quality minutes while their coach did not. I was further made to look good by my positive style of communication compared to their team’s coach (an example of this shortly).

It’s a close game, but they are slightly in front of us for most of the game. Of course, as always, I have an embarrassment of riches in that I have seven players who I wouldn’t mind having on the court during these crucial final minutes. Anyhow the fourth quarter starts to wind down and we’ve significantly closed the gap, from 5 points down with a couple minutes left, to now just 1 point down with 30 seconds left.

Coming in from a time-out we have our press on and they break the press. A kid ends up with a fairly open lay-up, from a standing position, which he misses. The coach explodes. We drive down and get fouled and so another time-out is called.

The coach explodes again at the player who had taken the shot saying how he said not to shoot. I understand the strategy here (kill the clock). However, if one of my kids has an open shot there and shoots it, I'm not going to be upset with him. I even posted this on a coach’s bulletin board and most agreed that the kid should take the open shot. Even beyond that I would never treat one of my players with so little dignity.

We end up gutting out the victory. It was great. After the game their coach said to me “Why don’t we just play the last couple of minutes against you guys?”. It made me smile. No doubt he believes that his team is better (even though they brought in ringers in order to have a chance) but can’t beat us. Like it’s bad luck. And there is no question there is some bad luck involved there. But then again our team doesn’t fold under pressure and there’s a reason we’re always with-in striking distance the whole game.

Looking at the players on their team, there was one player who I’d LOVE to have next year. He was tall (taller than Dante) and quick. That works quite well in the system I’m promoting. I’m hoping he was one of the kids who was noticing how much more fun it is to play for me . I also was glad to see that I hadn’t made a mistake and was correct in not taking the kid who played for them and who I’d cut.

It was another great game, and it was nice to go into their gym (with their biased refs) and beat them, especially when they resort to using ringers.

[Barkeep49]

We have our first playoff game against NF1. This team finished in 7th place, despite, I learn, being made up of 3rd graders. I had told the team at our last practice that we would be doing hockey subs for the last time. After that game I told them that I would be making no promises about playing time. We would be having 8 players for the game as Jack M had to play for his AAU team. Brian, who I was convinced was out for the rest of the season? He had been at practice the night before and I could observe no ill effects. His did had told me he would be able to play but I’d been skeptical. Turns out that his dad was very much correct.

The other team got into early foul trouble, but we couldn’t hit any of our shots either at the free throw line or in the field and so the game was pretty close in the first quarter. A great example of this was on our very first possession we took off a minute fifteen from the clock, with multiple shots, passes, rebounds, but not a basket to be found. It was a great offensive possession, with good defense, but shots just weren’t falling.

Going into the second quarter, up by just 1, I hoped we could open up the game some. We do extend our lead to 5 or 6 points, but despite even throwing some presses at them we just can’t seem to get anything going. They’re playing very well.

The third quarter is more of the same. They’re throwing a pretty good trapping 2-1-2 against us that does produce some turnovers. Our biggest problem is at point guard. We simply don’t have anyone who can really make things happen. Brian and Jack P are the ones playing point and both have their pluses and minuses. Brian is simply not as explosive and fast as we’re used to at point and so he can often get snared by their trap. Jack, on the other hand, is certainly fast enough, but his court vision isn’t so great and so he’ll often miss open passes or become too determined to shoot. Having neither David or Jack M, our two main point guards, was quite detrimental to our efforts and prevented us from ever gaining control of the game.

In the fourth quarter we blow the game open. Their best player fouls out about half way into the quarter and we finally hunker down and our shots start to fall. Scott also basically took control of the game, getting the rebound and dribbling down the court, beating everyone, for a lay-up a couple of times. It was just as David used to do. We end up winning by 15. However, despite the fact that we were basically in the lead the whole game, it was quite nerve racking for me as a coach. The kids on the other hand were never too concerned which might explain why it was so close for so long. I can’t really be upset with them for not being too concerned since:
1. I had stressed so much that we were a much better team than they were
2. Their unflappable nature is why we are so good in close games.

The other reason why it was so close was of course the fact that they were playing their best players as much as possible, where as I was playing all of my kids equally. After the game one of their parents commented to me, “You guys really miss [David]” as I’d told them before the game how he’d quit the team. It was quite clear from his tone that he felt like we wouldn’t be able to win it with-out David. While based on what he saw I couldn’t blame him for his assessment, I knew we were a better team than what we’d shown that day.

