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

Midweek update: Sis got another interesting phone call from Rudette.

Rudette was calling to start setting up the battle for supremacy Part II, and has apparently been talking to some of the Kerri's Koalas parents: "I heard you split the St. Sissy kids into two teams this season."
Sis: "Yeah, we had enough kids come out so we could do that."
Rudette: "I heard the two St. Sissy teams are pretty evenly split."
Sis (raising eyebrow): "Well, I suppose you could say that."
Rudette: "I heard you are one game apart for the league lead."
Sis (raising eyebrow again): "Well, let me check the standings; I guess that is correct." (It is; the SGs are 4-0 and the Koalas 3-1.)
Rudette: "I heard when you played it got pretty tight near the end."
Sis (this time ROLLING eyes): "Yeah, I guess that's true too. They ran off a 6-0 run on us at the end." (After trailing 28-3, which Sis decided not to mention.)

The conversation carried on kind of elliptically from there: Sis couldn't really tell if Rudette wants to play separate games against both St. Sissy teams or one game against a combined team of ONLY St. Sissy players. Once or twice Rudette floated the idea, "now there are more than enough St. Sissy players to make a complete team, maybe we shouldn't allow any non-Catholic school kids to play" (a ploy to get public school whiz Sophie -- who now is pretty clearly the best player in the SYL -- off the Squirrelly Girl roster). Sis kind of squashed that idea; "We've been practicing together since November, I don't think I want to throw players off my team at this point. If you want to play separate games against both St. Sissy teams, that might be something you could work out."

 

It's been a balmy winter so long in Starrville but reality arrived in a freezing blast Saturday morning as the Squirrelies saw their season shoved in a deep freeze by the towering power of Team #1, which turned out to be most of the same team which crushed the Pandas last season, who grabbed the game by the throat early and stomped on it for a 20-16 "upset" which left the Squirrelies looking at playing out the string with three games left.

They brought back the same Unseldian "Susie #17," who again used a powerful posterior to back down defenders straight on every play, but the problem was coach "Terry" also had teammates to play the roles of Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and Tim Duncan. While "Susie" seemed to have plateaued off at height at about 5-0, four other teammates were within an inch or so of her size. Several others were in the 4-8 to 4-10 range. The tallest SG is about 4-6.

Nobody in the Squirrelly brain trust had seen the "Redwoods" play all season; three of their four games were scheduled at another school at the same time as Squirrelly games. All we knew was comparative scores, and they had won two games by 20-10 margins -- and the fact that Kerri's Koalas (who the Squirrellies blitzed two weeks ago) had beaten them in OT in the league's season opener a month ago.

But all the scouting reports in the world wouldn't have done a lick of good unless somebody could teach about four of the Squirrellies how to grow six inches and gain 50 pounds overnight. So StarSis knew she might be in trouble when they went out to line up for the opening tip, and every single Redwood player was taller than the tallest Squirrelly. On the whole team.

Now normally that's been no great concern for the SGs because speed and quickness has overcome all size advantages, but it blew up in their face Saturday as the Redwoods stuck to straight-ahead dribbling paths which did not allow smaller defenders to come zipping around for steals.

And rather than try to throw passes past Squirrelly defenders playing the passing lanes, "Terry" ordered the Redwoods to pound it right down into the lane, get shots up on the rim and then play volleyball on the boards. "Susie" again dominated but this time with 10 points and a dozen rebounds, while four other towering Redwoods banged in a low-post basket each as the SGs were thrown around like rag dolls, and the Redwoods took a crushing 32-14 edge on the boards.

Although the SGs got a couple of baskets early from Sis B, who started at PG as Sophie came off the bench, quickly the offense ground to a complete halt. Sophie seemed to be in a snit early after sitting out the first half-quarter, and immediately began a wild series of missed rushed layups. She was still getting free for the shots but only making maybe 10% of them: shot after shot after shot rammed off the bottom rim.

