Blogging the Journey: Playing Above the Rim

After beating up on ourselves for three weeks, we finally had the opportunity to play against somebody else! Saturday was our first scrimmage and my first taste of college level competition and there is no better way of measuring where you stand, as a coach and as a player, than against one of the top JUCO programs in the country! Our scrimmage was at Alleganey Community College...the home of Steve "the Franchise" Francis. Yes, the Steve Francis who became an all-american at Maryland and is now playing in the NBA. The environment was special, as you entered Kirk Gymnasium (named after their legendary coach, Bob Kirk), you couldn't help but admire the college and NBA jerseys that surrounded the hallways. Teams such as Texas, Kansas, Maryland, George Mason, Pitt, Georgetown and Virginia, all jerseys of players that once played for Alleganey before moving to the big time division I programs. Obviously, Steve Francis is the most well known player to come out of Alleganey, but others such as Eric Mobley from Pitt and Sterling Ledbetter from Maryland also have come out of the JUCO college.

As for the scrimmage itself, well it was a great measuring stick for where our strengths and weaknesses lie as we approach the start of the season. We struggled breaking pressure and had quite a few turnovers against their press. We need to do a better job of stepping to the basketball, weakside help positioning, stepping in on dribble penetration, bumping cutters and not trailing around screens. These are all things that we can certainly work on to get better at as we prepare for our second scrimmage this weekend against Garrett Community College. Believe it or not, there were a lot of positives as well that came out of the scrimmage. We got a lot of baskets in transition, our half-court offense was solid and allowed us a good amount of open looks at the basket, our press was effective and we shared the basketball, sometimes a little too much, passing up open looks. Most importantly, once we settled down and the nerves went away, we played with a lot of confidence and became much more competitive. It was a very promising outcome, except for the bus breaking down before we were ready to leave!

I must admit, I can get used to traveling in style with the chartered buses! The movie, Miracle, which was about the 1980 Olympic Hockey team was great...one of the better sports movies of all time in my opinion. As for my first college coaching experience, well let's just say we're not in the West Pac anymore! Somethings that you will probably not see in the West Pac this year:

• Opponents with a front court of 6'6", 6'7" and 6'8"
• 4 dunks in a row!
• Players who avoid charges by jumping over the defender and dunking on them!

I actually caught myself saying one time on a fast break..."play the miss, play the miss!" Well, trust me, at this level there are no misses on a fast break when you are playing above the rim!

This week it's back to daily grind of working on fundamentals and bettering ourselves and our teammates towards the common goal of making the playoffs!