I also felt much better when I went home and did the numbers. I found out that we shot nearly a season low from the field. This meant that if our shots had dropped at a more typical rate we’d have won this game far before the fourth quarter.

Going into Sunday we were going to play MP2 and then (hopefully) the winner of the MP1-LS game. I felt very good about our chances and knew that it would be two tough games, but felt that the championship was in reach.

My day was not done, however. The coach of the 5th and 6th grade teams had games which conflicted and so I had been drafted to coach the 6th grade team until he could get to the game. I was actually more nervous about this game than my own as I’d only known this team from one practice of an hour and a half. I’m proud to report that when I turned over the game in the 3rd quarter the team was up by 5 to a team that previously defeated them by 30. They would later go on to lose by 4, and while it’d have happened no matter who was coaching it sure did make me look good .

[Barkeep49]

We were feeling good. The team was supremely confident, already asking about the championship. I reminded them we had a very tough, but winnable, game in front of us. I had a brainstorm driving home the day before. We needed more action at point guard when Jack M wasn’t going to be in. I had decided not to start Jack because he had missed the day before (for understandable reasons but still felt I should give the nod to a kid who’d been there). This meant I needed a starting point guard. My brainstorm was simple: I would start Scott at point. There was no reason to believe that he couldn’t do an excellent job.

So when Scott gets there I pull him aside and tell him that I need him to take one for the team and for him to play point. He tells me that he can’t do it. I tell him I’m not going to force him to do it and explain why I think he would be good. He still thinks he can’t. I apply a little more pressure but he stands firm that he can’t do it.

A big plus to this plan is that I wanted to have Dante, Lucas, and Scott all on the floor at the same time. I decide that I still want this threesome on the floor and so I put in Jack P as point, Noah or Gordie (can’t remember) in at the other guard, Lucas at wing, Dante at center and Scott at power forward.

Defensively, I tell Jack that he is to guard the kid the team has nicknamed “temper”. That he is not to worry about playing help defense but is instead not to leave his man. I am pretty confident if we take away him out of the game we’ll be in a far stronger position.

The early part of the game goes well for us. They come out in a zone clearly designed to take away inside shots. But that turns out not to be a problem as we are hot from the outside. Dante gets several open shots and he makes them scoring 6 points quickly for us. We have less luck as we try to force it into Scott inside.

While this cools down it does force them to guard us outside. We continue our patient ways. We are doing a nice half court offense, but I would prefer to be running more.

Overall the game goes well for us until the end of the third quarter. We had been up by 4 when they go on a run even taking a brief lead before we tie it back up to end the quarter. My speech at the end of the quarter is that we just saw the best that they had to offer. This turns out not to be entirely true. I have a good group of five out there, having made sure Tom, Gordie, and Noah all had played at least a quarter, but they still extend their lead. We have, however, taken their best guard out of the game as he just can’t stop crying so that’s something in our favor. The kid really hadn’t done anything wrong, but instead just seems to have cracked under the pressure. It was a shame to see.

Anyhow MP2 does manage to come out and take a lead of four. I call a time out with about 2 minutes to go. I explain we simply need two good possessions to tie the game. And bam we come out of the time out, score quickly, get the ball back after some good defense, and score again. Game is tied. A little seesawing and we then take the lead. We basically trade baskets for the rest of the game and we come out with a win.

These poor kids were crying. It was kind of sad really. They had played a great game, but we managed to squeak out the win. And we deserved it. While the game was close, I felt like we were not only the better team in general but had played better that day. We shook hands and were now on our way to the championship.

[path12]

Glad to see this back. Overcoming adversity to the championship, nice.....!

[Barkeep49]

Most of the team had gone out to lunch together, but I stuck around at the gym. Let me just say now that the gym was just beautiful. It had wonderful hardwood floors and the officiating was top notch.

Our game was supposed to start at 12:15 and I foolishly told my team to back at the gym by 11:45. That was WAY too early and since the game on the championship court (which even had an announcer) ended up running late the kids were sitting around forever. During this time the coach of the 5th & 6th grade teams and I talked. He had observed our earlier game against MP2 and remarked how well our team passes and is patient. It was great hearing this validation from another coach. During this discussion we also talked about the idea of being each other’s assistant coaches one day a week next year. I am thrilled with this idea as I really got frustrated with my inability to work in small groups while still providing something valuable for the rest of the team. And having a second pair of eyes will just be great.