Usually fueled by steals and turnovers, the SG running game froze in its tracks as the Redwoods kept scoring and forcing the SGs to run the offense from the backcourt. For some unfathomable reason, both PGs, Sophie and Sis B, began hesitating and coming to a halt in the backcourt before reaching the defense at center court --- precisely the mistake they utterly love all opponents to make.

So this effectively brought the offense to a complete stop just before midcourt, and then usually a dribble or two past midcourt, resulting in pass after pass after pass thrown away into the teeth of the massive Redwood defense.

The Squirrellies literally had not trailed for one second all season, but as the game wore on with the Redwoods building leads of 6-8 points, the cold fingers of panic began to tighten up. Sophie, a shoot-first speedster under any circumstances, abandoned all pretense of running any 'plays,' and simply drove the lane again and again (and in her defense, nobody else was making shots either). She ended up with 10 but that was it for the SG offense. Shooting forward Grace was particularly banged around by the Redwood defense, and shut out.

The SGs did manage to tie it at 14 late in the third quarter, but the Redwoods reasserted their size advantage inside and pulled back out to the win. Unlike last season's final-game shocker, this time the loss was anything but 'meaningless.' The game left the Redwoods, Kerri's Koalas and the SGs tied for first place in the league with 4-1 records, but the SGs and Redwoods play only once, so the Redwoods take any tiebreaker if they do end up tied -- almost a certainty since the remaining three teams in the league are light-years worse, so a standings-scrambling upset in the final weeks is pretty well unlikely. (This upcoming weekend is off for Prez Day.)

It does set up a showdown of sorts in the final game of the season in a month, in which the 'Panda alumni' teams of Kerri's Koalas and the Squirrelly Girlies will meet. If form holds in the remaining games until then, the three teams will enter the final game tied for first place at 6-1. The Redwoods will be heavy favorites to knock over their tomato-can opponent, leaving the Koala-SG contest a game for a share of first place. If the Koalas win they take the title on the rights of their OT win over the RWs in the season opener; if the SGs win, they get a paper share of first but lose the tiebreaker.

So effectively the SGs are already out of the title race right now, barring an upset of astronomical proportions of the Redwoods or Koalas by one of the denizens of the SYL dungeons in the second division. So no need to clear room on the mantelpiece for any four-foot tall engraved trophies this season.

But look at it this way; a week ago they were worried about the league possibly not being viable next season because no team could possibly challenge them. That concern seems to have vanished. As has any profound interest in playing in Coach Rudette's big inter-city rematch.

"Last year, we had just lost the week before and wanted to get right back on the horse," StarSis said of agreeing to last year's big showdown. "This year it will be a month since we lost this game and nobody will care. I suppose we might play but I doubt there will be any big wellspring of emotion to play."

But life moves on anyway. Ninety minutes after the end of basketball, Sis and the twins were off to the local high school for a midwinter softball clinic and open gym.

 

One postmortem tidbit from chewing over the shot chart:

Redwoods baskets made within 8-foot radius of the basket: 10 (100%).

Squirrelly Girly team fouls (game total): Zero (0).

Hmmm, yeah, I think we're figuring it out.

 

After the midseason holiday break, a few nutty updates on the Squirrelly Girls.
Sis got a couple of emails from Rudette pushing the idea of a big postseason rematch. Now Rudette wants to set up some 3-game postseason series involving all three teams.

Sis put that idea on hold with a firmly noncommittal email: "let's see what happens in a week or two."

Meanwhile, with school back in session last week the SGs were hit by the midwinter flu virus and three of the seven players missed one or both practices past week.

 

So Saturday dawned bright and early, kinda, and the SGs show up at the game site with five players in uniform, not including flu-stricken scoring forward Grace.

As Sis walks into the gym, it turns out the Redwoods and Kerri's Koalas are playing what amounts to a knockout game for the title share: both teams have only one loss. The Redwoods have no more obviously loseable games to play while the Koalas face the SGs in two weeks in the season finale.
So the SGs "needed" the Koalas to win this game to keep alive a chance at the title (assuming a win in the finale).

