yes, another kids coaching story (Update: 2016-17 edition)

Looking forward to the updates, keep them coming.

 

Sounds like your sis is going to get fired. After all, it can't be the players!!

Maybe she should find a couple of fourth graders from a nearby city and try to pass them off as third graders!!

Seriously. . . .it sounds like your sister has her head screwed on straight and is doing some good work. Keep it up.

 

Funny, last year there was all this off-court scuttlebutt among the coaches trying to sandbag the all-3rd grade team, force them to add 2nd graders, but this year there's been none of that (at least that anybody has heard).

I think the main difference is that last year's 3rd grade superteam was physically huge, plus they had one super-duperstar that utterly dominated the league.

The Pandas are still about the 3rd/4th biggest team in the league so it doesn't LOOK unfair when they walk out on the court. Instead of just one all-world superstar, they have about 3-4 kids leading the way.

One omen that bodes VERY well for the Pandas in 2 years when they start official school competition: the mother of Eleni, the girl who just joined the team for the first time ... is 6-foot-1.

 

The season officially entered the home stretch yesterday with the Pandas finally getting an 11:50 a.m. contest as opposed to 9:20 tipoffs in the first four games.

It was also the end of the 'first round' of league play; it's a 6-team league, and everybody plays all five opponents once and three teams twice. So this would be the one time they played the 'blue' team, tied for 3rd place in the unofficial league standings. Next week is an off week for Prez Day weekend with many families out of town, then three rematches to finish the league slate.

The week before, the Blues had beaten the Pinks, the big physical team Sis (and I) thinks is the second-best team in the league, with (surprise) a small and quick right-handed point guard (No. 4) leading the way, scoring 10 of their 15 points on 5 shots taken within about a 4-foot radius of the right side of the key, 6-10 feet out. Armed with my highly technical scouting report, Sis came up with a genius defensive game plan: overplay her, force her left, crowd her when she picks up the ball, totally overplay all the passing lanes, and belly up on her super tight when she gets near her 'shooting zone.'

As pregame warmups started all the Pandas were joking and laughing, but quite unexpectedly they had nearly a half-hour of warmup time rather than the usual 10 minutes. (The earlier games had all gone fast and the games were ahead of schedule). Relaxed and joking around quickly progressed to silly and screwing around, and when the Assistant Coach Dad-guy started taking backwards free throws and halfcourt hook shots in the warmup line, Sis calmly ordered the whole team out into the hallway vestibule for a brief and firm "fun is fun but enough is enough" talk.

They came back out with 2:00 to go before tipoff for their usual organized warmup drill -- all 10 players coming out in a line, dribbling balls around the halfcourt then breaking into layup lines.

The game starts and surprisingly, No. 4 is on the bench for the Blues. She sits out the whole first quarter, satisfying the mandatory sit-out rules, and at least temporarily frustrating all the advance scouting and Jedi defensive wizardry. Sis quickly recovers by saying, "whoever is guarding their PG, just play them the same way."

The problem with this is with No. 4 out of the game, they appear to have no PG per se -- in fact, it's really hard to say if they have any positions at all; they appear to be going on the "whoever gets the rebound first brings the ball up" game plan.

This actually seems to work pretty decently for most of the quarter; they manage to get the ball upcourt and into the lane for some shots, although they miss them all. On offense, the Pandas seem scattered and out of sync; the lackadaisacal routine of warmups seems to be carrying over with plenty of uncharacteristic turnovers and awful shots.

With about a minute left in the quarter, it's still 0-0 and the Blues actually get 3-4 rim-rollers that just barely fall off, then get a couple shooting foul calls. But the Blues miss all four FTs, and for the moment, the chances of the Pandas actually falling behind for the first time since the first minute of the opener fade away. The first quarter, an abomination to the game of basketball, ends at 0-0.