The MP team’s coach had told me that his star player was out with bronchitis, which was good news for us. It meant that both teams were playing without their stars (he knew my team’s star had left our team). This was certainly good news for us. He talked to his team for 15 minutes or so. I did gather my team and we talked, but for no nearly as long. My speech was pretty close to this: “I was just talking with another coach and we agreed that the semi-final games are almost always harder than championship games. And really we’ve already won. We get to play on the championship court, with three referees, an announcer, and we win t-shirts and a trophy. And remember, win or lose, we walk away with our heads held high because we’ll have given our best. And if we play our best, we can beat this team.”

Not win one for the Gipper, but I think it served its purpose.

The game begins and we quickly get out to a 6-0 deficit. I call a time-out and try to calm down the team. It basically works. By half the score is 15-11. At the end of the first quarter when it was 10-9, I pointed out that we’d just gone on a 10-3 run. At half Jack M points out that we basically went on a 15-5 run. This was particularly good coming from Jack as he tends to be among the most negative our players.

We hold on to the narrowest of leads through the 3rd quarter. I do get myself in a bit of trouble. I had been rotating Tom, Noah, and Gordie ever half a quarter to make sure they got a full quarters worth of play but also didn’t play in the 4th. However, I accidentally subbed in Noah during the last half of the 3rd when I should have subbed in Gordie. I realized my mistake pretty quickly, however this meant I felt I should give Gordie some playing time in the 4th. And Tom had played pretty well so I wanted to give him a couple of 4th quarter minutes anyway. Jack P needed a rest and having Jack M out there wasn’t going to work, as Brian deserved the playing time and having Jack M, Brian, Tom, and Gordie is not a good combo. This is where having Scott play point would have been so useful. I came up with another solution instead: play Lucas at point. The thing is that Lucas really is a natural guard and my playing him inside did not come easily for him, but he always did it without complaint.
Lucas went out at guard and performed very well. It was good. Eventually I got my crunch time lineup in of Jack M, Jack P, Lucas, Scott and either Dante or Brian (I believe it was Brian). And they came through. MP put on their press which just wrecked us last time we played. This time it wasn’t effective at all. They called several time outs to try and do something, but the something didn’t matter. At the start of the 4th I stated that “We are six minutes away from winning the championship. As long as we play our game we will win this.” Each timeout I said something like “We are now X minutes closer” before stating anything else that needed to be said. With about 55 seconds left and up by 3, I put us in a stall defense. Eventually they got their coaches message to foul us. The rest of the game was boring really as they weren’t close to bonus and so several fouls later Jack M ended up on the line. He sunk the first shot, icing the game and made the second shot just for good measure. We had won!

So that they could play the next game they do the trophy presentation in a separate room after we have done the team’s talk. I gather our team and talk about how we can walk away with our heads held high because we played great basketball (I am glad I remembered to return to this theme after we had won). I talked about how proud of the team I was. And I said I’d save the rest of what I had to say for the team dinner that night. We went into the awards room. When MP came in we did a really lame cheer for them, at my suggestion, which I thought was a bit of nice sportsmanship for a hard fought championship game.

They had the coaches come up and receive the trophies and then give the t-shirts to each member of the team individually. It was real nice.

One final post will be forthcoming giving a wrap-up of the season.

[path12]

YEAH!!!!! Good for them! And kudos to the coach........

[Barkeep49]

General Reflections
So the season was a success by almost any measure one would use. We won the tournament championship. The evaluations by both players and parents were overwhelmingly positive. And I’m proud of what was accomplished. Now in fairness the coach always looks better when the team is winning, but I still think overall I did fairly well.

The highlight of the season for me was, without a doubt, winning the HP tourney. It felt so good to beat that JCC team, again. And even better was the fact that we did it without David being the sole star makes it just that much sweeter.

In comparison our conference tourney victory just didn’t feel as good. Even without David, I think I just sort of expected to win it all. I was amazed at my relative level of apathy during the championship game. I think this had some positive effects on the team, since I was so calm, they were so calm.

