Final day of nationals for our girls who are planning on heading back to their homes after the closing ceremonies.
Day started off with some real concern over our remaining level of focus. With a 5th place game against a tough NS squad who we had already had a close game with early in the summer, the first conversation I heard in the morning was teenage girls getting weepy about it being their last day together. I'm glad our kids bonded over the summer and look at each other with such regard that the idea of of the season ending makes them sad. However, it had been a long week already and no such thing as an easy game all week we needed to find a way to crank it up again.
Same routine was followed as with Alberta game the previous day: up early, breakfast, down time, gym, pregame. In our pregame prep for NS defensively we focused on containing their dribble drive with early rotation and communication to leave 1 player open vs gang help and sagging of multiple shooters, we wanted to limit extra points (no threes, no free trips to foul line, control boards, and limit turnovers). On offense we wanted to get into our stuff because we felt like they played a number of undersized guards who denied hard all over the floor and gamble on turnovers. We decided if we took care of the ball and sealed them off cuts and screens we could get good looks. We also wanted to keep what was also an emotional game vs a rival on the last day of nats in check. We asked the girls to play this 40 minutes for these 40 minutes. No focus on what happened before or implications for after, just 40 minutes for themselves and each other vs a common opponent.
Game's first half was only partially as we had scripted it out. Offensively it was our best opening quarter and 1st half of the tournament. We shot the ball well, we took care of the ball and got all our looks out of our movement. We scored 34 points in the half which was the most we'd scored in a half all week, and that was with our focus on playing slower then we normally had on the offensive end to make sure we ran our stuff. Defensively though we were a mess. No communication, being reactive instead of proactive and no one stopping the ball on their own with or without rotation. We gave up too many points, committed too many fouls and were only up 6 at half. I had spent both timeouts and now spent out half time talk begging for better defensive effort. One of the downsides of the rules limiting defensive tactics is that there are really very few adjustments defensively that coaches can make other then attention to details and making sure kids putting in a kid effort are on the floor.
The 2nd half 3rd quarter resembled the first with us jumping out to a 12 point lead but then as the quarter went on fouls and poor communication began to hurt us and chip away at our confidence. Going into the 4th we felt like we were in survival mode rather then still up. At that point though between players battling injuries, foul trouble, and players who had clearly mentally checked out we just didn't have the depth we were used to having at our disposal.
The 4th quarter turned into a mess. We got outscored badly, gave up more points in the quarter then we had averaged giving up in a half all week, most importantly we suddenly couldn't score because we couldn't get the ball inbounds or get shots against NS pressure. In short the wheels came off. A couple of players Courtney Bulman and Molly Gulliver kept battling but without some help and unable to play the entire 4th the game slipped away. That said we had a free throw to tie with 30 seconds left but missed it and ended had a three to tie with 14 seconds left coming out of a time out but bobbled the pass and ended up with another turnover. Lost 70-66.
Lots of issues to address but mostly we didn't meet our defensive goals. We felt that NS had enjoyed a much easier road to get there having played sees 8,10,7 (2 times), and Quebec. None of those games had ended with close scores and as a result they hadn't played hard wire to wire, where as in all but one of our games we were the underdog and had to play hard all game long in a number of emotional physical battles. We believed we were the more battle tested and had learned how to defend at a nationals level that they hadn't seen or learned to deal with yet during the week. The defense that was giving up less then 50 points per game, and less than 35 if you eliminated points we gave up off turnovers just didn't show up. We gave up 70 pts. We had asked them to limit extra points and sent them to the free throw line 39 times and go 6/18 from the three point line. In a nut shell our worst defensive effort of the week and we lose despite some improvement on the offensive side of the ball.
After the game they were upset. We gave them time to debrief and focused on the positives from the week and reminded them that the 40 minutes was over. We gathered ourselves and went to a BBQ hosted by the Fredericton parents. It was a nice way to end the week, before heading back to pack up and watch the finals.
In the rest of the days actions there were very few surprises. Ontario u15 did lose to BC u15 who they'd handled easily early in the week, but after their tough lose to MB the night before didn't look like they wanted to be there. Allstars didn't play, the kids who did were those who hadn't logged huge minutes against MB and they shot the ball as poorly as they had all week. In the other games things shook out as expected. The u15 girls final went to Quebec by a wider margin then I think most expected but MB only played 8 kids the night before and had very little left in the tank vs. a great QC team. They also couldn't guard QC's best players because of matchups and got very few points off turnovers and QC's bigs were able to help with pressure.
After the games, we had the ceremonies and all star nominations. I was a little surprised that Courtney Bulman didn't get the nod for 2nd team all star as she was our best player all week and averaged close to 14 pts per game in less the 20 min per game. I think our depth though and the fact that her stats reflected 1/3+ less time on the floor may have hurt other coaches impressions, but she was far and away our all star and IMO better then at least 2 kids who got awards.
Overall 3-3 isn't as nice as 4-2 would have been but we battled tough all week and I couldn't be prouder of our kids.
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