Tears of ...

I had very mixed emotions as I walked back to the locker room after our final game.  It was hard to know what to say, do, or expect.  AS the door opened, I we (Head coach and I) were met with an eerie silence, then various sounds of sobbing.  For some the sobbing was for the lose that just ended our season, for some the emotion of  leaving it all on the floor, for some the sadness that the season was just over, and maybe even for some the joy of what they had accomplished.  No matter the reason the tears still came.  some loudly, some softer and some even unnoticed.

As coach began to speak her voice cracked.  She was visibly emotional.  I too became choked up and tears began to roll down my cheeks.  As I sat down and witnessed the scene in front of me, through my tears of sorrow I sensed joy and pride (the good kind).  Coach couldn't speak, the emotion clearly overtaking her.  I wasn't sure I could either.  Finally midst the cries comes a voice.  "Coach can I say something?"  I looked to see our lone senior rising to her feet among her teammates.  She had been crying but now seemed super calm and collected.  Coach told her to go ahead.  The senior began to tell her teammates how proud she was of what they had just accomplished.  She told them they had played their hardest and that they had proved to everyone that they belonged.  She continued about how far they had come since the beginning of the season and how much better they would be in the seasons to come.  She finished by saying how proud she was to be apart of this team and she felt good about what they had done together and how they needed to continue right where they are now for next year.

The cries seemed to go away instantly.  They were replaced by pride.  Pride in what they had accomplished.  Pride in what they had done.  Pride in who they were.  What brought this all on?  Let's look back.

We lost our last 2 regular season games, on the road to the top 2 teams in our conference and we finished 5th in our conference.  By the way the standings worked out, we would play what had become our arch rival in the first round of the conference tourney.  All 3 games with them up to this point had been battles.  The first was a 1 point OT lose, 2nd a 2 point last few seconds lose and the 3rd a 3 point come from 23 points behind victory on their home court.  Friday's tourney game proved to be no different as we got the 2 point win in an epic battle in which we held them from a last second shot to try for the win/tie.    That put us in the semifinals the next day against the #1 seed and undefeated in conference team.

Although we had lost to them all the times.  We knew we had a chance to bet them.  We were the team that came the closet all year.  We matched up with them really well.  We had the heart and drive to do it.  It was definitely the battle of all battles.  It was back and fourth all game.  With just under a minute to play and down by 2, our senior point guard shot a beautiful 3.  Everyone in the gym watched it sail gracefully to the basketball, drop halfway down and then rattle right out.  Our only hope was to foul and hope they missed.  But it was not to be.  In the end we lost by 6.  We had come so close but it just didn't happen.  That's how we got to the locker room scene above.  That's how the season finished.  That's what brought us all to tears, tears of...

Move Your .....

As a coach I wish I had a penny for every time I said it.  If so, me, my entire extended family and all my friends could have retired to our own private islands by now, with plenty of money left over.  Its that all important phrase uttered at least 50-75 times or more a game and about triple that at practice.  Most players have probably heard it so much that they don't even hear it anymore, and that truly showed at our games this weekend.

If you haven't figured it out by now that all important phrase is :  MOVE YOUR FEET!
I have told every player I've ever coached in Junior high, high school and now college that in order to play good defense you've got to stay on the balls of your feet and move those feet.  I tell them that the best way to play defense is with your FEET NOT your hands.  But yet, they still get those silly fouls called by holding, grabbing, pushing and hacking.  99% of all fouls have one thing in common: HANDS.  If this is the case, all or at least most could be stopped by the simple defensive philosophy of - MOVE YOUR FEET!

If moving your feet is the #1 rule in defense, then #2 would be a tie between EYES and MIND.  In order to move your feet "correctly" one has to see what the offense is doing and where its going and also think about what the offense want to do.  If FEET, EYES, MIND can all work in tandem, then you will be in the right place at the right time.  Your defense will be a shut down force. 

You've heard the saying, "offense wins games but defense wins championships."  I think this is mostly true.  Why?  Think about it.  If you score 100 points on a team but they score 101 against you, what have you accomplished?  If a team makes 100% of their filed goals but still loses, have they done anything?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  But if your team only scores one basket and holds the opponent to 0, guess what?  YOU WIN.  So you see, it isn't how many or how few points you score - if you can't stop your opponent , you lose every time.

So to all the basketball players out there, make Coach happy and simply -- 

 

Valuable Lesson

Well The last post talked about how basketball was not life.  I still hold true to that but basketball and life are very similar sometimes.  Both have their ins and outs, ups and downs.  Being a player or coach, at any sport, can really teach you so much about life in general.  I have always believed this.  Some of the greatest life lessons can be taught through sports.

In basketball, just like in life, things seems to be going so well.  Everything is coming together and you just seem like you are on top of the world, only to soon fall into a hole.  That has been the experience this past week or so.  We went to Colorado and pulled off an amazing game.  We have 5 players in double digits scoring, shot 33/34 from free throw line and finally pulled in out in OT.  It was a great win.  The girls (and the coaches) were pumped.  It was great to go that far and play in that atmosphere and pull it out.  Otherwise it would have been a very loooooong plane ride home.  The down side to that is that we lost one of our best outside shooters in the first half to a sprained ankle.  Everyone was disappointed but that all pulled together as any good family should, stuck in out and made it happen.