In the second quarter, both teams bring on their "best" lineups -- No. 4 is on the court for the Blues, and the Pandas come in with Sophie, the 'lightning bolt' point guard, and Sis A and Sis B, all of whom had sat out the first quarter.

(In what probably counts as the first hint of off-court discord all season, prior to practice during the week Sis B had reported that her best friend Sarah, the tallest girl on the team and only post player prior to the addition of Eleni last week, had been getting a little bit snippy because 'she never gets to play point guard,' so Sis made the command coaching decision to let her do it in the first quarter. She wasn't awful; the other team didn't pick her clean at halfcourt every time, but she was uncomfortable trying to pick the ball up on a dribble; she threw it away several times and threw up a couple pretty bad air balls.)

In the second quarter, the Pandas now had 3 legitimate PGs on the floor; Sophie and the twins. Sis A, the best defensive player, matched up with No. 4 and the defensive scheme went into effect. As predicted, overplaying her a step to her "strong" side was devastating; she simply couldn't switch hands or change direction. Forced to pick up the ball and look for emergency receivers, she throws about 5 passes in a row straight into the hands of Sophie, who takes off at warp speed.

Problem is while Sophie can drive at Warp 9, her shot speed is still on impulse speed. She misses a boatload of shots, but in Sis's Loyola Marymount 5-player-break offense, there are 3-4 other players roaring to the boards to pick up the rebounds. Grace, one of our quieter, less-aggressive players, throws in a couple of short-jumper putbacks and Sarah gets tough with a couple of shots near the hoop, and suddenly it's 8-0 at halftime.

In the third quarter, if anything the Panda defense tightens down; three straight times down the court they trap No. 4 against the sidelines with no receivers, no room to shoot, and the opposing coach burns all his time outs to avoid 5-second calls (the league does have the rule, but by general agreement with the refs it's more like a 15-second rule). The Panda offense loosens up a bit, Sophie finally cans a layup (although also missing a few more), Grace nails another, the twins each get on the board, and it's 16-0 before the Blues finally roll a shot in as the third quarter buzzer goes off.

In the final quarter, it's 'make everybody happy' time: Sis starts running plays to get some of her non-star players some shots. She also pulls the high-temperature defense off; No. 4 begins the fourth quarter in tears on the lap of her dad-coach on the bench, but in the interest of decorum, Sis turns the burner down on D and even throttles down the break a bit.

Sophie's game time is up so Sis B, the best passer, takes over at PG. She runs the 'Panda Time' play flawlessly and four straight times wide-open 6-footers result in Panda baskets.

No. 4 reenters the game with 3:00 to play and it's clear she's hell-bent to score. Sis takes off all 'unusual' defensive attention, allowing Eleni, a tall forward, to guard her. She breaks loose for a half-dozen wild layup attempts, which all slam off the rim. One of her teammates rolls in a putbacker in the final 30 seconds and the final is 24-4.

After the game Sis stops over at, ahh, let's call it, St. Sisyphus, the school we ALL attended, even me back in the Sixties and Seventies before Sis was even born.

She's over there to pick up Sis-13, the older sister of the twins who has 'retired' from basketball to concentrate on club volleyball this winter. Her former teammates on the (oh, what the hell) "St. Sissy" 8th grade team are opening their season and Sis-13 wants to watch from the stands (her very very very unofficial boyfriend will be there too, a factor not un-noted by mom (Sis), who would love to keep a watchful eye on that whole situation -- which has some even MORE basketball soap-operaish aspects I'll get into sometime. ).

St. Sissy does not seem to be missing Sis-13 very much on the court; they roll to a 50-26 win. More interesting, Sis gets to sit next to an old pal from last season: Mr. BG, the 6-foot-4 coach of "The Big Girls" team of all-3rd graders who tore apart the Starville Youth League as badly or worse as the Pandas are doing this season. He has an older daughter on the 8th grade team; she scores 16 in the big win.

