IT HAS BEGUN

I am very excited to say that I have spent this morning catching up on the 24 hour marathon of College Hoops that took place on ESPN Monday and Tuesday.  It's amazing how many of these games were close and exciting to watch.  As a coach, I enjoy watching these teams and stealing any good ideas I see out on the court.  I am sad to report that I have not seen much that I can use, even from Butler who almost always shows some great sets.

It's apart that we are in the early part of the season, many of these teams sets seem sloppy at best.  Monday I watch part of the Pepperdine @ UCLA game and was pretty unimpressed with what UCLA did against Pepperdine's 2-3 zone.   Even though they survived with a win, it seems the only success they were having against a under matched opponent was to get the ball into the high post for a turn and face, most of the time I has watching they scored simply because they were more athletic.  That may work for the Bruins against a Mid level WCC team, but not sure how well it work work against tougher teams (although the PAC 10 maybe lucky to be as good as the WCC this year, I have low expectations...).

Deep down in my heart, I am a Ducks fan, and I have yet to see a game which saddens me.  I think that Dana Altman can turn it around for them after sometime I think this year will be pretty tough one for Oregon.  So I have decided that I need to pick out a few more teams to follow this year.  So, this year I will be attempting to follow these teams:

Butler
New Mexico
Navy
San Diego St

This should be a bit of a challenge for me, between keeping track of my own teams and, of course, the Ducks.  I have succeeded in only watching 2 of these teams so far, but hopefully next time I write will have news on all 5.  I watched Butler get rolled by Louisville last night and SD St. survive against Gonzaga. 

Butler, in my opinion, was taken out early against Louisville.  The 1st 10 min (or in middle school basketball, 1st 6 min, see below for more on this) is so important as to how a game is going to go, the officiating being one of the main factors at this point in a game.  If one team is going to play more physical, push through players and grab arms and get away with it, while the other is picking up ticky-tak fouls on the other end, you can find yourself in a hole right away.  Matt Howard, who last year was a foul magnet, picked up 2 quick ones in under 4 minutes, one of which was a terrible call.  This happen while Louisville was allowed to grab and push the Bulldogs pretty much at will.  This took Butler out of rhythm and got to the point where it strongly effected the game.  I must add however, that Butler's HC execution was horrible for most of the game.  If not for Shelvin Mack, the Bulldogs could have been down 20 early in the 1st half.  In the 2nd half the refs found their whistles and a ton of fouls on both sides got called.  But the damage had already been done early and Butler didn't have a chance to come back.  I think that Butler played poorly, and they missed Hayward in a big way last night, but when your getting physically beaten up and down the court its not a equal playing field.  If refs call the 1st 10 min tight (or at least fair) then the game will not have over 40 fouls called.  Players adjust to how its being called.  And anyone who says that an even foul count suggested good calls needs to stop repeating what they hear on the radio.  TEAMS NEVER FOUL EQUALLY IN GAMES.  Anyone who watches sports with an ounce of intelligence can tell you that.

I am entering the 3rd week of the middle school basketball season.  Last night we had our 2nd game of the season.  Both teams won in our last game and I think felt pretty good heading into this one.  We played Waitsburg/Prescott who usually has a decent team, last year we lost both our games and I felt like we could compete this year.  Our B team survived a squeaker, 20-18, with a young man named Aaron hitting the winning hoop with under a minute to go.  Kids played tough defense and it paid off, we didn't take a lot of quality shots and that's why it was so close.  In this game, I would have to say that we got one or two calls that when our way, something that we do not usually get.  We stole the ball in the back court (B teams are not allowed to press unless last 2 minutes of the half or 4th quarter) and scored, also they didn't call a travel on a hoop we scored.  I consider myself someone not blind to what really happens, even when its my team playing.

The A game on the other hand was a different story.  We started the game on a 6-0 run for us and it got ugly from there.  They had kids what were bigger, stronger and more aggressive.  The game was called to strongly favor them and we suffered for being a much less physical team.  Basketball stops being basketball when kids are getting slammed to the floor.  Now I have to say that we didn't play well on offense, when we made it into the HC, we executed poorly, unable to get to the basket and finish strongly.  The final was 36-16, scoring only 16 points in any game and expecting to win in unlikely and I blame myself for that.  We didn't break the press well and missed many fast break opportunities because of poor passing.  These are all things we need to work on, as well as being tough and able to take a punch to the gut when it is give to us. 

I am still very proud of my guys and we will continue to get better.  Our season only lasted another month, we will play 7 more games and I know we will use this game as a chance in improve.  What I need to learn from this experience is that my teams need to be able to deal with a physical game and continue to be effective, that is what a good team would do in this situation.  Always something to work on...