I will say that after observing the other coach’s practices, that my practices are superior. I think I did not do an adequate job of teaching fundamentals and that was as much an indictment of my own weakness as it was anything else. Other the other hand, I think that many of the things we did focus were improved just as much, if not more, through my use of the “game method” as through a traditional method and practices were more fun. Doing a better job of teaching the fundamentals will be a bigger focus for me next year.

Next Year

When I went to give our trophy to Emily, my Park District contact, we talked about the season and how well it went. She commented that the parents she’d talked to informally had given positive feedback. Essentially I was offered to come back next year, which I’m excited about.

My goal would be to move up with the team which I know would be met with a good reaction. The biggest question would be whether we would enter the A division or the B division. I know the league commissioner wants us to move up and I would absolutely agree with him except for the uncertainty over the triplets. I can’t imagine David coming out for the team again next year given what had happened this year. I would be pleasantly surprised if he did, as it would be clear that he wasn’t going to try and play on three teams again. My fear is that with David not coming out again I would lose Brian and Scott as well. I know that both of them would love to play for me again and would like playing with their friends so that’s in my favor. With Brian and Scott I think we’d be a lower half A league team, with David, I think we’d be a mid to upper half A league team. If Brian and Scott come back I think the move would likely be a good one as I know the team would learn more and I grow as a coach due to the tougher competition (a point that Brian made, as though it was his own, at our team dinner). If we lost all three, we’d really struggle even in the B, I think. Hopefully, Brian and Scott will come out again.

While that makes me very nervous, I am very excited about the idea of coaching with Jon, the guy who coached the 5th and 6th grade teams this year. I think having that second pair of eyes, not to mention another person at practice once a week, would just be terrific for our team. Not to mention it would give me somebody to commiserate with and learn from. Emily was also very excited about this idea. I hope it’s a winning formula all around.

I also decided that I want to sit down with every player at the last tryout and let him know whether or not he’s made the team. I think they deserve this personal feedback. However, I’m not sure I would have the heart to do this if I have to cut a player who made it last year. That would be real rough. At the same time, I’ve told the team all along that my job is to put together the best team possible and I will do that. I can’t envision going above 10 players either as playing time gets real hard above that amount and really is ideal with about 8 players. While I dread the idea of having to cut a player, I hope it’s a problem I have as it means our talent pool is stronger.

One thing I want to do better is keeping us in better shape than our opponents. At the beginning of the season we had a real advantage there, but we kind of forfeited it as the season went on. I blame myself and we’re going to do more conditioning next year as a result. Conditioning isn’t fun and so the kids moaned and would slack off and I listened to their moans and I didn’t push them as hard when they slacked off at the end of the season. We’re not going to get any taller relative to our opponents and so if we move up being in as good, or better shape, so we can play in transition becomes all the more important.

The Players

Sunday night after the championship game we had our team dinner and awards ceremony. Overall it was a great success with a good time had by all. All of the kids got a chance to hold the trophy and there was a lot of laughter and smiles. Just like I did in baseball I gave each of the kids an award. Here are what the awards were and some general reflections on them.

(One reminder: My main statistical tool I use is called Win Score. It prizes efficient shooting, and gives credit for the good things players do, such as rebounds, while taking away for negative things, such as turnovers. I then divide out this score by the minutes they play to get WS/M.)

Dante: “Dirk Nowitzski Award” Dante, despite being the tallest player on our team, was never the inside presence I would have liked. He did get better playing against big guys, but remained somewhat soft. Despite that, his favorite thing we did at practice was “Animal Rebounding”, our most physical drill. He did, however, develop a pretty nice jumper from short to medium distances. This contributed to having perhaps his best game of the season in our semi-final when he really helped to open up the floor by his jumpers. While he was in our top tier of players he was at the bottom of that their. The biggest negative is that while he was tall, he was as thin as a rail, but also slow, as in the slowest player on the team. Tall, skinny, and fast? No problem. Tall, with bulk, and slow? That works too. While I wouldn’t likely see any sort of noticeable improvement next year, I hope that puberty will give him a little bulk. He did improve as the season went on, and gained some confidence. His WS went from being mostly negative to being mostly positive.