"The Big Girls," now all 4th graders, have moved on to a regional all-star semi-club league this season; instead of playing only teams from only one town, their opponents range from school districts within about a 50-60 mile radius. The league is set up in a 3-tier format; they're in the 'Silver Division,' the middle level.

OK, anyway, last year, 'The Big Girls" laid waste to the Starville Youth League with Mr. BG's daughter, "LeBron," averaging probably something close to 20 ppg. It's pretty safe to guess that "LeBron," by herself, outscored every other TEAM in the league last year.

So StarSis inquires offhandedly, "how are you doing?" and Mr. BG replies, "We haven't had a game closer than 15 points yet. But 'LeBron' is averaging 15-18 ppg."

Sis says, "Oh, you're undefeated then?" Mr. BG shakes his head; "Oh, hell no, we're 5-5. But every game has been a wipeout one way or the other; either we win by a runaway or lose by a runaway."

Mr. BG says the way they determine divisions isn't really clear; they ask the coaches which divisions they think they should be in, and then apparently the first game is a classification game of sorts. (Although he said it's not strictly a 'win and you're in division A, lose you're in division B' type of deal -- apparently the league directors watch the game and rate you on apparent ability.)

Mr. BG also adds that "The Big Girls" won their first two, then lost four straight. "They're just not used to being in a game where it's possible to lose," he said. "We've had a few games were it was 4-6 points at halftime, then we give up a 16-2 run or something and the game goes down the drain."

So Sis may have some decisions to make next season; play only in the city league and run the risk of wasting a season rolling up huge no-challenge wins, or go to the regional league which is more expensive, requires significant travel by players and parents which theoretically could chase off some of the less gung-ho families, and also risk getting classified into a league where they might be a punching bag again.

Thankfully, no word yet on 'Helpful Caller Guy' from last season. Mr. BG said he thinks his team is ripping up the city rec 4th grade division.

 

While talking to Mr. BG on Saturday, StarSis got to wondering what kind of scoring balance he had on his 'Big Girls' team last year ripping up the league.

Mr. BG replied that "LeBron," his daughter, averaged about 18, two others 4 each, and the other 5 players on the roster about a point each.

Just for fun tonight Sis added up her team's scoring totals after 5 games:

Sarah 22, Sophie 20, Andi (Sis A) 19, Grace 18, Starlet (Sis B) 17, Allison 16, Addison 14, Kate 12, Annie 8, Eleni (2 games) 0.

.,. Which probably gives a hint why there's been no big outcry to 'break up the Pandas' -- they don't have one towering player ripping the league apart all by herself.

 

After the 'midseason' break for Prez Day, Sis reported a couple new tidbits for this week:

In the very very unofficial league standings, the Pandas are all alone at 5-0 while the next two opponents, "#6" and "Team Pink," are both 3-2, so a win against #6 Saturday clinches a tie for the (unofficial) league title, woohoo.

A few interesting stat items, again from the very unofficial reports of the Elias Bros. Bureau: Apparently Sarah, the Pandas' leading scorer, ranks 5th in the league in scoring (at 4.4 ppg). Of the 5 other teams in the league, 4 have a leading scorer with more than 22 points. However, Panda players rank 5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 and then about 17th in the league in scoring. (There are about a dozen players in the league who haven't scored -- getting Eleni out of that grouping is top priority in the final 3 games.)

As a team, they're averaging 29 ppg, with 22 their low-water mark. The other 5 teams combined have only scored over 20 five times -- and never more than 22. (Unfortunately, four of those five 20-plus scoring games came against "The Little Girls," the all-2nd grade team from St. Sissy that the Pandas steamrolled 40-8 who are a thunderous 0-5).

Sis talked to the league supervisor about the outlook for next year's league. He said the number of current 3rd graders in the league makes it likely they'll have enough players for either 2-3 other teams (besides the Pandas) next season in a 4th grade league, unless there's a dramatic surge or falloff in interest.

