Would you rather have a team that liked to win, or hated to lose? I think a team that likes to win is alright, but without superior talent and size, they aren't really going anywhere. A team that HATES to lose, they are driven. I want to clarify that I don't mean 'scared' to lose, I mean hates. You can't hate something that scares you.
The varsity basketball team at the Hebrew Academy is currently on a 3 game slide. To be fair, the three teams we played were all solid, though none were truly outstanding. Almost every team we play is physically and athletically superior. If that's all that mattered, we would have a track meet instead of a basketball game.
We have good basketball players that limit themselves mentally and emotionally. They say they're 'ready' for the big game and prepared to do what it takes to win, and then they piss themselves when the game starts. They freak themselves out so much that they're basically worthless on the court.
We played our arch-rival The Jewish Day School last week. Their team was no superior to ours in anyway. Yet, for some reason, in the heads of our players, JDS is on some pedestal. How ridiculous. They get so excited about this one game, but not in a good way. I feel like any team that takes itself seriously, stands up the challenge and goes after it. Instead our guys duck their heads and run. From a coaching standpoint its frustrating to see a superior team give away a game.
Basketball really is a mental game. If you're not mentally strong, you will not be successful. Mental strength is the basis for every aspect from the game. You have to have the discipline to apply yourself to learn the fundamentals, you have to have the mental strength to work through the pain of conditioning. It is necessary when you have to focus on the more suble points of advanced offensive and defensive strategy. Most importantly you have to have the mental strength to ready yourself for competition, to know when and how to apply your strengths and expose the weaknesses of the other team. You have to have the mental ability to refuse to lose. I thought our team had that mental strength. We spent all summer working on it, with a focus on conditioning. We spent the pre-season preparing this team for success. Through our first five games, it was going well. Then boom. One game, and we can't recover.
There are still plenty of games left, and every day is a chance to turn it back around, but for this season to matter, it has to be turned quickly. People need to step up, and play to their abilities, otherwise, we're just another middle of the road team, which might be ok for some, but not for me.
12/13/2006
5/19/2006
Men's Volleyball
As a blog that is read by no one, I can write things about topics that no one cares about, and no one will complain. Who ever said that total obscurity was a bad thing?
I recently finished a season coaching boy's vollyeball at the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy. We finished the season 2-14. Our two wins came against teams that had beat us in the first round of league play, and lost players to academic ineligibility before the second round. To be fair, our team got exponentially better. Mostly young kids, with a few seniors. Only one of our seniors was a legitimate volleyball player. The other guys worked hard (sometimes) and often suprised me with what they pulled off. They didn't listen well, and asked too many questions. But, nonetheless, they improved.
The quality of our league was pretty low. There were two teams who had any sort of sophisticated offense. Most teams actually resorted to playing on a rotation, filling in whatever spot you rotate to. This makes it hard to raise the quality of the league, becuase no one can specialize and people only spend one rotation at the position for which they are most suited. Difficult to excel that way.
Boy's/Men's volleyball seems to be on a down cycle. When I was in high school, a whole 5 years ago, it seemed like it was growing, at least in my particular volleyball world view. Lots of Division III programs were adding Men's Volleyball, the state of Texas had 2 different leagues with boy's volleyball championships (SPC and Tapps). Now there is one league, with only 8 teams, some of which have trouble fielding a squad every year.
Division I Men's Volleyball seems to be at the same place its always been, at least as long as I've been paying attention. NAIA also appears to be solidified as a volleyball league, especially since they are a little more lax when it comes to allowing foreign players with some questionable past experience.
I'm not sure where volleyball is going, but something needs to be done to stabilize its future in American athletics.
I recently finished a season coaching boy's vollyeball at the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy. We finished the season 2-14. Our two wins came against teams that had beat us in the first round of league play, and lost players to academic ineligibility before the second round. To be fair, our team got exponentially better. Mostly young kids, with a few seniors. Only one of our seniors was a legitimate volleyball player. The other guys worked hard (sometimes) and often suprised me with what they pulled off. They didn't listen well, and asked too many questions. But, nonetheless, they improved.
The quality of our league was pretty low. There were two teams who had any sort of sophisticated offense. Most teams actually resorted to playing on a rotation, filling in whatever spot you rotate to. This makes it hard to raise the quality of the league, becuase no one can specialize and people only spend one rotation at the position for which they are most suited. Difficult to excel that way.
Boy's/Men's volleyball seems to be on a down cycle. When I was in high school, a whole 5 years ago, it seemed like it was growing, at least in my particular volleyball world view. Lots of Division III programs were adding Men's Volleyball, the state of Texas had 2 different leagues with boy's volleyball championships (SPC and Tapps). Now there is one league, with only 8 teams, some of which have trouble fielding a squad every year.