Too bad, in any case: the Redwoods put the clamp on the title (barring a shocker loss) a no-serious-challenge 20-12 win.
Game 1 ends on time (actually a few minutes early) and coaches were gabbing around at midcourt.

Sis mentioned to Kerri that she had only five players dressed for the game, so Kerri offers a couple of her "bench" players as loaner subs. One is Kate, who was a Panda last year and thus knows about half the plays. The opposing coach, Darnell of the Dynomite, doesn't object, so off we go with the game.

First quarter, with SG speedster Sophie sitting out her mandated half-quarter, is fairly even. Sophie, who declined to shoot in pregame warmups with the team, enters the game and takes off like a house on fire. At least a half-dozen times in a row she picks the ball clean at halfcourt and takes off on breakaway layups -- but only makes one out of about 10. Still, the SGs creep into an 8-4 lead.

In the second quarter, with the entire SG offense devolving into "watch Sophie shoot layups," StarSis flips Sis B into the 1 spot, the PG running the offense. Immediately the offense begins clicking as Sis-B dishes off for five assists, including three to Sophie. When given the ball 10 feet from the hoop, she doesn't have time to overrun the backboard and slam the ball off the bottom rim.

Sis-B scores a couple hoops of her own and suddenly the halftime margin has swollen to 20-8. StarSis calls off the high pressure but Sophie is in a world of her own; she continues stealing the ball on almost every possession. By the end of the third quarter, she has 18 and the SGs are ahead 32-14.

On the sidelines during a brief break, StarSis takes Sophie aside: "Look for the pass if you can, OK?" Sophie says, "Sure." Sis moves Sis-B into the
PG slot but Sophie is still picking off the ball on steals and rebounds and driving for breakaway layups on every play. Sophie comes out with 22 points with 2:00 to play as the SGs lead 40-18.

The game ends at 41-21. In the hallway "locker room" area after the game, Sis comments off-handedly to Sophie and mom, "So you'll be gone next week, right?," confirming a schedule agreement they had already made. SophieMom adds, "Well, actually we're done right now; we have travel team tournaments the next four weeks (the SGs have two games left, barring a rematch with St. Rudy)."

Sis is thrown a bit for a loss. "Well... OK," she answers. But SophieMom adds a helpful tidbit: "Oh, but Sophie is going to keep coming to practices but not games." StarSis answers, not entirely unkindly, "Oh she is, is she? Well, we'll see how that all works out."

 

Tuesday saw the Squirrely Girlies moving into the P. S. (Post Sophie) era with an hour-long practice to also mark coach StarSis's birthday.

The flu bug has apparently passed and scoring forward Grace was back on the court, making six healthy players.

Practice got under way and five minutes in, somewhat to Sis's surprise, in walks the now-retired Sophie, and as promised /threatened by her mom, she walks out on the court and into the action.

Unfortunately, part or all of the goal of this practice was to work Annie, formerly the No. 4 PG, into the action running the offense, and also installing Sis-B, formerly the No. 1A or alternate PG, as the unchallenged every-possession QB of the offense.

Well, none of that works with Sophie on the court. She sprints to every loose ball, picks off every pass, brings the ball up herself on every play.

Sis moves Sophie from 1 to 4 so she won't be running the offense; no matter, she just keeps grabbing every loose ball.

After a few minutes, Sis announces they are going straight offense/defense and Sophie is being put on the defense.

Sis-B, probably the second-best ball handling PG in the league, does semi-decently against Sophie -- she doesn't get picked clean on every possession -- but Annie just gets cleaned out a dozen or so possessions in a row. All of course result in breakaway layups by Sophie.

This burns up about 40 minutes of the 60 minute practice. Sis turns the action over to Assistant Coach Mike and pulls Sophie's mom out in the hall for a private confab.

"I'm fine with Sophie still coming to practice because she's been a real important part of our team for two years, and I want her to keep being friends with all the girls on the team, but this is not helping the team."

