Arizona State is freaking ridiculous. I'm sure that also means that most large division 1 schools facilities are also nuts, but having never been that up close and personal with a program like that before; I could only imagine. From lockers on computer codes, to whirlpools in player lounges, to multiple weight and training facilities and all this carved into the side of hill in the beautiful Arizona scenery/weather - wow! It makes you wonder why anyone would play in the North East.
Now to the game itself.
To be fair (and totally biased) I have a huge crush on ASU as a whole right now including their coach Charli Thorne and the entire team. They are as long, athletic and skilled a group of university women I'ld ever seen in person. The atmosphere for even "just a women's game on wednesday night" was ridiculous. I sat in the student band section rocking some yellow threads and was entertained.
Now all that being said they were playing Stanford, and there is no way anyone is beating Stanford. I know they lost to UCONN and may lose again to UCONN but I genuinely have no idea how any women's team anywhere could beat Stanford. They are skilled in frames and muscle masses I didn't know women came in. Their point guard had more muscle then any player for Arizona State. Their posts were flat out scary.
ASU had quick cuts on offense and fancy footwork on defense. Stanford had staggered screens and post ups resembling tanks rolling over some unsuspecting village in a war zone, and on defense they got extra physical.
Coach Thorne was coaching her butt off to make adjustments. Coach Vanderveer sat there until her team would make a mistake on anything then she would get up sub them out, chew them out, and sit back down. The final was 60 something to 40 something, but Stanford decided that is what it would be.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Steve - WOW!!!
So I went to Phoenix which definitely meant that I was going to see the Suns play. Luckily enough they were in town during the week of the conference playing the 76'ers (two canadian NBA players in one building, who would have thought). What a game!
The suns were on fire and Philly isn't very good so it was 20 plus the whole way. Here are some memorable basketball things I took away from the game:
- When everyone is 200+ pounds I have no idea what is a foul inside of 14 feet other then a punch in the mouth.
- Steve had 24 points, 13 assists in 30 minutes of playing time on 8-10 shooting and with 1 turnover. He is always 3 steps ahead, he's reading the defensive and making eye contact with the guy he's going to find after the screen doubles to chase him and they rotate to pick up the slip.
- Communication at this level is art form. No one is calling plays around the court, you'd never get heard in time. Steve's coming down the floor with one hand or the other determining the action and movment by the side he attacks and wether he runs his hand through his hair or wipes it on the front of his jersey. After that it is read and react in hurry.
- When you can finish in the rim in two strides for a 6'10 frame, then allowing people to catch and play single coverage inside of 15 feet is impossible to defend post catch 1 on 1.
- Basketball still boils down to making the offense do something they don't want. Players in position to make shots/plays must make shots or plays.
- 3 Point shooting in transistion is back breaking particularly off a turnover.
The suns were on fire and Philly isn't very good so it was 20 plus the whole way. Here are some memorable basketball things I took away from the game:
- When everyone is 200+ pounds I have no idea what is a foul inside of 14 feet other then a punch in the mouth.
- Steve had 24 points, 13 assists in 30 minutes of playing time on 8-10 shooting and with 1 turnover. He is always 3 steps ahead, he's reading the defensive and making eye contact with the guy he's going to find after the screen doubles to chase him and they rotate to pick up the slip.
- Communication at this level is art form. No one is calling plays around the court, you'd never get heard in time. Steve's coming down the floor with one hand or the other determining the action and movment by the side he attacks and wether he runs his hand through his hair or wipes it on the front of his jersey. After that it is read and react in hurry.
- When you can finish in the rim in two strides for a 6'10 frame, then allowing people to catch and play single coverage inside of 15 feet is impossible to defend post catch 1 on 1.
- Basketball still boils down to making the offense do something they don't want. Players in position to make shots/plays must make shots or plays.
- 3 Point shooting in transistion is back breaking particularly off a turnover.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Season Reflection #8 - Playoffs
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.
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.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Season Reflection #7 - The Long Road Home
So you go on the road to compete in a tournament. You win your pool. The kids have great team building and the hotel and watching Avatar in theatre. You meet the team that won your home tournament in this final. You have a chance to win your first tournament of the year to send a message to your conference competition. You have the most rest going into the final. You have every reason to go out and compete hard. You have every reason to be hungry for a win.
Yet for some reason teenagers can still come out flat, lethargic and unwilling to defend competitively. You end up scoring 92 points in regulation but still can't win because no one defends all game long. Then the long ride home.
I hate that ride. You should be moving on (the teens you travel with clearly have) and all you want is silence to mope in. You've debriefed after the game. You've talked about positives and negatives for individuals, but still all I want is that ride to be over.
Grrr . . . I thought coaches were supposed be above petty competitive issues like this. Still need to grow up some I guess.
Yet for some reason teenagers can still come out flat, lethargic and unwilling to defend competitively. You end up scoring 92 points in regulation but still can't win because no one defends all game long. Then the long ride home.
I hate that ride. You should be moving on (the teens you travel with clearly have) and all you want is silence to mope in. You've debriefed after the game. You've talked about positives and negatives for individuals, but still all I want is that ride to be over.
