Boy did we have a Sunday. Nine-plus hours of kid sports!<\/p>\n
Things started with L and I leaving the house just before noon for week three of basketball, once again playing about an hour from home.<\/p>\n
Game one was a barn-burner. We have exactly two plays on offense, variations on the same theme where the point guard either comes off a screen at the free throw line for a (hopefully) good look at the bucket, or passes off to a trailing teammate for a shot. We spend about 15 minutes of every practice running these plays. So when the other team ran this exact play on their first possession of the game, you\u2019d think we would be able to defend it, right? Nope, easy layup, and we three coaches were all looking at each other like, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a long day if we can\u2019t guard our own plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luckily our girls were on it. We were getting all the rebounds, played really solid D, and mostly controlled the game the rest of the way. Of course, in third grade basketball \u201ccontrolling the game\u201d means you have a four-point lead because you shoot roughly 10% despite all those rebounds. Man, our girls were good on the boards, we just could not buy a shot. I think we got the lead up to six in the fourth quarter, but when both teams could press after the 3:00 mark, everything kind of fell apart.<\/p>\n
Seriously, those three minutes are the longest minutes in sports. It seems like there\u2019s a turnover, foul, or timeout every 4.9 seconds. It\u2019s just brutal. We were up four and kept forcing turnovers, but since all ten girls were grouped together, that TO would turn into an immediate held ball. Line up and do it again. I think we literally had eight changes of possession on the other end of the court in a 30 second span.<\/p>\n
Their coach finally called a timeout and had his best player loop around some screens and run up court. Of course we were totally unprepared for it (coaching!) and she hit a nice, guarded 12-foot jumper to cut it to two with a minute left. Literally a lifetime in this game.<\/p>\n
We missed a couple shots, they won a held-ball, and we called timeout. Instead of pressing, we decided to pull four of our players back to the midcourt stripe. Our girls all looked crazy confused but we told them just to pick up there like normal. Meanwhile, we would going to have L pressure the ball.<\/p>\n
Fucking genius.<\/p>\n
L got a steal, missed a shot, we got the rebound, she ended up with it, and then hit a crazy baseline shot in traffic to push it back to a four-point lead. We were on the opposite end of the court so I was screened and just saw the ball go in, but a coach waiting for the next game looked at me after her shot and said, \u201cDamn! How\u2019d she make that?\u201d<\/p>\n
We held on and got our second win of the year.<\/p>\n
A good start.<\/p>\n
We had an hour between games so went and watched the game on our next court. One of the teams was Ben Davis, which is the west-side Indy school that went undefeated in 6A football this year, won boys 4A basketball last year, and has a long history of turning out great athletes. The school is racially mixed, primarily working class. Their team had two tiny girls who were little speed demons. They could both really handle the ball and would get rebounds and just beat everyone downcourt. Then they had a couple big girls who were kind of thick. They were both at least two inches taller than our biggest player and out-weighed her by over 15 pounds. And then they had a girl that, I swear, was taller than M and weighed 140 pounds. I\u2019m guessing she was 5\u20195\u201d already. This girl was big and skilled. They\u2019d throw her the ball, she\u2019d take a dribble, spin, and lay it in off the glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood Lord!\u201d I thought, \u201cThat is a kick ass fifth grader!\u201d<\/p>\n
BD was playing another team sponsored by the high school we\u2019re playing for, so I asked our head coach what grade those girls were.<\/p>\n
\u201cThird grade!\u201d<\/p>\n