Brian – “Sharpshooter Award” Brian just loved his award. The rest of the night after he received his award he clutched his award to his chest. It was incredibly cute. I’m not really surprised since he was so concerned about how many points he scored (5.4 per game) but since I never stressed how many points a player scored this was held in check. The only stat I ever mentioned on any sort of consistent basis was rebounding. Being a team player is not something which came easily for Brian, but he did a pretty good job of trying to be a good teammate this year. His short temper, almost always with himself, was a problem and I think it’ll only be more of a problem as he gets older, since that’s part of getting older. There’s all that on the one hand and then on the other hand there is the fact that he was also perhaps the most thoughtful member of the team, always remembering little details (in a positive way) about everyone on the team. He absolutely loves me, which is a big plus for me if I coach this team again next year (more on this later).

David – “Coast to Coast Award”. Yes I still gave him an award even though he quit the team, unfortunately he wasn’t able to come to the dinner as he got sick. He’s an incredible player and a really good kid. I felt genuinely bad for him being pulled in so many different directions with basketball. This kid is 9 years old and being on three competitive teams seems just like a recipe for burning this kid out by the time he would get to high school. His last few games with us, he honestly wasn’t playing nearly as well as he had at the beginning of the season. I think the HP tourney was a real turning point as he really did take over the game for us to win to a large extent against the JCC. After that I think he felt like he had to do that every game and he just wasn’t able to do it and frankly we didn’t need him to do it. I was sad he wasn’t able to finish the season with us, but am glad that they made the choice to cut back on his basketball.

Scott – “Glass Cleaner Award” Scott is the reason we wont he championship. Hands down. Out of the 48 minutes on Saturday and Sunday Scott played 43 of them. Scott is not a big kid in any sense of the word, but he plays HUGE and just loves playing inside. Our game against the WK a team showed that there are limitations here in that there are people who are just so big that despite how he plays he can’t compensate. Each year I feel like this is going to catch up to him more and more and he’ll have to learn how to play guard, whether he likes it or not, by the time he reaches 8th grade, if not before, unless he grows (and his parents suggest that there’s only so much growing to be done). All that said he was just a monster inside and on the boards (hence the award for all of his rebounding) and after David left the team really picked up his scoring to become our leading scorer. He wasn’t nearly as flashy about the scoring as David, but was very good. He was our team MVP and did it in as about an unassuming way as could be. I gave the awards in seemingly “random” order though really it was in the order that I liked the kids (yeah I’m an awful person) and Scott was the last one I gave. I think having David quit the team was a fantastic thing for both Brian and Scott, but particularly Scott since he got a chance to not be overshadowed by his brother and frankly I think he surprised himself at how well he did.

Tom – “Heart of the Team” Poor Tom doesn’t like to hear how great he is as it just embarrasses him. Tom scored, BY FAR, the least number of points, scoring only 6 the whole season. And while he didn’t do particularly well in any category, he’s a kid who as long as he’s not completely outclassed by others will always have a place on my team. He’s the kid who makes the team better by his presence and effort. As I said at the speech for him, when we needed a joke he’d tell a joke. When we needed to be serious he was a leader by example. I know we all missed him during the time he was gone. The biggest thing he could do to improve is to gain some confidence on the court. I’ve learned that he’s a truly gifted soccer player and pianist but doesn’t really enjoy either of those nearly as much as basketball, which was a nice thing to hear.

Noah – “Human Mop” Noah was a tough kid to come up with an award for. In reality he deserved the “most improved” award. If you recall I sat down with all of the players during the middle of the season to talk about what was going well and what wasn’t going so well. And at that time, I gave Noah a couple of comments. He really took them to heart and improved. His biggest problem had always been being in the wrong place on the court, especially on offense. He completely turned this around and this enabled him to start scoring some baskets. His best game was against the WK a team, which was just great to see. I didn’t give him the most improved award for a simple reason: he very well might not make the 5th grade team. Noah actually was, I think, by the end of the season a better player than Tom. However, Tom brings those intangibles to the table. And so there’s the real possibility that Noah just might not be good enough to make the team. Then there is the personality thing. On the one hand, he’d drive me NUTS at practice. Everyone would be sitting quietly paying attention, Noah would be standing staring off into space. Essentially he was your typical ADD kid (though his mom told me he doesn’t have ADD) and it could be truly aggravating at times. Brian’s fits didn’t phase me as much as Noah just being Noah. The biggest thing in his favor? He was thankful for every minute of playing time he got. I think he knew that he wasn’t as good as most of the other players and appreciated the fact that he got so many playing opportunities. A perfect example of this is when he commented at half of the championship game that he’d already played about 7 minutes. I thought he was saying this as a negative and started to remind him how that was a full quarter of play, when he said, “Yeah I know. I know how you said that we weren’t promised any time and was just real glad to get that time.” And he meant it. He would always ask if there was a chance he’d go back in at the end of games, which let me know how much he wanted to play, but it was never overboard. Every kid says at tryouts that they’d be willing to just make the team even if it meant sitting on the bench, but the difference is that with Noah he really means it. Noah is a good kid and it would break my heart to cut him.

