We ARE Improving even more!

Yesterday was amazing. Let me tell you why.

In the 7:30 game Practice Group 2 played a division 4 MetroWest 6th Natick travel team which finished last year in the middle of the standings ALL players on that team are moving to 7th grade in the fall.

My travel team scrimmaged the same team this pass winter and lost by about 10 points. That scrimmages was weighted heavily in our favor, however, because a shooter from one of the Flyer's 8th grade travel teams played with us. Last night's team was composed of only 6th, 5th, and 4th graders - all Framingham kids since all 4 Dover players missed the game.

Here is the amazing:

The Destroyers II team finished with 27 points to Natick's 35. Four different players scored for us and several other players made attempts.

While we missed 15 foul shots (making 9 of those would have given us the game), those shots represented 6 drives to the basket (by THREE DIFFERENT players) where both shots were missed; 2 drives where one foul shot was missed and one made; one where the drive was completed and the "and one" foul shot was missed and one where the drive was completed and the "and one" foul shot was made.

We had basket drives by THREE DIFFERENT players that resulted in fouls! Yes, in my world, that is worth repeating in a shout. There where other drives by additional players which resulted in blocked shots or misses, too. Our girls are learning to hunt the paint.

But here is the best parts for me from that game, the girls executed a trap - once - late in the second half after working on trapping Tuesday night in practice for about five minutes. We won just about every 50-50 ball by out hustling the Natick team. And, I saw a little picking starting to happen.

After the game, the ref who worked a couple of our early season travel games said, "If I did not recognize most of their faces, I would not believe these are the same girls. Wow! Have they all got better or what?" He also commented that he loves our hustle.

In the 8:30 game Practice Group 1 DEFEATED a 5th grade (going to 6th) AAU team, the Sting Belles, 36 to 18. Once again we had balanced scoring with five players putting points on the board.

We had both a height and a hustle advantage. The game was fun to watch because our fast-paced style means our players are up and down the court quickly and often. The game started an hour late so the refs did not call many fouls (6 total for the game compared to 19 in the first game.)

Here are my take-a-ways from the games for both teams:

1. About half of the players have the idea of playing full court player to player defense and maybe half of THOSE can get their minds and bodies to do it. My season end goal is for all of the players to have the idea and at least half to be able to do so with out weak side helping. We will get there by continuing to out-hustle other teams and by developing a defensive attitude that is aggressive. It isn't necessary that a player be highly skilled to play effective, hard-nosed defense. All one needs is desire.

2. Both teams are ready to pick / screen.

3. I will continue to stress attacking the rim / hunting the paint. Practice Group 2 is ready for drive and kick. Group 1 will be ready for it soon.

4. Dribble hand-offs still need a LOT more reps. We had less turn overs this week than we had last week from hand offs gone bad but the numbers are still too high.

5. We can never do too many ball handling drills. It is time to add handling in traffic to the practice plan.

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Robin Sallie
Framingham, MA
 
Written on a small keyboard. Please forgive bizarre typos.