A Good Win

OK, so it may not have been a work of art, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a work of genious. In our game Friday night, we made up for our lack of offensive explosiveness with the best three quarters of defense you can ask for against a quality opponent to come away with a win whose score was lower than many football playoff games played the same night around the state.

After trailing 3-10 in the first quarter, we begin covering the ballside elbow better as well as rebounding better. In the second quarter despite scoring only six points ourselves, we were still in the game due to the fact that we held Columbus to six points also.

In the second half, we begin to click a bit better as our defense continued to improve, holding Columbus to 5 and 4 point quaters while we scored double digits in both the third and fourth quarters.

If you like to watch defensive basketball, you would have seen a very good game Friday night. Now if our offense can start getting it into gear, we might end up being a force to be reckoned with by district time

Enjoy a brief highlight video below of Friday night's game

Columbus Lady Cardinals at Gonzales Lady Apaches

Game Night

Tonight we play our second home game of the year. Hopefully, we will have better results than our first home game where we just simply didn't show up to play winning basketball. However, since that time, I really believe the girls have become focused. I wrote the other day about how pleased I was with the discipline in our game Tuesday night. And I mentioned that Wednesday's practice was perhaps the best one we had all year. But yesterday's practice seemed to top that practice.

I am now seeing the girls working hard and showing enthusiam for what we are doing. Who knows if it will carry over to the game tonight, but I honestly expect it to. I know the team we are playing has more size across the board than any we have faced all year and rebounding has been our achilles heel. But if we come out and defend and rebound, then I am very confident from our last two practices that we will be fine tonight.

Coming Together

A couple of days ago, the Lady Apaches got their first victory of the season. It was game that quite honestly was never going to be in doubt as we far out classed our opponent. We literally could have scored as many points as we wanted. But I made it clear from the beginning that we were going to use this game to learn how to be patient and how to execute our half court offenses (one of the major weaknesses we have had). It would not help us learn anything if all we did was fastbreak to layups.

I am happy to report that we did an incredible job running our halfcourt offenses. I know that really anything would have worked. However, the girls actually ran the plays and we scored all our points coming in the flow of running one of our offenses. I was very pleased with our discipline.

We followed that victory with perhaps the best practice we had all year. The girls worked hard and were attentative. We ran the break well in our transition drills and executed well in our halfcourt game. Now we will see if that carries over to Friday night's home game against a team the girls barely beat last year.

A Rough First Week

To say that our first week of the regular season was a rough one may just be the biggest understatement of the year. We lost both our games by an average of 20 points and to be honest, we didn't look very good at all. I am very frustrated at our inability to pick up the defensive rotations and our inability to run any kind of offensive set. I will spare any youtube video of these two games on my blog.

I know I have my work cut out for me this year trying to get the girls to buy into this system that I know works. But they are so used to doing whatever they wanted and improvising however they wanted that they just don't see the need to do it my way. However, their way is working to the tune of giving up an average of 59 points a game while scoring only 40.

The season is not all lost, but things have to change pretty soon. Or it will be a very long season with very few things to be proud of. I know we are going to win our game this Tuesday, but that doesn't mean that all problems are fixed. I keep having to remind myself that these girls have been taught to behave this way and that perhaps they really don't know any better. No one has ever tried to enforce discipline in the program (those are words coming from others, not me)and they are simply used to literally doing whatever they wanted. If I can keep that in mind and approach them understanding that this is something brand new to them, then maybe it will be better. I can only hope.

20 Years ago

I was thinking last night as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep the night before our first game of the season that it was 20 years ago that I had my first game as a head basketball coach. I will never forget those feelings and nerves before we lined up to play a team that we probably weren't going to beat. I just wanted to keep it respectable. I will also not forget the fact that just as I sent the team out on the floor for the pregame warmups, I suddenly took a sidetrip to the bathroom and threw up out of nerves. We didn't win that game, but we played really well. I was proud of their effort that night. Even though we lost, it was a springboard to the first winning season that school had in a long time.

Now 20 years later, I am about to coach my first varsity game in 4 years. Opening game jitters are normal for me (though I have not approached anything close to the bathroom run I made 20 years ago). Before we play our first game, I do not yet have a handle on what kind of team we are going to be. How will we react to pressure? Will we be able to execute? Have we really had enough practice in doing everything we are trying to do? I never know those answers until the ball is tossed at center court signifying the start of the season. Over the next hour and 15 minutes, I learn more about my team than I do in any one block of time.

Tonight will be a tough test for us. We are playing what is one of the top teams on our schedule and playing perhaps the best player we will play all year. Maybe it isn't the best way to start a season, but why not get an early test to see what we are going to be like.

I will be posting tomorrow about the game.

Defense Dominates Scrimmage

For those who know me as a basketball coach, you know that I am all about defensive basketball. Through the years I have developed a match up zone that I believe in so much that it has become the staple for any team I coach. I preach defense to my teams from day one in practice and it is not uncommon to see early in the season that my team's defense will be way ahead of its offense.

As we played in a scrimmage this weekend against Hondo and La Vernia, it was pretty evident to me that this year is no different for me. We won both scrimmages easily mainly because we could play shut out defense. The two teams simply had a hard time getting a good shot off against our half court defense.

However, as I look at our offensive game, I know we need a lot of work. One difference for me though this year is that I have spent the last three years working under some great coaches, Ron Rogers and Bill Avey, who have taught me a lot about the offensive game of basketball. Hopefully, I can translate some of that knowledge to my team this year.

Enjoy the youtube video of our scrimmage. But understand, that our offense will get better.