In my <sarcasm>free time</sarcasm> I am a JV basketball coach, which means that I directly coach the JV team and assist with the Varsity. The head coach and I took over two years ago and were tasked with turning around the entire basketball program, which had wallowed in recent years. (I regularly point out to the team the basketball banner on the wall which lists my team as the last team to be "league champs"...there are no dates listed after 1996.)
Turning around a program is tough, particularly if it's been down for a while. "Losing" becomes a cultural attitude. At the beginning of this season, even, one of the kids said they had a good game because they only lost by six. As a competitor, that kind of attitude drives me nuts. Yes, they played well. Yes, that was an improvement. But we're not, and shouldn't be, playing to keep it close. We're playing to win. And a loss is still a loss.
Attitude shifts are one thing, but patience is another. Short of recruiting the next All-American basketball star, this is a building effort, and not an overnight effort. That means that over the last two years, we've lost a lot. Varsity has fared a bit better than JV, but they haven't been setting the world on fire.
This year, things improved substantially for the team. The Varsity players are a year older; another year under their belts getting acclimated to coaches offensive and defensive schemes. A year of playing basketball just so they can learn how to play the actual game of basketball, and not a PE/playground game that looks like basketball.
Unfortunately, as our team aged up a year, it left a gap on the JV. We don't have a huge roster of guys who can play basketball. In fact, there were a handful of guys who came out to play this year who had never played the game before. We made the choice to keep them, because they work hard and they have a good attitude, and without them, our numbers might not be able to support a JV team at all.
Long story short, we made some changes as the season progressed and have used more "swing players" in our lineup on JV. This is guy who is on the Varsity Roster, but may not see much playing time. He is allowed to play a few quarters in the JV game, but no more than 5 quarters total for the day. This has substantially improved our chances, and has allowed us to compete in games that would have been blowouts early in the season.
Still, there was a lot of basketball to be learned. Basic things like how to break a press, how to make a good pass, how not to let everyone on the court know that you are about to pass the ball across the court and they should get themselves in place and steal it, how to make a layup under pressure, how to keep your wits about you. All of those things were things we were working on, preaching, teaching, in practice and on game days.
Last night it all clicked. The guys played their style of basketball. Three things I say every week, from the beginning, even when we were playing with those guys who hadn't played before: Play hard, have fun, slow down. I've asked over and over: how do you break a press? "Middle, opposite". (You pass to the middle of the floor and hit the opposite guard...works every time as long as you make good passes.) What are the three things we need to do today? "Defense, box out, protect the ball."
You could tell it clicked. Maybe for one night only, but it clicked. They were down by ten, down by four, down by eight, but never let the game get away from them. Suddenly, middle of the fourth quarter, they are winning by one, then three.
Two and a half minutes left. "Two things you don't need right now. You don't need to score. You don't need to turn the ball over." Protect the ball, we win the game. Simple as that.
Run a delay offense. Burn a minute and a half before turning the ball over! Defensive stand, we get the rebound, we're fouled.
At this point, there are 28 seconds to go in the game. At some point in the play, one of their players got hit in the face and began screaming in pain, blood coming out of his nose onto the floor. I still have no idea how it happened, but the kid is writhing around like he has a broken nose, or worse. Takes about five minutes to clean the blood off the floor and calm everyone down.
Free throw time. Make the two free throws. Up by five.
The other team comes down and scores. Leading by three. Ball out of bounds. Press is on! Call timeout.
"Here is our press break. Get the ball inbounds. They will foul. Do not turn the ball over. If you get scared, we have one timeout left. Use it."
Press break, ball in bounds. Fouled. Misses both free throws. Timeout called by the other team.
"We're up by three. Do exactly what you've done all game. Don't worry about stopping only the three. Just play defense."
Other team scores. Other team calls timeout.
"Get the ball inbounds. They will foul. Do not turn the ball over. If you get scared, we have one timeout left. Use it."
Ball inbounds. Fouled. 13 seconds left.
Two free throws made. Up by three. Ball inbounds. Timeout called by the other team. Ball at mid-court. One play left. 6 seconds to go.
"Pick up your man as soon as you get on the court. (We had played zone all night but I told them to be ready for this.) Face guard. Do not miss your assignment. This is the most important play of the night."
(Side note, one game last year we were up by three with seconds to go, and someone missed their read. Their player made an unbelievable fallaway jumper three at the buzzer to go into overtime, and we lost. The memory haunts me.)
Shot goes up, ball tipped, headed out of bounds, buzzer sounds.
Game over, we win.
That's about as close to the details of the game as I remember. Here's the thing: they did what I told them to do, and we won. Just the basics. Play defense. Box out. Don't turn the ball over. And at the end of the day, it resulted in a win over a pretty good team.
Winning feels good after so many losses.