Sophie's mom adopts an infuriatingly disingenuous/obtuse attitude: "Oh, was she hogging the ball a lot? I really didn't notice. Was she stealing the ball from the other girls a lot? I didn't see that."

Well yeah, Sis responds, "Annie is the No. 3 or 4 PG and hasn't had a lot of experience running plays. With Sophie leaving we'll need a backup/alternate PG, but it kills Annie's confidence to get picked clean 20 times in a row."

Oh really? "Well I think Sophie was just playing normal defense, you don't want to teach the girls to slack off, do you?"

Come on, Sis says. "Sophie is the best player in the league and you know it. 'Normal' for Sophie is 'tougher defensively than any other player in the league.' Our No. 2 PG is not going to be facing a player that quick or fast in any of our two or three remaining games. It doesn't teach Annie anything to get the ball picked 20 straight times by Sophie. It's like calling Steph Curry into your boys high school practice."

So Sophie's mom says, "don't you want her to come to practices anymore?"

Sis says, "Show up 15 minutes early (not 5 minutes late) Thursday night and we will talk about it. She can still help the team if she wants to but she will have to do some different things."

 

Things got even a little weirder for the Squirrely Girls over the last couple of days:

1) Thursday's practice was nixed by the sudden snowstorm that hit the state, so Sophie showing up, or not, for practice became a non-issue.

2) Friday at noon, StarSis got a call from the mom of Annie, who has missed most of the season with a knee injury, and they were trying to install her as the No. 2 PG on Tuesday. Annie was supposedly given the all-clear to play Tuesday, but her mom called Friday to report the doctor now says she's done for the season. So there goes the plan of the No. 2 point guard.

3) In light of this news, Sis surveyed the roster for the next most qualified and experienced player to play backup or alternate PG. As it turned out, that happens to be Sis-A, B's identical twin who has been mostly playing the 3 spot this season. Since there would be no practices prior to the Saturday game, whoever steps into the No. 2 PG slot would have to know the plays already.

From the start, StarSis has been reluctant to install the twins as the "little stars" of the team, drawing on family experience with StarBro (her older, and my younger, brother), who played several years under a prize example of everything that can go wrong with the coaching parent/star player equation: coach acts like a complete asshole, completely runs the whole team for the benefit of Little Junior, who becomes a selfish greedy obnoxious knob -- the jerk nobody wants to play with.

StarSis knew the dangers of this could be doubled with twins on the team, so she has actually steered both of them to more "complimentary" roles on the team: Sis-B, the slightly-more-aggressive 'natural athlete,' into a passing-PG role (mainly setting up Sophie and Grace) and Sis-A, the more analytical of the two, to a defensive-wing and passing-forward role, with neither one getting very many plays called for them. That way nobody would get the impression the team was being run for the glory of the "terrific twins."

But with Sophie out of the picture, that reasoning pretty much goes out the window: that's about 12 ppg of the team's 30 ppg that had to be replaced somehow.

4) Happily, in Saturday's penultimate game of the season, the opponent was the awful 'Blue' team the SGs beat 32-9 in the second game back in January, so the loss of Sophie looked somewhat survivable. Before the game StarSis pulled the team together to explain what the loss of Sophie was going to mean: About a dozen steals and a dozen points on offense and defense, and a huge amount of speed for the whole game, so she emphasized the need for extra-aggressive defense, making the right passes and keeping the pace fast on offense. Grace and Sis B were told they had to look to score more to fill the offensive shortage resulting from Sophie's loss.

The extra-aggressive defense part was no problem: Sis B took over the role as the main ballhawk, and while she didn't strip as many clean as Sophie usually does, she stole enough to help the SGs throw a shutout for the first three quarters of the game. Grace, who hadn't had a really good game in a month, broke loose for 10 points to lead the offense, while Sis-B added eight, Sis-A four, and three others a bucket apiece. Sis A stepped into the alternate PG role quite nicely with five gen-u-wine assists.

