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

Well, St. Rudy has one team of 13 players, and they've hit the skids.

We at St Siasy have 19 players on two teams: the 8-0 juggernaut which has smoked the league, and us at 3-5 including an OT loss on the road and two other losses we were within two in the final minute, so it's accurate to describe us as "slightly below average." But yeah, 5 more points and we'd be 5-3.

Word has it that several kids at St Rudy have just decided the school team is a waste of time in terms of developing for HS play and are playing travel team instead.

 

Brief brief update because I have some other things hanging fire, but there was some high drama today: the juggernaut Kurts Krimsons showed up for today's 1-8 quarterfinal against the afore-discussed St Rudy without their two superstar travel team players OR Sarah, the hot shooting guard both teams wanted during tryouts, and dressed only six players.

The Rudettes shocked the world with a 13-11 lead early in the fourth. The Krimsons came to life with a couple late hoops and a 19-16 win. One of the Krimsons who DID show up was Kurt's daughter, who took about 40 shots and had 14 points to lead all scorers.

Then we, the Scarlet Sizzlers, cane out in the 2-7 game and got thumped by St Miriam, 22-9. So it'll be the consolation bracket for us and that much coveted fifth place trophy if we're lucky.

 

Its a hi light every time I see this thread is updated.

 

A highlight of my coaching career -- the best player on my awful 3rd grade boys team hit an unsuspecting teammate in the head with a pass on the pre-game layup line. I told him to sit down and he said "I hate this fucking team". So I told him he couldn't play in the game until he apologized to me and his teammates. He refused and I told his mom to take him home and not to come to the last game without a written and verbal apology. Good times.

 

Consolation round action between St Josh, who beat us in OT last week, and god awful St Leo, the team we smoked 40-3 two weeks ago, at Redemption tonight. We play the winner tomorrow night in the consolation semis.

If we win that, we'll most likely face Redemption in the mighty fifth place game Saturday morning. The Gaels have pathetic winless Sacred Virgin in tonight's consolation play-in.

We could get a practice slot tonight if we wanted it. StarSis says forget it.

Sis came about as close as any coach I've seen this season to getting a technical yesterday. About two more words would have done it.

The final foul count for the game was 18-2. Free throws, 16-1. We had players in actual foul trouble in the first half. I don't think we've committed 18 fouls all goddamn season.

But the SCL has its zero tolerance policy, so I didn't say a word. Not a word. Sis did, and I had to whisper, "watch it" a couple times.

Semi-humorous note: Sis B, our starting PG and top defender, had 3 fouls by halftime while Sis A, her precisely identical twin, had none. For a second we mulled the idea of having them switch jerseys at halftime.

It would have worked on defense -- A is pretty much the same player on defense -- but it would have been a disaster on offense. They would have had to change shoes, too.

It was good for about a 15 second laugh.

 

OK, I'm calling BS on anyone "(eking) slowly but surely into the lead" when the other team doesn't score a point.

 

Trust me, St Rudy eked its way to all 17 of those points.

 

Oh I have no doubt that every point was excruciating. I've seen enough small school division basketball to know that. My point is I would say a team slowly but surely took the lead if they erased a 15 point deficit over two and a half quarters. When your first basket of the game was the winning basket you didn't slowly but surely take the lead. Now had you said Rudy slowly but surely made the fans in the crowd question their life choices with each teams' possession, that I wouldn't argue with.

Of course as I type all of that my understanding of your point has grown on me, but I had to stay committed to the bit. Goodness the only thing fun about watching that game had to have been watching the patents trying to actually cheer their kids on and make it sound believable.

 

All righty then. I fell a little bit off the horse for a few days there because I was doing actual work, hahah, so I am sure everyone is waiting on pins and needles for the updates. I'll have to bang them out in installments.

Indeed we faced Wheatville St. Josh in Tuesday night's consolation semis, a rematch of the 22-20 OT game we lost 10 days early off in the remote rural outpost. In that game their star point guard scored all 4 of their points in OT and 14 overall, so we knew we had to figure out a way to slow her down. We also knew from scouting her she was left-handed, and usually drove to the left. So we cooked up our modified-box-and-one to use on her, switching off Twins A and B in order to try to stay out of foul trouble. We also had Big Polly back in the lineup, which helped on the boards.

We found out that St. Josh's star, "Joshette," had two star cousins on the high school varsity team in the state quarterfianls that night, so we knew we'd have our hands full (and the Trees wanted to get this game over with and make the 40-mile mad dash to the HS game).