Division I Men's Volleyball seems to be at the same place its always been, at least as long as I've been paying attention. NAIA also appears to be solidified as a volleyball league, especially since they are a little more lax when it comes to allowing foreign players with some questionable past experience.
I'm not sure where volleyball is going, but something needs to be done to stabilize its future in American athletics.
1/31/2006
Hebrew Academy Basketball, a Coronary waiting to happen
Well, I've been really bad about keeping up with timely posts about our games. After my last post, where things seemed pretty hopeless. Then we lost to St. Anselm's and The Field School. But in the 4th quarter of the Field game, something changed. I walked to our point guard and said, "Andrew, you have to score, or we're hopeless." At the time, I didn't realize that I was referring to our entire season, but I was. Once he started attacking the basket and hitting threes, our entire season turned around. We started out with a 10 point victory of Queen Anne, 57-47, a mediocre team. A good win for us nonetheless.
Next up was a somewhat more significant. We played the Washington International School. We were up at the half, but down by 13 going into the fourth quarter. Our head coach called a full court man press and we fought and clawed our way back into the game. With time running out, our center Daniel hit a tough put-back to send the game into overtime. In OT we basically just outplayed WIS to a 56-51 victory. Big win against a solid team. Andrew played his second brilliant game, knocking down 7 of 9 free throws in the 4th and OT, while making a number of excellent decisions.
Our next game was against Sandy Spring Friends School. They are a subpar team with one really good player, and they always give us trouble. Our head coach arrived late to the game, so the other assistant and I had to run the show for the first half. We went to the half down 9. When Coach showed up, he threw out the idea of a triangle and 2 defense, and we effectively stopped the other team. Holding their main scorer to 6 points, and pulling out a big win. Andrew was 4/4 from the 3pt line. Ehud missed most of the game after spraining his ankle.
The biggest win of our season came on January 26. We played the Barrie School, which was at this point 11-0 in conference. We systematically cut them down. We played better than we have played the entire year and beat them by 9 points.
Then we played a tough Waldorf team that gives us way too much trouble. We beat them by 8. The worst thing that happened is that Andrew broke his nose. He's now out for two huge game.
Tonight we laid an egg against Covenant Life, the second time they beat us this year. They're not that good. They only scored 21 points last night. We gave up 50. No Andrew today, and no Andrew Thursday against Jewish Day School. We'll see what happens.
Next up was a somewhat more significant. We played the Washington International School. We were up at the half, but down by 13 going into the fourth quarter. Our head coach called a full court man press and we fought and clawed our way back into the game. With time running out, our center Daniel hit a tough put-back to send the game into overtime. In OT we basically just outplayed WIS to a 56-51 victory. Big win against a solid team. Andrew played his second brilliant game, knocking down 7 of 9 free throws in the 4th and OT, while making a number of excellent decisions.
Our next game was against Sandy Spring Friends School. They are a subpar team with one really good player, and they always give us trouble. Our head coach arrived late to the game, so the other assistant and I had to run the show for the first half. We went to the half down 9. When Coach showed up, he threw out the idea of a triangle and 2 defense, and we effectively stopped the other team. Holding their main scorer to 6 points, and pulling out a big win. Andrew was 4/4 from the 3pt line. Ehud missed most of the game after spraining his ankle.
The biggest win of our season came on January 26. We played the Barrie School, which was at this point 11-0 in conference. We systematically cut them down. We played better than we have played the entire year and beat them by 9 points.
Then we played a tough Waldorf team that gives us way too much trouble. We beat them by 8. The worst thing that happened is that Andrew broke his nose. He's now out for two huge game.
Tonight we laid an egg against Covenant Life, the second time they beat us this year. They're not that good. They only scored 21 points last night. We gave up 50. No Andrew today, and no Andrew Thursday against Jewish Day School. We'll see what happens.
1/09/2006
Grace Brethren
Tonight we played Grace Brethren, a bible school in southern Maryland.
Grace had a VERY athletic team, lots of fast breaking and pressure defense. Coming into the game they were 5-2. One of their losses to Sandy Spring, a very deliberate slow down team, a team we beat by 10. They were our only mutual opponent.
Grace is the kind of team that can hurt us, all their strengths are our weaknesses. Our defense isn't quick enough to cause the turnovers that normally help supplement our sketchy half court offense and their non-stop pressure takes advantage of our suspect ball handling. We hung around for the first ten minutes, mostly because we hit a few threes. That quickly ended because we aren't great three point shooters either. They hit a DEEEEP three at the buzzer, and we went into the locker room down 9.
