In my last post I mentioned that we were playing in a Bergen Catholic tournament that I hoped to dominate. Apparently the host of the tournament expected us to dominate too; they told me almost as soon as we walked in that the championship game would be on Monday. Sure enough, we lost the first game and had to settle for 3rd place. Seems we were still shaking off the cobwebs from our last few losses.
We got back to the gym, had a brief heart to heart about how less is more, and decided to put this behind us once and for all. Spent a couple of days just doing extra simple things; no flash, no wow factor, just basic, introductory skills. Then I requested that some of my travel kids come in for a workout and scrimmage and that went really well. I've never seen anything like what I saw that day. My AAU guys had a ton of energy, and cheered for each other for every single shot, steal, and rebound. The travel boys were getting creamed, but they played hard all the way to the end of practice. Did I finally put together a team that won't quit?!?
Those practices set the tone for the final Fall Classic One Day Shoot Out of the season. We met up at Hoop Heaven for our first game, and all I said was to keep it simple and pour on the energy. Our first game was against the NJ Thunder, which we've played several times this season. No upset there. Our next game was against the NY Kings. My history against teams from NY is not that great, in fact, I've never beaten a team from NY. Needless to say all that energy we found at practice paid of and lifted us to a 40+ point win. Perhaps there was a little too much energy in that game, because they had me feeling like it was a close game and I didn't realize how lopsided it was until there were 6 minutes left in the game. It felt good to get a win against a NY team in that fashion though, since they typically have no issues with destroying other teams. On to the championship game. Very good game on tap, as we were playing the team that we lost to in the Bergen Catholic tournament again.
The game was epic. Constant back and forth action, plenty of lead changes, emotional plays, and all around good basketball. As the game enters the final minute, we are up by 2, and both coaches have a time out left. He calls his and draws up a good play and they tie the game. No panic yet, its just a tie. We attempt to get the ball up the floor and get a good look at the basket - BRICK!! They get the ball back and throw a bad pass. Whew, we're safe. Seven seconds left. Ok, time to call my timeout. I'm prepared for overtime in my head. I just tell the guys to be smart, and don't turn the ball over, we can handle them in OT, we just don't want to blow it. They take the floor again, determined - there was no way we were turning the ball over. We inbound the ball to my point guard. He looks up the floor and sees a wide open sideline and heads for it. The defense realizes they have a hole and start to collapse on it. My guard is quick enough to blow past it enough to get a good look at the rim. He takes one last dribble and puts the ball in the air. It was like a scene from a movie - he lets go of the ball with just over a second left, and I swear the world slowed down for that second. Everyone in the gym is silent, waiting to see what will come of this prayer. The buzzer sounds and the ball is closing on the backboard, and I hear one of my parents yell "Its in!" The ball hits the glass and then goes into the hoop. We won!!!
It feels good to be able to say we won an entire tournament series. Well, we've got one last tournament for the season, and it should be a good one. Let's ride this out in style!!
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