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
1/09/2006
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.
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