It’s a little late in coming, and I already mentioned it a little last night at practice, but, I just wanted to say…Wow.
Wow! You guys should be really proud of yourselves! I know I am! I hope your parents are, too!! You guys really put out an excellent effort and put on an awesome, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat kinda show for everyone in the stands at our last game!!
Savannah and Heidi and Jen were yankin’ down rebounds and putting ‘em up without hesitating.
Kelly W and Danielle were setting picks and shooting like pros.
Katherine was doing some CRAZY monkey defense (we patented that, together) and also pulling some rebounds. Alyssa did a fantastic job under pressure, moving the ball, and also getting some great rebounds with, apparently, super-sticky fingers! She also put up a great shot that didn’t miss by much.
And let’s not forget Sarah Shields, whose tireless defense, and great fast-breaking layups helped secure the win. I should also mention that she made some great passes down low, as well.
As a team, we really did a great job going after that ball! We did a fabulous job rebounding and made some really good passes. And we didn’t panic, or get down on ourselves when we were down by four or five points.
And guess what happened? We won! In overtime, yet.
Like I said in our last timeout huddle, though: Win or Lose, we played a fantastic game. I don’t know about you guys, but I really liked doing that little offensive switch between the 4 and 5 position (where Savannah and Heidi were switching spots with Katherine and Jen Coffey on the low post.) And those of you who played 4 and 5 did a great job, especially considering that I sprung the idea on you right before the game! Essentially that’s called switching the “high post” (at the top of the key where the centers normally play on our team) with the “low post” which is where the power forward traditionally played, on the block, under the basket. And it worked well.
Another thing we did tremendously was pressing! One of the mom’s on the other team commented that our press was “unstoppable”. They just couldn’t get the ball down the court most of the time! Nice job!!
Things we did great: Grabbing the ball. Getting the rebounds. Shooting. Setting Picks. Defense.
Things we did OK: Communicating, driving to the open spots, ball-handling (some flashes of greatness here, too!)
Things we still need to improve upon: Boxing out. I shouted this all game, and even though some of you did it at times, I never saw a play where EVERYONE did it. I’m telling you, when we do this consistently we increase our score by a bunch!
Next game is against Blue Granite (Kapsambelis), who are currently in 2nd place. We played them our first game, and lost. But since then, we’ve beaten 2 teams that have beaten them, so we’re more than capable of pulling out a victory, here!
Our keys to winning this one:
- BOX OUT (what a surprise!)
- Pass the ball into the LOW POSTS — please! Get it down there for the easy basket!!
- Give and GOOO. Please, don’t forget the “GO”
- Stopping their easy baskets near the hoop (including the drive down the middle)
- HUSTLING back on defense!!
That’s it. That’s enough to chew on for now.
Do those things, and play like last time (actually, let’s try to improve a little, we should always try to improve), and I will have absolutely no complaints either way!
See you Sunday!
-jim