Then we turn to our Wednesday game.  It was a close to a must win game as we could get.  It could basically seal our faint for the playoff picture and would give us a 3 game win streak.  It wasn't that offense this time as in Colorado but rather our lights out defense that would eventually win this one.  We were able to hold them to an amazing 16 points and 25% shooting in the first half and our revamped defensive strategy was obviously giving them fits.  With the defense rooted in, our offense picked it up just a notch in the second half to ensure the victory.  It was beautiful to watch.  That was probably the best overall team ball I have seen them play since California, if not the entire season. It was nice just sitting there watching the beautiful basketball symphony play out before us.  I left there thinking we were finally hitting our stride for the season and at the right time too.  We were to play the same team again on Saturday and everyone was looking forward to it.

Saturday everyone was decked out in their pink as it was our Play 4 Kay breast cancer awareness game.  This seemed to make the atmosphere a little more jacked up and the crowd was a little bigger and louder than usual.  I had a good feeling as our girls took the floor.  I just knew that after the last game tonight was bound to be something special to watch.  I was wrong.  If Wednesday had been a beautiful symphony, than this was a heavy metal night mare.  Despite our starting point guard scoring a game high 34 points and really putting on a clinic, we could do nothing right.  Our defense was almost none existent most of the game.  There were a few moments of brilliance and comebacks.  With about 4 minutes to go we were down by about 15 and came back to tie it.   Then it went back and both for awhile and we made a bit of a run and I thought we might just pull it out.  With the extra loud crowd rooting hard the girls made a valiant  effort but in the end just didn't have enough as our defensive legs gave out and and the opposition made one final push to take the victory

Through it all I think or at least hope the girls learned a very valuable lesson for both basketball and life -- No matter how well things may go when faced with a certain opposition, the next time you face that same opposition, it is not a given that things will go the same way.  You have to continue to be at your best all the time in order to insure you get the same or better results. 

Basketball is Life ?

Well, its been a long week.  Things outside of basketball seemed to creep up but thankfully, God is in control and all is working its way out.  The stress was tough but God is TOUGHER.

  As for basketball, well that's been tough as well.  Last weekend we played the top two teams in the conference.  We played decent on Saturday and stayed with them for awhile but wasn't able to finish, which seems to be our problem quite often.  Sunday we played... well we won't talk about that one.    We also had a rare mid-week game on Tuesday evening.  It was against a lesser opponent and one that we needed to gain so momentum.  We were able to win fairly easily but did not play all that well.  However, we were able to get some really good game minutes in for our bench and hopefully that will help us in the long run.  They played really well considering some don't play that much.  Now its off the Colorado this weekend and hope to pick up a very important win.  We have split so far with them and this is our chance to really make a statement.  Playing in the altitude will be tough on our players but I know they can do it.  They just have to play like I know they are capable of and not just like what they think they can.  There is a huge difference there sometimes.  As a coach it is out job to remind them and help them focus and what we know they are capable of and not just what they think they can do. 

With that said, this week reminded me that basketball can skew our thinking sometimes.  Sometimes we get caught up in the "basketball world" and forget about the real world.  As a coach this is very easy to do.  You focus on basketball and your team and its almost like you allow that to take over everything and we forget about life outside of basketball.  This week reminded me that even though I might want to think differently, there is life outside of basketball and it continues on whether I want tit to or not.  Luckily, as I said at the beginning, God is in control and not I.  If I were, from October to March would be strange for everyone else.  I am thankful that God has blessed me with the opportunity to do what I love, coach.  I am most thankful that He continues to keep control over all even when my focus turns elsewhere.  Despite what I may sometimes think, basketball is NOT life! 

DIG DEEP

It really is amazing what a difference 24 hours can make.  After losing that 24 point lead last Friday night, and coming face to face with the issue of complacency, the players had a players only meeting and made a statement the next night.  They beat that same team the next day and seemed to be coming back into their own.  We tried to take that momentum into this past weekend's road trip.  Unfortunately it seemed that Friday they were slipping back into their old ways.

Playing a team that is, to say the least, much less skilled than us and one that we should beat, our girls seemed to again let that complacency monster find its way back into the game.  To put it mildly, we played like CRAP!  Shooting less that 28% for the game and getting out rebounded by 12, is one of the worst performances of the season.  This made for a very long night for a game that again we should have won or at least made a lot closer, that now we were never really in.  I couldn't help but think on the way home after the game: "Where is that team we saw earlier in the season?", "Where is that team who is fired up and has a passion for the game?" " Where is that team that I know they can be?"  As a coach, you learn pretty quickly what your team is capable of, unfortunately they don't seem to learn is as quickly if ever.  I could only hope Friday would be different.