It was another barn-burner, and Joshette was going wild again -- she had 12 of their points going into the last three minutes with the score tied at 16-16. Both our twins had picked up two fouls each on her, but had kept her from complete domination. Then there was a hard collision at midcourt, and Joshette and Twin B were both helped off the court after getting the wind knocked out. As is usual in fifth grade, both broke briefly into tears.

We survived a minute without Twin B, during which Grace (who had 6 points already) picked their backup PG for a steal and layup, putting us in the lead, 18-16. Twin B went back in the game, still a little shaky, and picked off a cross-court pass for a breakaway of her own, putting us up 20-16 with about 1:30 left.

St. Josh's Joshette returned from the restroom, still gasping a bit from the floor-slamming, and checked into the game with 45 seconds left. We put Twin A (fresher and not recovering from a floor-slamming) on her and instructed everybody in the lane to drop off if she got loose. She dribbled through a slalom course of two picks, bouncing A off the first one, and then B popped off to pick her up on the second. She got a step on the left wing, drove for a runner, got past B to bang the shot in. PLUS ONE! It was 20-18 with a free throw coming and 32 seconds left.

Still gasping and tear-faced from the collision, Joshette stepped to the line for one, and nailed it, making it 20-19. We had the ball in the backcourt (no press in the SCL) so we ordered Twin B to burn 8 seconds in the backcourt, then bring it over and pass to Grace on the right side. She did, and Grace got off a decent 12-foot jumper with :18. (We thought for a brief instant about trying to stall, but you can't stall at the fifth grade level; we decided it was a better idea to get a good shot.) Our big kids, Karmel and Polly, were on the boards, and Polly clamped down on the rebound with :14 left. And then traveled at :12 before any of our guards could get to the ball.

So it was St. Josh's ball with :12 left. They called a time out and set up a clearout play; they had Joshette take the inbounds pass in the backcourt. We told Twin B to pick her up at halfcourt, which she did with :08 left, and then drove the left side. We had told Twin A to watch for a long pass to their #2 kid, but when that didn't happen, A dropped across the lane as Joshette turned the corner, swiped across the ball as she brought it up for the shot. The ball popped loose in the lane toward B, who deflected it one-handed deep into the backcourt. Joshette tried to run it down but it bounced out of bounds as the buzzer sounded, and we were into the consolation finals.

The second game that night featured host school Redemption against slightly-resurgent St. Rudy, in a rematch of a big upset from two weeks ago when then-winless Rudy had shocked the whole leaugue with a win. Redemption was keyed by a big power forward (the coach's daughter) who also played a lot of PG -- the LeBron James position.

To make the long story short, Redemption had to battle the whole way, before holding off Rudy in the end, 22-18. Coach's daughter Reeda had 16 of their 22 points. We charted all their plays and all their defenses and had a complete game plan all set up for Saturday's consolation final.

 

BUT FIRST, there was the minor matter of the upper bracket semis to dispose with on Thursday night at Redemption's old-school gym. Simply for academic interest, I went to check out the semis: Game One the 1-4 matchup between Kurt's Krimsons and St. Joab, and Game Two the 2-3 showdown between St. Miriam and St. Brendan. They didn't meet during the regular season, so there was a lot of speculation about that game.

First, in Game One, one big absence -- Kurt himself. It seems that Kurt is, of all things, a doctor, and actually does have some obligations he can't get out of, so he won't be present for the semifinal. However, the New Twins, who missed last weekend's quarterfinal at a travel tournament, are on hand, and the Krimsons will have their complete 8-player roster.

Kurt doesn't really have an assistant coach, so there's no designated interim coach. Interestingly, the stand-in coach is none other than Dad NewTwins. He's done stats for a couple games and that's it.

Kurt has been quite diplomatic most of the season, beating everybody solidly, but few teams frighteningly. Kurt knows there will be griping around the league if he opens up a can on some hapless team, so he's done a constant job of sandbagging. Kurt beat Joab 28-16 a couple weeks ago, but it could have been much much worse. (Joab beat us 15-11 as we missed a shot in the final 10 seconds.)

Tonight, with Kurt off at some konference or something, all that crap is over with, with Dad NewTwins running the show. Nellie NewTwin has 22 points in the first half, Nancy NewTwin adds 8, as Kurt's Krimsons roll out to a Hiroshima-level 36-8 lead at the half. Heads are shaking and tut-tuts flying among the crowd at Redemption at halftime. The second half quickly goes into running time and the Krimsons rumble to a chilling 48-14 final victory, the highest score in the league all season. Nellie scores 26 and Nancy 12.