So with 3:00 left in the last quarter, the final 'official time out' for sub purposes, the score stood at 28-0. Twenty-eight to zero. StarSis had already called off the high-voltage defense in the second quarter when the lead rolled into double digits, and most of the second half had already been played in basket-trading mode. (Well, shot-trading mode anyway.)

Now, Sis tells the SGs: "Hands in pocket defense only. Let them shoot. If you get the rebound, go, otherwise just stand there with your hands out."

Suddenly there's a bit of a stir in the gym among the 100 or so spectators. Walking into the gym, in her full-length NIKE uniform and warmup suit for her travel team, is Sophie and her mom, also wearing a travel team warmup and baseball cap.

The Blues take advantage of StarSis "no defense" order to rattle in three offensive rebounds in the final 3:00, to "narrow" the final score to 28-6.

Background note here: while the SYL 4th-5th grade league does use an official scoreboard, it's one of those fairly cheap LED models you set on the scorer's table. The sun was shining on the scoreboard which washed out the LED score figures for those sitting across the court who hadn't been paying attention.

At the final buzzer, Sophie and her mom come over to visit with her semi/former teammates. Remember, they had only seen the final 3:00 of the game.

Within a few seconds, it becomes apparent they (mainly Mom) are issuing consolations for a loss. "Don't feel bad, you played hard, losing isn't the end of the world, every team has an off game, I know it's tough since Sophie left but she has to go play with her travel team, remember we were real good while Sophie was still here," etc etc.

StarSis, going through the handshake line, gets a tug on the sleeve from one (or both) twins: "What are Sophie and her mom talking about? They're saying we shouldn't feel bad to lose? What the hell?"

StarSis calls out to the kids at the scorer's table: "Hey, don't shut that scoreboard off just yet." Sophie's mom says, "As soon as we arrived the other team ran off three straight baskets in three minutes, we figured that had been going on all game. We figured they were the ones with 28 points."

"No," said Sis. Quite coldly. Pointing to the 28-6 final.

"Um, okay, gotta get going to our travel game!!" says Sophie's mom, very peppily.

And they were out the door.

Oh, Sis also got some more emails from Rudette. She's hot to set up a postseason series.

But first, the season-ending showdown with the Koalas.

 

One final practice of the season Thursday night (Tuesday got snowed out). The Squirrellies are as ready as they are gonna be to face Kerri's Koalas.

The Koalas are 5-2 and the SGs 6-1. The SGs will have to stop Sarah, the former Panda.

35 minutes into the practice, in walks Sophie. The last 20 minutes of the practice are pretty loose scrimmaging and shooting around.

As everybody is packing up to go, Sophie and her mom announce, "we might be able to show up for SOME of the game Saturday."

Sis responds, "Well, we'll see what happens."

In a private coaches confab, Assistant Coach Mike offers the opinion: "If she's in the building at tipoff time (8 a.m.) she plays. If not, she sits. No walking out of the hallway for the fourth quarter."

Sis is leaning that direction. Although that leaves open the flip side scenario: Sophie arrives on time, plays the first quarter or two, runs wild in scoring and boosts the SGs into a big lead, then skips out the door.

If the Koalas then come back to win, the story will be, "well, you were doing fine as long as Sophie was here, then when she left the rest of the players blew the game."

Sis is mulling a final option: if Sophie is in the building at tipoff, she sits for the first 3 1/2 quarters, regardless of the status of the game. With 3:00 left in the fourth, she comes in.

We'll see in a few hours.

 

Finally ... The End.

It all came collapsing down Saturday morning, bringing an end to the season in a cascade of catastrophe.

First, StarSis is roused by her buzzing cellphone at 6 a.m.: Grace's mother calling to report she's been up all night with a racking cough and a 103-degree fever.

Game time, 8 a.m. Sophie nowhere to be seen. Six players in uniform.

Stands are full, swelled by parents from the Redwoods, who can clinch the solo league title with a Koalas win (the SGs
Take a piece of the title with a win but the Redwoods won their only meeting and thus take the tiebreaker ).

