Weekend Update
Well this weekend was certainly eventful on both the
positive and negative side of things.
On Saturday 8 of my girls had a great experience going to a women’s
University basketball game. They were able to see firsthand the level of play
and hopefully pick up a pointer or two. I feel it is important for the ladies
to have something to aspire to and being able to see the game provided them
with this chance. I am hoping it demonstrated to the ladies that they are able
to play at this level in the next couple of years. Another key feature of the
day was being able to meet some of the players afterwards and hear from them
their experiences of being a student athletes. These young ladies helped
dispelled some myths about the lives of student athletes and once again I hope
provided some comfort to my girls. We were also addressed by their head coach
who address some issues the girls need to be aware of when selecting a school.
One added bonus was that I was able to have the visiting coach come in and
speak to my girls also. I had established a communication with the coaches thru
my regular email updates to each of them and this allowed me the opportunity to
ask him to speak to the girls. So basically the girls were able to meet two
university coaches directly and get to know them on a more personal basis.
Our rematch on Sunday was a completely different story. I am
not one for excuses but the cards were not dealt in our favor at all. We were
two players short to start with due to illness and work commitments. Three
others played but were clearly under the weather and one other was playing with
essentially with one hand due to fractured fingers. Their minds were more on
upcoming exams than they were on the game itself. We were able to stay in the
game for the first quarter but things started to fall apart just before
halftime and completely fell apart in the second half. Early foul trouble was a
key but more detrimental was our inability to finish our shots and foul
shooting was terrible. Fortunately I didn’t keep stats for this game as they
would be very disappointing to look at. The game did provide some players an
opportunity to log more minutes than they would in a regular situation and in some
cases it was baptism under fire. In retrospect we lost 51-21 and played a 40
minute game rather than a 32 minute game. Holding a quality team to 51 while
playing an extra quarter of play is good to know especially when our best post
defender had to sit for almost two quarters due to foul trouble. Our offensive
output was our lowest of the season to date and I suspect the lowest it will
ever be this year. Overall we told the girls that a few lessons can be learned
from this game. Firstly, we cannot just walk onto the court and expect the
other team to hand us the game. Secondly, we have to focus at all times and
thirdly everyone has bad days and this happened to be ours. We will forget
about this game and move on.
I have given the ladies the week off to prepare and write their
exams and we get back at it next week.
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