A couple factors which could play into this are that Sis has 2 girls from "outside" schools on her roster this year, who might be assigned to other teams if needed to make playable rosters, and he's also had discussions with a couple of adjacent parks/rec directors who have also come up short on girls in that age group (they expect to have enough for 1-2 teams) about maybe running a combined 4th grade league.

He also brought up the possibility of a combined 4th-5th grade league next season, which would put the Pandas back in the position of "babies of the league" they were in LAST season, when they went 3-5.

Sis knows that Mr. BG and the Big Girls wouldn't be playing in such a league -- they opted to play in the regional semi-travel league as 4th graders this season, and next year, they'll be playing as St. Sissy's 'varsity' 5th grade team -- so unless the city-rec league totally revamps its calendar so as not to conflict with the CYL, they won't be in it anyway. So with The Big Girls and "LeBron" out of the picture, Sis says she figures the Pandas could at least compete with anyone else who might be in the league, and she would be OK with a combined 4th-5th grade format, if that's what it came down to.

The other interesting item Sis reported was that during the course of giving presentations for her law office, she's come into contact/become occasional lunch partners with a lawyer from the other side of the Starburg metro area, who as it turns out has daughters in 2nd and 3rd grade, who attend "St. Rudy's," the arch-rival school of St. Sissy in the area CYL, and as it also turns out, she is also coaching her daughters in THEIR city-rec, no-official-score, 9-foot-baskets, 2nd-3rd grade league, and it seems they are ripping their league apart just like the Pandas.

Both teams end their official league seasons March 7, so you can probably guess how their lunchtime chats are going.

 

Sis said she got a call from her St. Rudy counterpart Friday, in which she said her kids were interested in playing a 'real game' to wrap up the season. Scoreboards, stopping clocks, the whole deal.

Both Sis and her buddy 'Rudette' are kinda big deals in their respective school parent councils/ fundraisers, and both know their respective ADs and principals, so digging up gym time shouldn't be a huge problem.

Both schools have a gym with adjustable baskets so the 9-foot rim height should be no problem.

There could be a couple minor hangups: 1) the CYL has consistently shot down the idea of league games below the 5th grade level and might not be too wild about staging a 3rd grade 'exhibition' game; 2) the Pandas, while made up mostly (8/10) of St. Sissy players, is not explicitly a 'St. Sissy' team, and Sis has taken pains not to label it as such, so as not to make her two non-St. Sissy players feel excluded.

So the potential big season-ending super showdown will remain in the discussion stage another week or so. Sis left things at the "sounds like it might be fun" stage for the time being.

First, Game 6 of the regular season, later this morning.

 