On the long drive to Louisiana on Saturday, the atmosphere on the bus seemed a little different.  I am not sure how or why but it just did.  Maybe the girls were thinking about the last 2 games we played against the team we were traveling to face.  Maybe they were thinking about the loses that should not have been at the hands of this same opponent.  Maybe they were thinking how they could lose a game when up by 2 with less than 10 seconds to go and the ball.  Maybe they were thinking any of those things, but it was different all the same. 

So, tip off time and away we go on Saturday.  Everyone fired up, everything looking good.  Then it all came crashing down and I thought to myself, "here we go again!"  About 4 minutes into the game and it started to get ugly.  With just over 5 minutes to go in the first half the opponent scored their 40th point.  Usually when we give up that many points in the first half, we know its going to be a long night.  We just don't really have the offense to be able to compete with that.    With 2:30 left in the first half, we found ourselves down by 31 points and even though we got it back to just 23 by the time the first half buzzer went off, we knew there wasn't much to do or say.  Its almost like the girls had already checked out.  As the head coach and I stood in the hallway before going into the locker room, we discussed this fact.  They were just counting down the day till season was over.  Its as if they didn't care what happened from here on out they just wanted it to be over.  So, we thought we'd help them out.  We quickly calculated the days left till end of season and walked into a silent locker room.  Coach wrote a big number 35 on the board and asked the girls if they knew what that meant.  No one answered.  She  told them that was the number of days till the end of the season.  Since it seems you guys are already counting them down and just riding this out as if you don't care, we thought we'd help you out.  So if we need to, when we get home, we can just put that up in our locker room and keep the tally gong.  She then proceeded to tell them that she didn't really know what to say anymore because everything she has tried up til this point has not worked to motivate them.  So they just needed to figure it out themselves.  With that we turned and walked out.

I must say I am not sure what went on in the room after that but I don't need to know.  The second half started with us going on a 32-18 run and halfway through only being down by 10.  Then another quick 6-0 run gave us or first lead at the 6:54 mark.  These girls were playing like a team possessed.  This was the team I knew they could be.  This was the team they are deep down inside.  When they dig deep, this was what they were capable of and dig deep they did.  They would NEVER relinquish the lead after that.  Shooting 62% and getting to the free throw line an astounding 26 times in the second half  just goes to show what they can do when they stay calm and truly do DIG DEEP!

Complacency

Complacency will kill a team.  Not the quick get it over with death but the very slow painful agonizing type death that makes you only wish it was quick.  Its painful to watch and painful to live.  For a team I think its harder to watch as a coach and know there is really nothing you can do about it.  You can encourage, you can motivate, you can even yell, but unless they players decide to change none of it will help.

Unfortunately, I believe we are there!  We started the season off well and at one point were 5-2 but now all that has changed after a 7 game losing streak.  We see moments of brilliance.  There are times of perfection.  Even minutes of masterful teamwork.  These seem to be all short lived and the old crummy complacency creeps back in.  Its not that they enjoy losing, no one does!  Its that they almost seem to not want to push themselves, not want to get better, no want to step-up.  Its frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time.  We can only sit and wait and hope they soon snap out of it.

A Chance

I had some time to think on the bus ride last night.  We lost a close, hard fought game that most probably thought we would be blown out.  On the ride my thought weren't on the game or the one we'd play in the next 24 hours.  Instead I was thinking about coaches.  Those i have played for, coached with, coached against and even those I have watched as a spectator.  I thought how it was kinda funny that there are so many different ways of coaching.  Though there are similarities, most are very different.  There seems to be no right our wrong way to coach.  There is no class you can take or book you can read that will teach it to you.  The best coaches adapt their style as needed to fit their team or even a given situation. 

I thought about how coaches develop their styles.  Most coaches glean from their experiences to develop their "style" of coaching.  My first experience with a coach was little league baseball.  When and where I grew up there was no softball so if girls wanted to play they had to play baseball with the boys.  I really didn't have a problem with this since I had a brother 15 months older than me and most of the kids in my church group that i hung out with were boys.  However, most boys or even male coaches didn't want a girl on their team. 

After tryouts, there was no guarantee that i would be chosen for a team mush less actually play.  My parents soon got a call that I was chosen and when and where I would practice.  At the first practice, I walked on the field with my glove and was welcomed with a huge smile from my coach.  He introduced me to the rest of  my teammates, all boys, who of course had mixed emotions.  I was just glad to be there. 

I can't really tell you much about that season.  All I remember was that soon my teammates all accepted my as just another teammate.  I even was starting a few games by the end of it.  My first experience with a coach was a positive one, not because of some great thing he taught me, but for the simple fact that he gave ME a chance.  When most others refused just because i was a girl, he was able to look past that and see me as just another player who wanted to play the game.  That was the greatest thing he ever could have could have done for me, well that and ask me back on hi team the next season which he did without hesitation!  He helped me learn to give players a chance, no matter what they may look like on the surface.  If they are willing, give 'em a chance.  Will is half the battle.