The game starts. Sis-B, now forced into the "superstar PG" role, does OK in the first quarter, scoring both baskets as the game stands tied 4-4.

First play of second quarter. Sis-B drives into pileup under the basket. Comes out with gusher nosebleed. She's had them in the past, but this one won't quit. Every time it seems like it's stopped, here comes a new gush.

That leaves Sis-A, the reluctant point guard, to run the whole show for three quarters. She converts a 3-point play in the second quarter but the Koalas pull out to a 12-7 edge.

The Koalas pull out to a 16-7 lead at the end of three. In the fourth, fatigue sets in for the five SG survivors and things fall apart in a 24-7 crushing as the crowd goes wild.

StarSis isn't that bummed at the end. "At least now I can wash my hands of Rudette's postseason showdown game."

Time for softball.

 

Damn, I was rooting for Sophie sitting for the whole game, the team wins in a blowout, then Sis and Sophie's mom get in a catfight at center court.

Fun updates, Starman, thanks.

 

Well, the team has a postseason pizza/ ice cream party set for next Saturday. That ought to be interesting.

 

I hadn't posted on the thread this year, despite Starman's urging, because a combination of travel, work and general frustration with my team.

My team, winners of my town's in-town 4th and 5th grade girls league in 14-15 as detailed in the earlier pages, was decimated by the loss of our four 5th graders to the 6th-8th grade program. In addition, my two best guards decided to play travel this year and, unlike some other girls in travel, decided not to play in-town hoops. So we were left with three girls returning -- our best shooter, a nice girl who doesn't get involved on the offensive end (zero points last season) and my daughter. We added the following: a) two 5th graders who don't really understand the game; b) another 5th grader who is tiny, but a really good dribbler; and c) four 4th graders, each one shorter than the next and only one of who ever played before. My daughter, who is 4'10", is our tallest player, and we have minimal defensive skill from any of the other of my taller girls.

The good news is that our incompetent commissioner was gone, as his daughter aged out of the 4th-5th grade league. The new commissioner was fine from an organizational perspective, but she doesn't really know basketball and didn't want to make decisions on the rules (no zone, no backcourt defense, etc.). After speaking with the other returning coaches and the ref, we just made the decisions instead.

The league is the haves and the have-nots, and we fall in the second category. The four best teams, which are filled with height and travel players, haven't lost a game to any of the bottom six teams. We have no height, so every game my daughter guards someone 3-6 inches taller than her. It gets worse if the other team has multiple bigs (as the best teams do) or when my daughter is out of the game. We also have serious problems making a pass in the halfcourt, although we've gotten better as the season has gone on. Basically, we either fast break, my daughter sets a pick for the dribbler or our best shooter (who refuses to pass) jacks one up. The worst part is that we have 4 girls who often don't remember who they are guarding in the half court and never hustle back on defense. Because we do mandatory subs, I always have minus players on the court. Until last week, only 7 of my players scored a basket, and of those, 3 had scored in only one game.

We are 4-6, with 5 of our losses coming against the top 4 teams. It's been a joy to watch our little PG be our second best rebounder, simply because she wants it more. I've convinced our shooter to play defense periodically and she's done a nice job and the girl who hadn't scored in 2 seasons got a bucket last week in front of her dad, two uncles and grandfather. And even though she has had a rough stretch, I've been proud of how my daughter has dealt with playing against taller and mostly better players every week.

This week is the final week and we hadn't had playoffs scheduled. A couple of the coaches of the better teams wanted playoffs, which I thought was a dumb idea given that we'd have to cram the games into 7 1/2 hours (teams normally practice and then play a game in a 90 minute session). I suggested either an opt-in playoff or just letting the four best teams play a mini-tournament. Instead, the commissioner decided to have the top 8 teams play a one day tournament, with the bottom 2 teams not playing. That means that the two finalists will have to play 3 games in a day, with the winner of the second semi-final immediately playing the final. I've got the first game and figure that I will be eliminated by 9 a.m. on Saturday.

I also coach my son's second grade team, but at least they don't keep score.