"You say it's your birthday; well, it's my birthday too."
With four members of the Pandas, including coach StarSis, celebrating birthdays within the next four days, what better idea could there be than a pregame all-night slumber party?
For some insane reason, probably 10 screaming 8-9 year-old girls, StarSon-15 decided to bunk out at his uncle StarBro's house overnight. Everyone else, including Sis-13 and Sis-5, stayed on board for the festivities, which reliable reports said finally settled down about 2:30 a.m. or so.
As host mom as well as coach, StarSis had tried to shut it down earlier, unplugging all media players, etc etc about 11, and attempting to impose/enforce a lights-out at midnight, but further attempts to order complete silence were pretty much doomed from the start. "You have to let them just run down on their own," said a bleary-eyed StarSis the next morning. "If you go in there every 15 minutes and tell them to go to sleep, it just revs them up again."
But bright and early at the gym the next morning, the Pandas suddenly woke up to a birthday surprise: a real live basketball game.
So far in the unofficial-score 2015 season, the Pandas hadn't had a game close after halftime. But Saturday, in a rematch against the"Reds," the big and physical team they beat in the season opener, things were different.
An overflow/SRO crowd filled both rows of folding chairs in the grade-school gym, with the extras crowding along the baselines. The"Reds" parents were decked out in red-colored gear, apparently to counter the "Big Black Attack" of the Pandas, who have started to build up some leaguewide mystique for their sharp uniforms, their patterned pregame warmup drills, and for winning all their games by runaways.
The Pandas still seemed a bit giggly and drowsy after the all-nighter, shook off their snow boots and laced up their hoop shoes as the Reds took the court doing some kind of cheerleader clap routine. "They were showing off," said Sophie, the Pandas' 'lightning bolt' point guard. "We didn't care about it, but it got their team really fired up," said Panda center Sarah.
After taking the tip, the taller Reds worked it in to their big center, and she banked in a putback and a 2-0 lead less than a minute in. The Pandas missed a shot and the Reds brought it back. The Reds coach had apparently been doing some scouting of his own, and he worked out a plan where the center came out to bring the ball over halfcourt, avoiding the Pandas' usually-lethal halfcourt defensive clampdown.
And it was working. The Reds broke through and fired up shots in the lane time and time again, and suddenly the Pandas were facing their first 4-point deficit of the season. And then the first 6-point hole. The red-clad Red rooters were rattling the rafters.
StarSis was teetering on the verge of breaking her Chuck Daly Memorial Non-Time-Out streak, and calling her first time-out of the season, when a gift arrived in the form of the mid-quarter substitution break -- a mandatory officials' time-out to enable teams to sub in players and equalize playing time.
Sis was happy to accept the windfall time-out, and sent in the first wave of reserves with the trenchant advice, "we need some baskets!"
The time-out also allowed Sis to get some scoring punch in the lineup; the Pandas had started the game with none of their top-4 offensive players on the floor, to satisfy madatory sit-out rules.
Sis B batted an errant Reds pass forward to Sophie, who dropped in the layup to get the Pandas on the board. The teams traded scores until halftime, with the Reds holding onto a 14-10 edge at the break. At the half, the Reds' center had 10 of their 14 points, so Sis reassigned Sis-A, the Pandas' best all-around defender, onto her despite a sizable height disadvantage.
When the third quarter midpoint sub break rolled around, it was 16-10, and Sis ordered a defensive gamble: instead of usual basket-protection defense, the Pandas were ordered to go into full passing-lane overplay -- stay between your player and the ball. This brought up nightmare visions of a parade of Princeton backdoor cuts and give-and-go lobs for layups, but Sis explained later, "These are third graders. They can't throw 40-foot baseball passes. When they throw a pass more than 5 feet, 90% of the time it falls short."
Sure enough, the interceptions began falling like manna from heaven: Sis-A, Sis-B, Sophie and Kate started knocking passes loose. Sophie suddenly solved her out-of-control layup problem and canned a pair, Sarah rambled on the boards for a couple of tip-in baskets, and with 25 seconds left in the quarter, Allison drilled an 8-footer in the lane to put the Pandas in front, 18-16.
With the sleepover hangover chased away, at one point the Pandas put up, and miss, eight offensive rebounds in a row, but the momentum stays on their side. The Red coach burns a time-out trying to stop the tide before the quarter break, and Grace, the Pandas' suddenly-deadeye long-range shooter, swishes a 15-footer at the buzzer and a 20-16 lead. Now it's the black-clad Panda Pack of parents whooping it up.
The whirlwind continued in the fourth quarter; Grace, who due to her quiet nature started the season considered about the 6th-best player, nails shot after shot from 10-15 feet, world-class range at the third-grade level. "It's no fluke," Sis said afterward. "She hits those shots in practice, too. It took us about half the season to notice she wasn't just making it once in a while; she makes those shots a LOT."
"If I'm open, I can make it," said Grace, one of the birthday girls (coming up Tuesday). "I don't make too many steals, but if nobody's on me, I can shoot." She ends up with a sizzling 14 points, a team high for the season.
The lead balloons to 26-16 before the Reds climb up off the canvas, with the coach burning the rest of his time-outs in a futile attempt to put the brakes on the Pandas. The Reds rally a bit, but only enough to narrow the gap t0 26-22 with about a minute to play, before Eleni, the only Panda yet to score on the season, bangs in a 6-foot jumper in heavy traffic in the lane, setting off a wild high-five party as they retreat downcourt.
"It was great, it was the first basket I ever made in a game," she laughed afterward.
Pulling out all the stops, the Reds give the Hack-A-Shaq comeback strategy a try, with two players grabbing Sophie around the arms with 22 seconds left. She makes both, then after a wild Reds shot goes awry in the final seconds, they do it AGAIN, and the gambit backfires as Sophie makes two more to finish with 10 points of her own and a 32-22 final score. (Needless to say, it's the first time all season any team has had two players in double figues.)
Both groups of parents rise for a game-ending ovation; the Reds (4-2) take consolation from having held the Pandas (6-0) to their narrowest margin of the year, and for having led for almost three quarters.
The win in the totally-unofficial league standings actually clinches a tie for the totally-unofficial title, but Saturday the Pandas face the Pinks, at 4-2 the only team still in contention, with a chance to put it away for good.
"I thought it was a good idea," the Reds coach says of the fouling strategy to StarSis in the postgame handshake line. "What do kids in this league shoot for free throw percentage?"
Sis has a ready answer. "I don't know what the league overall shoots, but we're 10-of-14."
Reds-guy shakes his head, and stammers, "Uhm ... yeah. OK. Good game," before shuffling off.
After the game, I kid Sis in the hallway. "You didn't have to get snotty with that guy."
"No, I didn't," she replies. "But it was fun."
Frosting on the cake.

