We we certainly spent the last 3 weekends learning a lot about us as team, us individuals and the qaulity of our high school basketball scene province wide.
Regionals
We went to Ormocoto needing to the first game to qaulify and wanting to play well in the seeding the next day. We managed to do both though despite that being our goal the competitior in me is still unhappy with the opportunities we missed.
The first game we battled but I had made the mistake of making my kids think too much. We knew the team we were playing was built around one superstar so we made a point all week of instituting a "sniper" wrinkle which takes one player out of our rotation to full deny the star every where all the time, and creates an auto-double once he catches. We did an excellent job on him holding him to 7 points total, but our attention to him and going away from our regular rotation led us to doing a poor job team wise at stopping the role players on the other team. We won but it ended up being much closer then it should have been. In our other games our most talented players finnally started playing like our most talented and we other then running out of gas at the end of both games to lose by a basket in one and 6 in the other we did a good job. I understand the downside of playing with the pace we do without depth means multiple games in 24 hours are not our friend.
Provincials
Proud sure. Shell shocked definitely. So we did go and represent our school at this level for the first time since 1997 (that year I was a freshmen in university and knew nothing about this school). We also learned a lesson that we had coming all season. You can't play at a level you don't see everyday and practice/play/compete at regularly. We spent the first 1/2 learning what this level was about to the tune of 41-17 at halftime, then came out and brought our game to match it to end up losing 81 - 69. That sent us home so I didn't see anymore basketball that weekend.
Finals
What a great finals experience. I took up some local kids and saw the best the prvince had to offer. I was disappointed in the AA girls final as the individual and team skill became lost in the moment and the game degernated into lots of long shots and the winner was the team that could offensive and defensive rebound more often. The other games were great. In a province that often struggles to shoot the ball these teams all had clearly reached the top of their leagues by being able to shoot it the best of the teams out there. In each of the games that became apparent as the teams at this level were good enough to stop the intial action so secondary shooters or needed to make shots. The teams that won found shots and made them.
Lessons:
- Keep It Simple Stupid. Don't make adjustments that effect the way you play or percieve yourself.
- If you are going to play is if you have depth, you really need to have good depth to succeed.
- You only play at the level you compete at regularly.
- Getting open shots its effective only if you can shoot it.
- Shooting fixes everything.
- If no one can shoot you better be able to rebound.