The coaching staffs for both St Miriam and St Brendan, waiting in the stands for Game Two, are glassy-eyed. I'll sit in the end-zone bleachers to check this one out.

The second game is notable mainly for St. Brendan jumping out to a quick lead, and holding it all the way to a 22-19 upset win, enlivened in the final seconds by the St. Miriam coach, a buzz-cut guy whose daughter is a starting forward, pushing the SCL's no-technical rule right to the bitter edge.

"Buzzy" pissed the hell out of StarSis during our two games by working the refs all game long, not only carping about calls on his kids (normal enough) but also bitching for more traveling violations (utterly obnoxious behavior in 5th grade girls, in which 87% of all possessions of every team could be called for traveling), and at one point giving "defensive hints" to our players, at which in a timeout, Sis directed everyone to pay no attention to what the coach for the other team says.

Anyway Buzzy was carrying on the whole game long against St Brendan, pissing and moaning for fouls, etc etc etc, until with less than a minute left, and Miriam actually having pulled back within striking distance, the refs, who had already told him to 'calm down' several times, stopped the game and announced an official bench warning for coach conduct.

You'd think that would have shut him up, but no, he was back bitching again seconds later when St Brendan was trying to stall the game away. The lead ref leans over and says, "You've been warned, coach. You're about one word away."

Buzzy lets out a theatrical stage sigh audible to half the gym (including me 25 feet away) and says, loudly, in three distinct words, "Oh. All. Right," and sits down. Smoke is pouring out of my ears and plenty of others. You could have fried an egg on my head.

Happily, St Brendan held on to win, advancing them to Sunday's final.

 

But first the unfinished business of StarSis and the Scarlet Sizzlers vs. host Redemption in the consolation finals Saturday morning, for the much coveted fifth place trophy.

We'd lost to Redemption 22-18 back in the third game of the season. It was close and we could have won it, but we let it get away. That set our season, at least temporarily, on a downhill slide; after that we lost to Joab too to knock us down the totem pole in that mid-level logjam in the league.

A couple games later we were 1-4 and looking at a real drag of a season on the way to our eventual 3-5 seventh place finish. But a win in the consolation final would finish off our season at 6-6 and let us leapfrog two places in the final tourney standings with two 'revenge wins.' So for us at least, the trophy indeed was pretty coveted.

I had scouted the hell out of Redemption against St. Rudy. I charted every play they ran. We knew who handled the ball and who took their shots. We knew where they set picks (lots of them) and who they passed it to (almost nobody). We knew what defenses they ran and when.

We knew Reeda, the coach's daughter, would take most of their shots. They had one other guard who could score some points, but it was clear Reeda was the whole show.

Sis took Friday afternoon off work and made some last-second phone calls to grab the gym so we could put in the game plan. Our last practice of the year. We went down the checklist. We were ready, as ready as we were going to be.

Then... Saturday morning, we arrive early, and start shooting around and warming up. Standing on the sidelines watching both teams shoot around, with about 4:00 before tipoff, I noticed something strange. I tapped Sis on the shoulder.

"Do you see what I see?" I asked.

"Yeah."

Redemption's superstar, Reeda, was nowhere to be seen. In fact, neither was her dad, the coach. Two college girls who we are told are phys-ed student teachers are running the team.

This threw our players into a brief frenzy: "Who do we guard now? What plays are they going to run?"

"Don't worry, we'll just switch you onto their next biggest forwards," Sis said. "They're still probably going to run most of the same plays."

"What if she shows up?"

"If she shows up, she shows up. We know what to do if she's here. We can't control who's here or isn't."

We were a bit nervous for a minute, half-anticipating some kind of miraculous Willis Reed out-of-the-locker-room appearance, but I remembered a key clause of the SCL rulebook; any player arriving after the start of the game must be on the bench before the end of the first quarter, or they are not allowed to play.

The game was a breeze: we rolled out to a 10-0 lead in the first four minutes. Our defense, designed for LeBronish Reeda, was iron-clad. Redemption could barely get a shot off. I motioned to both StarSis and our other asssistant Mike, and said, "you remember the first quarter rule, right? Reeda's still not here."

