It is how you finish that is remembered

With the NCAA march Madness drawing to an end, the NBA playoffs around the corner and this first of the OBA provincial championships taking place it is very hard to ignore the fact that finishing strong is of the utmost importance. A season is often remembered for how it finishes rather than how it started and it is the memories both good and bad of the final weekend that lingers in your mind. I can still recall vividly the season we lost a bronze medal game to close rival and how bitter it was for both for me and the players. I can also recall with great details the OBA championship games that our team has won. Our season to date has been very successful and I believe we are right on track for where we need to be at this point in time.

We have been very active with our practices for the past month or so but have not had any games in just over a month. We finish the season in just over a month from now and we have three tournaments during this timespan. We are hosting one this coming weekend, a big one in Hamilton near the end of the month and culminate with the provincials at the beginning of next month. While some teams choose to overload the front end of their schedule with games I prefer to back end our schedule with an emphasis on being strong at the end of season.

Even though we are one track, we are faced with a couple challenges that we must overcome to ensure a proper finish to the year. The first challenge has been being able to keep the practices fresh and productive with the lack of games and game preparation. I have tried to accomplish this by going back to working on fundamentals and individual skills with the ladies while introducing some new skills to their toolbox. The second biggest challenge we are facing is the overcoming of injuries and illness during this past month. We have not had a full compliment of players to a practice since prior to our last tournament. This has made it difficult to work on any team systems in depth but we been able to incorporate some new concepts in a practice setting but are lacking seeing it in a competitive setting. Hopefully we can work on some of these concepts this upcoming week as despite knowing we will be short players again I am having some guest players come out to practice. This measure should allow us to put our concepts into place in a more competitive environment.

Championships are won during practice before the game even begins.