Jack M – A great point guard. The fact that he’s a left helps him since most teams expect a player to drive to his right. He is very good at penetrating, not quite as good at finishing. He had his best game of the year in terms of points against MP2, making far more of his lay-ups than normal. I never commented to him about his shooting as he would almost always take smart shots, but his low shooting percentage is a definite negative for me. That said his ability to dribble, play tough defense, and do so much else well more than makes up for that negative. However, he is another one of the short kids. He and Gordie were neck and neck for being the shortest player on the team. While his skills allowed him to make up for that disadvantage, it’s only going to get worse for him if he doesn’t grow. Hopefully he’ll grow. The biggest problem with Jack is that he is a negative person who doesn’t have a lot of patience for his teammates. Where as Brian would lost patience either with himself or me, Jack would lost patience with the other players. This is, in many ways, a worse thing. Jack was the only player to really not want to move up to the a division and this is completely in keeping with his character. If we did move up, there would be far more problems with him I think because losing would be hard on him and I think cause his negativity to not quite be as well kept in check. That said, the season was a good one. While Jack had a conflict with an AAU game on the day of the championship he choose our team, which was great. Besides Brian, he was the one most interested in his individual stats, which again was in keeping with his personality.

Jack P – “Igniter Award”. To compensate for our short stature I wanted to play an uptempo game. Jack was the only one who could be counted to do this every moment he was out there. Scott did a good job, but Jack did a great job. His shooting percentage was 27% which just killed me. More than anything this is what he needs to do to take his game to the next level. If he could do that he could become a really good player. He’s grown a lot, and his parents are fairly tall, so he could continue to grow. If this happens he’ll see more and more time at 4 and 5, which is not something he likes. We’re a team of 9 people who think of themselves as guards and Jack P, if trends continue (and there’s no guarantee that they will), will likely see the short end of that stick more. I think that Jack has the most unrealized potential on the team, an example being his ability to create shots and then not make them, which is exciting as well.

Gordie – “Love of the Game”. I think a hidden strength of this team is that they all loved to play basketball. I think basketball is a really fun sport and this team top to bottom felt the same way. Gordie, even on this team of kids who loved it, was among those who loved it the most. It killed him to sit on the bench as much as he did. The problem with Gordie going forward was summed up well by his step dad, “Gordie will player harder than anyone else, but if he doesn’t grow, his basketball career is going to be limited”. The sad part is that we could be talking about this by 5th grade. He would too often get trapped with the ball and then turn it over. Jack M was just as short, and only a bit quicker, but Jack would get rid of the ball a second before he was trapped, rather than two seconds after he’d been trapped. He wanted to play point for us, but it was, I think, more for the chance for him to score than anything else. Gordie has a good first step, which helps him penetrate, but he’s not really fast, so his second and third steps aren’t as fast as they should be. Gordie, along with Noah, would be the two who I’d nominate as least likely to make the team next year.

Lucas – “Do it for the team award”. Lucas did whatever was asked of him without complaint. He’s a quiet kid by nature but with a smile which could light up a room and never a frown. He didn’t belong inside, but it’s where I played him nearly all season and he did well getting 5.4 rebounds per game, second best on the team. Learning how to score from inside was a process that was slow going but he certainly improved there. That said I think that I really am doing him and the team a disservice by having him play so much inside. Next to David, Lucas did the best job of simply taking over a game. He could easily have been our second best point guard at the end of the season (next to Jack M) and I only played him there for a few minutes. During the playoffs I had him playing our “wing” and he did extremely well there. The kid is a natural athlete and a really good kid on top of it.

So that’s it for our basketball team this year. Thanks so much for reading along and I hop you enjoyed it. My baseball adventures will likely be starting up a week from Saturday, so look for that then.