They nodded. The first quarter came and went, with us leading 14-4. Reeda and Dad Reeda never appear, and that effectively was the ball game. We have a rolling fun fest and take a 32-12 final decision, our best game of the season.

At halftime, leading 20-6, we don't have much technical advice for the kids, other than to "keep playing hard."

Checking the scorebook at halftime, we find from the Redemption scorekeeper dads that Reeda and DadReeda are four hours away at a big AAU invitational this weekend. Somehow or other Sis learns that one of Redemption's players, #10, a small and wispy girl, hasn't scored all season.

Heading into the fourth quarter, our main concerns are getting some of our own girls who haven't scored much into the books, staying out of running-time territory and doing what we can to give #10 a chance to score. The refs are in on it, and they let us know, "don't be surprised if we make a very friendly foul call," to which Sis says, "well, hopefully, you won't have to."

Sis switches Polly, our big big girl, onto #10. Polly is turning into a rebounder to be reckoned with, but her foot speed is still sloth-level. #10 should be able to dribble past her in three steps.

The problem is, Redemption just doesn't get it. They keep throwing the ball to their two main guards, who to put it bluntly, are ball hogs and fire up shot after shot (or try to; mostly they get stuffed by our defense). Between her and the legendary Reeda it's not hard to see how this girl (or about half their team) never scored. People in the stands are yelling, "Throw it to Tammy," but it doesn't seem to be sinking in.

The clock is running along and time is running down and Tammy hasn't gotten a shot, much less scored. Twin B, our de facto captain, is on the bench next to me, awaiting her final run in the game. "If it gets down to the final seconds and she hasn't scored, just go and grab her by the shoulders," I said. "Don't hurt her, we just want to make sure they call the foul." Twin B looks at me kinda funny, but says, "We'll see."

With a minute left, with the score 32-8, Sis calls time out and asks for a private conference with Redemption's interim coach, who finally gets it. "We're trying to let her get a shot off," Sis said. "We've told our girls to give her a chance to shoot." Redemption's coach says, "OK," and finally figures it out.

Twin B, running our plays at PG, throws a pass right into Tammy's lap. She starts down court on the dribble, then passes it off to a teammate, who of course drives for the hoop (and misses). "I don't know what else we can do," Sis said.

"Tell Twin B to intentionally foul her?" I said. "If it gets down to the last 10 seconds or something, OK," Sis says. "I just hope she can get off a shot anyway."

Now it's down to the last 30 seconds, and Twin B intentionally travels to give Redemption the ball. By now most of the crowd has figured it out too. They finally throw Tammy the ball on the wing, she dribbles in, our defenders politely stand back, and with the crowd on both sides screaming for her to shoot, she banks in a 12-footer off the board. The joint erupts and Tammy is beaming. Twin B dribbles out the clock and the season is over. (For us, at least.)

Coming off the floor, Sis is accosted by bunches of Redemption parents, including Tammy's whole family, all thrilled by her basket.

Fun times.

We didn't stick around to watch the third place game which followed between St Miriam and Joab. We find out later that St. Miriam and Coach Buzzy took a 24-18 win. Woo hoo.

THE END.

Almost. (Yes, there's more. But only a little.)

 

Sunday afternoon, it all came to an end at Starrville Catholic Central with the championship game between undefeated, untested, unchallenged juggernaut Kurt's Krimsons of St. Sissy, without a game closer than 14 points all season, and No. 3 seed St. Brendan.

As a good supportive St. Sissy's family, StarSis shows up with StarHubby and Twins A and B and up-and-coming first-grader Sis-09 to watch the game, and I decide to swing over myself to check it out too. After all, three members of the Krimsons are one-time Pandas or Squirrels, and high-strung guard Sarah was a teammate of the twins on the Starrville Starrs over the winter. And we coached the whole bunch of them during the preseason "tryouts," although in retrospect those were pretty much a sham.

During pre-game warmups, I wiggle my eyebrows at StarSis: "Uh-oh."

Koach Kurt is back from his medical duties which kept him away from the semifinal game.

But The New Twins, the two best players in the league, are nowhere to be seen. Nor is their dad, the interim coach from Thursday.

Yep. The same AAU tournament that kept superstar Reeda out of our consolation final game.

Brevity is the soul of wisdom here.

St. Brendan takes a 16-9 lead with two minutes to play, and holds on for a 16-15 win. So much for perfection.

The St Brendan fans storm the floor, in a leisurely subdued fifth grade fashion, after the stunning upset.