In the second half we played like crap. The one bright spot was our point guard, a typically turnover prone young man who played out of his mind. When his entire team was playing scared, he stepped up and attacked the basket. Six assists to three turnovers, 14 points, and a couple steals.
The only bright spot of the game was the last 4 minutes. We cut the lead from 20 to 12, and got steals on consecutive possessions. We kept it respectable.
A very odd thing happened at the end of the third quarter. The Grace coach decided to run 4 corners against our 2-3 zone. Which effectively wasted the last 3 minutes of the half standing around. Oddly enough it totally threw off their offensive rythmn to begin the 4th quarter.
Current record: 6-4
Grace had a VERY athletic team, lots of fast breaking and pressure defense. Coming into the game they were 5-2. One of their losses to Sandy Spring, a very deliberate slow down team, a team we beat by 10. They were our only mutual opponent.
Grace is the kind of team that can hurt us, all their strengths are our weaknesses. Our defense isn't quick enough to cause the turnovers that normally help supplement our sketchy half court offense and their non-stop pressure takes advantage of our suspect ball handling. We hung around for the first ten minutes, mostly because we hit a few threes. That quickly ended because we aren't great three point shooters either. They hit a DEEEEP three at the buzzer, and we went into the locker room down 9.
In the second half we played like crap. The one bright spot was our point guard, a typically turnover prone young man who played out of his mind. When his entire team was playing scared, he stepped up and attacked the basket. Six assists to three turnovers, 14 points, and a couple steals.
The only bright spot of the game was the last 4 minutes. We cut the lead from 20 to 12, and got steals on consecutive possessions. We kept it respectable.
A very odd thing happened at the end of the third quarter. The Grace coach decided to run 4 corners against our 2-3 zone. Which effectively wasted the last 3 minutes of the half standing around. Oddly enough it totally threw off their offensive rythmn to begin the 4th quarter.
Current record: 6-4
1/08/2006
So, I haven't really posted anything since I moved to DC. I have a plethora of excuses, but because no one reads this, I will refrain from mentioning any of them.
When I started this "blog" (I really do hate that term) it was meant to focus mostly on the world of sports, with the occasional stretch to politics, or social commentary. I have done my best to leave my personal life on the periphery because this isn't a diary, and if it was I wouldn't post it online.
Since I moved to the DC Metro area (Rockville, MD to be specific) I have gotten myself involved in local sports to an extent. In early November I was hired as an assitant basketball coach for the M.J. Berman Hebrew Academy, a small orthodox Hebrew school. We compete in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference against a mixture of other religion-based private schools. We cannot compete in weekend tournaments because the shabot begins Friday at sundown and goes to sundown on Saturday. All our players are required to wear a keepa (headcovering) at all times, though few want to.
We are currently 6-3. Many of our games are much closer than we should be. We have one player with previous varsity experience, and a few players who had never played organized basketball before in their lives. Our tallest player is 6'1". Our point guard has had 3 games with 8+ turnovers. Our best shooter was out for a month with a sprained ankle.
The kids on the team are totally different from any one I have ever played with. For the most part, I like all the kids. They were generally well intentioned, though they'll pick on you if they can. They don't practice very hard, there are at least 50 possible explainations for this, none of which I'm sure about. They also don't always play hard. For the most part they just don't "get it."
My intention is to "chronicle" the rest of our season to some detail here. The challenge will be remembering. Time will tell how I do.
When I started this "blog" (I really do hate that term) it was meant to focus mostly on the world of sports, with the occasional stretch to politics, or social commentary. I have done my best to leave my personal life on the periphery because this isn't a diary, and if it was I wouldn't post it online.
Since I moved to the DC Metro area (Rockville, MD to be specific) I have gotten myself involved in local sports to an extent. In early November I was hired as an assitant basketball coach for the M.J. Berman Hebrew Academy, a small orthodox Hebrew school. We compete in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference against a mixture of other religion-based private schools. We cannot compete in weekend tournaments because the shabot begins Friday at sundown and goes to sundown on Saturday. All our players are required to wear a keepa (headcovering) at all times, though few want to.
We are currently 6-3. Many of our games are much closer than we should be. We have one player with previous varsity experience, and a few players who had never played organized basketball before in their lives. Our tallest player is 6'1". Our point guard has had 3 games with 8+ turnovers. Our best shooter was out for a month with a sprained ankle.
The kids on the team are totally different from any one I have ever played with. For the most part, I like all the kids. They were generally well intentioned, though they'll pick on you if they can. They don't practice very hard, there are at least 50 possible explainations for this, none of which I'm sure about. They also don't always play hard. For the most part they just don't "get it."
My intention is to "chronicle" the rest of our season to some detail here. The challenge will be remembering. Time will tell how I do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
