This past weekend both highschool basketball teams (boys and girls) were in action against the Minot Ryan Lions. There are a couple of schools in Minot that when we play against they bring both their teams. From an economic stand point it kinda makes sense I suppose. It gets to be a lot of basketball…but right now I’m in to watching it. I had planned on being there for the early afternoon game to watch how my girls play with the freshman team, the wife was also going to come with. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay for the varsity games, but I found out the day before that I would need to be there for the beginning of the girls varsity game to run a video for the 2nd graders to sing to. Not a huge deal, but it gets to be quite a long day. I wasn’t sure of the logistics of the video, so I showed up at 11am to work out the video and sound. The varsity game ended around 9, for a weekend day that gets to be quite a while in ye old school house.
I am glad we stayed for the entire boys game. It was a close game…but more interesting than that Ryan had a guy on the team that looked just like me when I used to play. He was a wide body, belly over his belt, got winded fairly quick…but he was agile and could score around the rim…just like me when I played. One of the things that he, me and every other decent wide body I’ve seen play the game, does well is shield their shot with their body. I’ve tried to explain how to do this to some of the players I’ve coached, but I can’t come up with a good way to show them how to do it. I know several of the boys were at this game, and I’m hoping when monday comes they will be able to recall how this guy played as I’m talking to them and they can make the connection.
Basketball is a physical game…and the boys are going to be getting a lot of contact down low. One thing I’m trying to teach them is to not avoid the contact, seek it out, initiate it and control the contact with your body. If you embrace the fact that shots under the hoop are going to be body to body shots, if you control that contact with your body and learn how to keep the opponent off your shooting hand they will become far more effective post players.
Something else that I am going to try to explain to them and reference this game is the difference between a good player and a great player. Our varsity team has a very good player who is the star of the team. He can score, is good defensively…all that. In my mind though, the difference between a good player and a great player is a good player gets his points, can control the tempo of the game and keeps his team in the game till the end. A great player will bring out the best of his teammates. Sometimes it’s necessary to forgo your own shot at the beginning of the game just to get your teammates involved. What a lot of good players don’t realize is that once you get every one involved it makes scoring opportunities easier to come by for the “star”.
We still have two weeks before our first game, so there is a lot of training left to do. I’m really curious to see how these boys come together as a unit. There is a lot of potential there, but since I wasn’t involved with them last year…I have no idea what their competition will look like.
Oh, and since I watched my girls play ryan’s freshman team…I was able to see that when we went to Ryan and got beat up on…we were playing their freshman team. One of the girls, the main one that shut us down in the lane, saw significant time on Ryan’s JV team. Utterly ridiculous…but that is getting to be a more common story. As I watch the teams that either gave us a significant challenge or that beat us down…their main players are starters on the freshman teams and seem to see time on JV. I don’t get it…