Behind but I promise to put down every day anyway.
So its hump day at Nationals. Today we knew how much the girls were going to be played out. We let them sleep in a little and after practice had a prep meeting for the day. Scheduling meetings are increasing better focused, but as time has worn on there have been more complaints about things like food, family time, etc. You can tell they are breaking down mentally. Luckily hydration and our rotations sub wise are helping with physical wear and tear. Only bang ups so far are some knee tendinitis we had in a player coming in and another who has a knee strain that bothers her until she warms up. It is more of a chiropractic issue than an injury so she's playing through it.
After some time to rest we got the girls together to try to beat the heat and unwind. We filled up a bunch of water ballons and headed to an outside court. There we walked through sets using the water ballons in the heat, catching and moving with explosions of water and some soaking going on. Everyone enjoyed themselves.
Afternoon we prepped PEI. What they have done, how they play. We put a real focus on making them score without using the three point line and finishing our chances early to get seperation.
Things began to breakdown a little after that. We had to have kids go to get taped earlier then other kids wanted to be at the gym so two different groups went to the gym instead of us going together. When we got there a player had a cell phone out texting at the game before ours (we had established a rule that during team time ie. meetings, scouting, pregame, postgame etc - that coaches would collect the cell phones and you could have them back after). Then in the locker room when some kids came to use their cells for music during their 25 minutes individual prep we had more texting going on. We did get everything done and in before tip off though.
The game itself was ugly. We know there are no easy wins at Nationals and PEI came out ready to be as physical as they could be. They pushed the pace early and we made bad decisions. We know that they play a lot off hope and momentum, trying to grind and then making big shots. Defensively we never gave them the big shot, but for three quarters we let them hang in and around. We were just pressing to much on offense. A case of knowing your better but not being disciplined and trying to make a big play all the time. The game also never got any flow because PEI was fouling as a last result to break up plays and between our turnovers and missed freethrows we just couldn't get into into sync. The game also had a really negative tone with the PEI bench getting two technicals.
Eventually in the 4th we strung together some hoops. That and our depth allowed us to pull away to a 16 point win. Which takes us to hitting the wall after the game . . .
After our win I now know that we have Ontario but that we are not in a place mentally or confidence wise that we need. On the way out of the gym parents let me know that girls have been violating a team rule about textng and calling after curfew (we had allowed cells phones in the rooms at night for music and alarm clocks). So I decide to get the girls to the meal hall for supper and have a meeting about focusing on details and controlling controlables again. The girls immediately ask if they can go to supper with their parents. I said no as I wanted them to eat and begn recovery right away and meet to set up our next 26 hours in prep for a huge quarterfinal game with Ontario.
I sent the girls with Pam (Assistant coach) up to the meal hall. I had to set up a practice time for the morning and talk to my own kids before going to the meal hall. Once I got there I was informed that girls were choosing not to eat and had been arugmentative with Pam abuot having to go at all. When we got back to residence we immdeiately met with the team laying out their schedule for free time in the evening and morning before heavy prep for Ontario all afternoon and evening before an 8pm game. Then I read them the riot act.
We talked about how there were too many complaints about conditions, expectations, and generally not enough focus on controlling controlables. I pointed out that any number of girls from the development team that were cut from our team would happily spend 8 days going through worse if it meant they could be on this team. We talked about the rules violations and our performance mostly focusing on what it takes in terms of discipline and structure to get to the next level. We also told them that they would no longer have their cells phones in their rooms at night and that we would wake them up. As you can imagine tired, underfed, overemotional teenage girls reacted about as I had expected and we went from the edge of breaking to over the edge.
Kids left crying, kids went to their rooms cursing and hating me, some kids even called their parents and started packing because they wanted to quit. We let them blow up for about an hour before calling in some of our leaders to discuss what we had to do to get past this. All the kids parents came to take them off site for an evening bbq and too cool down, and our leaders started talking to the them about the things we had reccommended. By 10 pm they wanted to come back to Residence and talk again. So we did debriefing their reactions, and sharing stories about college or other nationals where first time player hit an emotional wall. They seemed relieved that we didn't think it was a big deal and refocused quite quickly on the task at hand.
As the prepared for bed coaches talked to the two players individually who had handled it the worst to make sure that there was no lingering effects or ongoing issues. Both those conversations went well and tomorrow is a huge day vs. Ontario to get to the medal round.
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