Grrr . . . I thought coaches were supposed be above petty competitive issues like this. Still need to grow up some I guess.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Season Reflection #6 - Big Baby's
So apparently I can still let my emotions get the best of me.
We played the other night and it didn't go well in the first half. You can't give up 51 points in a high school half of basketball and expect to compete. That being said we were only down a dozen at half so we went to talk about. I went in and began detailing defensive adjustments we had to make in order to close the gap and positive things we needed to keep doing in order to maintain success on offense.
But I was mad.
(We interrupt this blog to remind the reader that has happned on many occassions I don't see the world like most people. When most coaches would think that their kids weren't playing well, or didn't understand, or weren't sharp or even were dumb I don't. My default position on everything in the universe is that if we cared more it would work. It you cared enough to try harder, cared enough to train better, cared enough to sacrifice yourself for the win, etc.)
So I was mad and under the surface was the looming - Why don't you care monster - and then I saw them. Player with their shoe laces undone, players with their heads down, players clearly upset with their playing time rather then the score. I stopped (snapped - no stopped) and said:
"Forget everything I just said its all bullS#&^ ! You know the real reason we can't stop these guys. Its the same reason my 6 month old daughter can't play high school boys basketball. Baby's can't defend at this level!"
That was it. Everyone playing their guts out felt like they needed to do more and looked emploringly at their teammates. Unfortunately the nature of being a "big baby" is that when someone calls you on it you sulk and make it worse.
Did I feel better? Sort of! Did the kids who wanted to say something but didn't feel like the elephant in the room was brought up and they could relax? Probably. Did the issues causing the defensive short comings get resolved? Mostly no!
The moral of the story is a common one with me and teens: what I say is not what they are hearing. What they are hearing is definitely not what I mean. The really real truth is that in the at moment I want to run and around screaming "you see, you see" because all the stuff I bring up in practice and in meetings about needing to care more and work harder to be successful become manifest when its on the line. The simple fact is that at that point me gloating, finger pointing, or doing anything except being positive isn't going to help the outcome.
At this level of sports their are only so many in game adjustments kids can make. The competitor in me needs to take a back seat to the grown up coach who needs to find a way to manage the game. Could I have done something else? Would it have made a difference in the outcome?
I think what coach Greenburg says is true: You can't be the motivator, the disciplinarian, the counsellor, the teacher, the cheer leader and the support strucuture. If you are everything you burn out and they have nothing to do. The problem is cultural I'm still trying to make kids that aren't self motivators motivated instead of addressing the issue that they need to train them to be self motivated. I need to have less responsibilty and invesment in the outcome then they do.
How do I get them to do that?
We played the other night and it didn't go well in the first half. You can't give up 51 points in a high school half of basketball and expect to compete. That being said we were only down a dozen at half so we went to talk about. I went in and began detailing defensive adjustments we had to make in order to close the gap and positive things we needed to keep doing in order to maintain success on offense.
But I was mad.
(We interrupt this blog to remind the reader that has happned on many occassions I don't see the world like most people. When most coaches would think that their kids weren't playing well, or didn't understand, or weren't sharp or even were dumb I don't. My default position on everything in the universe is that if we cared more it would work. It you cared enough to try harder, cared enough to train better, cared enough to sacrifice yourself for the win, etc.)
So I was mad and under the surface was the looming - Why don't you care monster - and then I saw them. Player with their shoe laces undone, players with their heads down, players clearly upset with their playing time rather then the score. I stopped (snapped - no stopped) and said:
"Forget everything I just said its all bullS#&^ ! You know the real reason we can't stop these guys. Its the same reason my 6 month old daughter can't play high school boys basketball. Baby's can't defend at this level!"
That was it. Everyone playing their guts out felt like they needed to do more and looked emploringly at their teammates. Unfortunately the nature of being a "big baby" is that when someone calls you on it you sulk and make it worse.
Did I feel better? Sort of! Did the kids who wanted to say something but didn't feel like the elephant in the room was brought up and they could relax? Probably. Did the issues causing the defensive short comings get resolved? Mostly no!
The moral of the story is a common one with me and teens: what I say is not what they are hearing. What they are hearing is definitely not what I mean. The really real truth is that in the at moment I want to run and around screaming "you see, you see" because all the stuff I bring up in practice and in meetings about needing to care more and work harder to be successful become manifest when its on the line. The simple fact is that at that point me gloating, finger pointing, or doing anything except being positive isn't going to help the outcome.
At this level of sports their are only so many in game adjustments kids can make. The competitor in me needs to take a back seat to the grown up coach who needs to find a way to manage the game. Could I have done something else? Would it have made a difference in the outcome?
I think what coach Greenburg says is true: You can't be the motivator, the disciplinarian, the counsellor, the teacher, the cheer leader and the support strucuture. If you are everything you burn out and they have nothing to do. The problem is cultural I'm still trying to make kids that aren't self motivators motivated instead of addressing the issue that they need to train them to be self motivated. I need to have less responsibilty and invesment in the outcome then they do.
How do I get them to do that?
