Tournament, Camps, and Delilah

We played in the Spiece Memorial Day Run N Slam this past weekend. We lost our first pool game to a very solid Gary Falcons team. I was happy with our defensive effort, but we didn't finish a couple possessions with good block outs and that ended up hurting us. They had multiple possessions where they had 2, 3, 4 shots and in a close game that will break your back. That being said, offensively we could not hit a shot. No one was shooting a high percentage.

We led most of the first half while it was a close game the whole time. We were up only two points at halftime. In the second half, they grabbed the lead early and we were fighting back and forth. With two minutes left, we were down five points and had the ball. We came up empty on that possession and only had one more basket the rest of the game. We didn't execute and they turned up the defensive pressure late.

In the second pool game, we played a tough Wisconsin Playground Warriors team. When I say they were tough I mean physically and also good players. They took the lead early but we fought back and gained the lead about half way through the first half. Our big guys were carrying us as most of our points were coming from in the paint. The refs were letting a lot of contact go underneath and I think that actually worked to our advantage.

We were up about 12 or so with three minutes left when Wisconsin made their run. They started pressuring us and turning us over leading to easy baskets for them. We remained calm and ended up breaking their press a couple times after a time-out to get everyone on the same page. We ended up only winning by four points, but it was a good, hard-fought game. We have lacked physical and mental toughness so it was good to see.

We went on to win our first tournament game in overtime. It was a pretty sloppy game and we had a big drop off in energy and effort from our game against Wisconsin. It seems like we have a habit of taking two steps of progress and then the next game we take a step or two back. We can't just keep building on our success. I guess that can be attributed to lack of maturity.

We lost our second tournament game to Ohio Basketball Club. They were a really tough team. Two big guys around 6'6 that we had no answer to. We could have done some things differently to get the big guys away from the basket but defensively we had to way to stop them. They were highly skilled which is rare for big, young guys.

After going 2-2 in this tournament, I believe that puts our season record at 14-12. Winning is definitely not the most important thing at this level. I just want the players to have improved fundamentally with a better sense of what they need to do to grow as players. I believe most of our players have at least improved one part of their game. Optimally, I think we could be 16-10 or 17-9 but again that isn't the most important thing for our players.

I'm in the process of finalizing all the college camps I'm going to work this summer. I know have four committed and hope to add two or three more. I'm looking at it as getting paid to improve myself as a teacher/coach. One thing I think I have greatly improved on is my teaching of the game. When I first started I let a lot of small mistakes go just because I didn't want to stop the players every two seconds. I now know that I need to really focus on the details and correct them as soon as possible so they don't become bad habits. So hopefully, I learn a couple things that help me become a better teacher.

Here's what I want to achieve through working college camps...
1) Become a better teacher as mentioned above
2) Make multiple friendships/connections with college coaches. Never know if an assistant will get a head job somewhere and will be looking to fill out their staff in the next couple years. Just like any other business, coaching is about who you know as much as how much you know. Head Coaches hand pick their coaching staffs.
3) Make some good money doing something I like to do. Enough said here I believe.
4) This kind of goes with number 2, but I want to pick the brain of multiple assistants about teaching the game and game strategy.

That is what I want to do on my summer vacation.
Random thought...I really like that song "Hey there Delilah" I like the sound of it. It's very relaxing and can clear my mind of frustrations.