 

Editorial note: Drafting off the discussion in the Dave Kindred thread, I decided to write this one as a featurey gamer, but had I actually been writing for publication, I would have adhered to my own personal rule: Always include the final score of the game within the first 5 grafs -- and always make it the first score mentioned in the story.

 

Never have I cared so much about 8-9 girls basketball.

 

Quick update from StarSis on the potential postseason battle for galactic 3rd grade supremacy:

• "Rudette" from St. Rudy called this morning and said her team is pretty hot on the idea. (At this point, Sis says, Rudette is the one really pushing it; she even mentioned something about playing a 2-out-of -3 series; Sis leans pretty firmly toward one game.) Both coaches began inquiries into gym time possibilities.
  
• Sis talked to the CYL league commissioner and he has no objections, as long as it's not presented as a "St. Sissy vs. St. Rudy" game. (Sis fully agrees with that, since her team is not strictly a St. S team anyway.)
  
• Sis talked to the St. Sissy AD and he's OK with it as long as both coaches sign injury waiver forms (both coaches are lawyers -- hoo boy).
• The playing rules in the rec leagues are slightly different. Both have 9-foot baskets, but St. Rudy's league allows pressing in the 4th quarter while the Starville Youth League says no (fullcourt) pressing ever. Both leagues ban zone defense but St. Rudy's league is apparently more lenient on trapping and doubleteaming. The mandatory playing/sitting rules are also somewhat different. (Both coaches already agreed they'd rather just dump complicated PT/bench time rules and go with free substitution, with the proviso all players must play in every quarter.) Somewhat bizarrely, apparently the St. Rudy league does use the 3-point shot from 19-9, although Rudette says she doesn't think anybody in the league has made one all year. (Hmmm. The CYL grade-school league doesn't use the 3 until 7th-8th grades.)

Sis figures some horse trading can be done on the rules.

 

In our 8 team 4th-5th grade girls league, last Saturday was the first round of playoffs. We win our first game, giving up only 2 points in the 2nd half.

When the coaches report their scores to the commissioner (whose team we beat), one game is a tie and the coaches don't think to play OT to figure out who advances to the semis. The commish couldn't decide which team advances so he decides that the whole round of games is scrapped and we start the playoffs again on Saturday, albeit with no repeats of the discarded first round matchups. Ridiculous.