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Season Reflection #5 - Level 2 vs Level 3
So we just got a butt whooppin handed to us yesterday.
These things happen when you take a border line AA playoff team to a gym with your family's name on it, to play the best AAA team in the province. It also happens worse when your best player stays home like a baby because he'd rather claim the sniffles then suck it up after you chewed him out last practice and sent him home. Then your next leading scorer sprains his ankle on the jump ball, and they aren't even jumping.
Needless to say it was a struggle being out athleted, minus our two kids who could score at this level and not being able to be deeper then a team we were playing for the first time all year.
As my valiant little guys kept getting blocked over and over again as they caught the ball on their basket cut into the CIS sized men waiting at the rim. All I could think of was a Dave Smart video where he is discussing screen situations. He talks about the basic theory of slipping or pinning your player after the screen and the level 2 by the book that makes sense. The difference between level 2 and level 3 is your 5'7 kid recognizing he's trying to pin or slip into the middle of 6'10's and needing to make a better read.
Today I saw how limited we are not only do we not understand the next level of read and react stuff, not only can't we scan to see the 2nd layer of d before making a decision, even if we could I'm not sure how we would adjust and still score. I guess step back and shoot longer shots we probably can't make. I hate zone. We might be the only team on the planet that you zone to get a 20 point lead and then go m2m to make it competitive for us.
These things happen when you take a border line AA playoff team to a gym with your family's name on it, to play the best AAA team in the province. It also happens worse when your best player stays home like a baby because he'd rather claim the sniffles then suck it up after you chewed him out last practice and sent him home. Then your next leading scorer sprains his ankle on the jump ball, and they aren't even jumping.
Needless to say it was a struggle being out athleted, minus our two kids who could score at this level and not being able to be deeper then a team we were playing for the first time all year.
As my valiant little guys kept getting blocked over and over again as they caught the ball on their basket cut into the CIS sized men waiting at the rim. All I could think of was a Dave Smart video where he is discussing screen situations. He talks about the basic theory of slipping or pinning your player after the screen and the level 2 by the book that makes sense. The difference between level 2 and level 3 is your 5'7 kid recognizing he's trying to pin or slip into the middle of 6'10's and needing to make a better read.
Today I saw how limited we are not only do we not understand the next level of read and react stuff, not only can't we scan to see the 2nd layer of d before making a decision, even if we could I'm not sure how we would adjust and still score. I guess step back and shoot longer shots we probably can't make. I hate zone. We might be the only team on the planet that you zone to get a 20 point lead and then go m2m to make it competitive for us.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Season Reflection #4 - Close
So two road losses to the top two teams in our division by a total of 5 points. So between last season and this that is the last 5 in conference road losses all by less than 6 points. Obviously my first reaction is always what can I do?
The reality is that we win and lose games over 40 minutes. We play up and down getting everyone in and out regularly. Though we play this way to promote depth there are regularly players in the game who are best streaky and and worst routinely weak. As a result our positive streaks do not outweigh our negative moments over the course of the game.
I would still trust my 8-12 more then all of our opponents 8 -12. Unfortunately we seem to never be able to take advantage of their 8-12 with our top kids they way their top kids take advantage of ours. We continue to play team ball to score, when their best player or two we'll smell blood in the water and go for a quick 4-6 points exploiting that. Our best kid will be a layup then pass the rest of the shift. We get more greedy when we miss shots then after we make them.
The short term solutions are paying closer attention to matchups or shortening the bench. The long term are to make the bottom 6 players closer in skills to the top 6 so their is no noticeable drop off when they go in the game.
This feels like the conversation I keep running in circles with in regards to how we play zone. We get all sorts of open shots that we can't make. I don't think we need a new zone offense, we need to be able to shoot the ball better. That can't happen over the course of a week, but I'm not willing sacrifice long term player development to beat some 15 year olds that want to stand in the key learning nothing about how to defend. Oh, except that we can't shoot and that may beat us.
The reality is that we win and lose games over 40 minutes. We play up and down getting everyone in and out regularly. Though we play this way to promote depth there are regularly players in the game who are best streaky and and worst routinely weak. As a result our positive streaks do not outweigh our negative moments over the course of the game.
I would still trust my 8-12 more then all of our opponents 8 -12. Unfortunately we seem to never be able to take advantage of their 8-12 with our top kids they way their top kids take advantage of ours. We continue to play team ball to score, when their best player or two we'll smell blood in the water and go for a quick 4-6 points exploiting that. Our best kid will be a layup then pass the rest of the shift. We get more greedy when we miss shots then after we make them.
The short term solutions are paying closer attention to matchups or shortening the bench. The long term are to make the bottom 6 players closer in skills to the top 6 so their is no noticeable drop off when they go in the game.
This feels like the conversation I keep running in circles with in regards to how we play zone. We get all sorts of open shots that we can't make. I don't think we need a new zone offense, we need to be able to shoot the ball better. That can't happen over the course of a week, but I'm not willing sacrifice long term player development to beat some 15 year olds that want to stand in the key learning nothing about how to defend. Oh, except that we can't shoot and that may beat us.
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