Boys Basketball Practice – Wednesday, Dec 12
The first practice after a game usually provides insight to the team’s attitude. Did they learn anything from the game? How will they respond to the coaches? How hard will they work? The boys responded well, coming out eager and ready to learn. This was possibly our best practice of the year. As for attitude, the entire team was disappointed we do not have practice scheduled for Thursday.
We did a litle too much dribbling during our game on Tuesday and worked on passing and finding the open man. A game of “football” followed the 3 man weave and the beginning of an outstanding practice was underway.
Mitch Moore moved to the top of the free throw ladder sinking 4 of 10 free throws. This is Mitch’s first time on top and will defend against Ryan Brown. Ryan hit 6 free throws and will attempt to move to the top for his first time. Nate Johnson set a new team high and a new personal best making all 10 free throws.
Now practice really got interesting. The Tar Heel Drill is our 6 point shooting and speed drill and is used to measure each player’s progress. Players have a chance to be excused from conditioning at the end of practice if they can establish new personal bests in number of shots made and the time it takes to make them. Each player must make at least 3 of the 6 shots to qualify. Nate Johnson established a new team best making 5 shots in 36:56 seconds. Matthew Pedemonte just missed making all 6 shots and smashed his previous best. Hank Booth, Caleb Farmer, Caleb Robinson, Ryan Brown, and Joel VanDusen all set new personal bests.
Tuesday’s game showed us we have some work to do in rebounding, which means we need to become more agressive. We tried a new drill with this in mind. This drill is similar to musical chairs except we use balls instead of chairs. 10 players move around the center circle with only 9 balls in the middle. On the whistle, the players are required to sprint to the side line, do 5 push ups and return for a ball. The player without the ball moves to the side and works on line jumps. When a player leaves the competition a ball leaves with him. This proved to be a spirited and highly competitive drill. Mitch Moore and Caleb Farmer were the last two left in the circle with one ball. Mitch completed his push ups first and looked like certain victory. As he reached for the ball Caleb came flying into the circle and tried to wrestle the ball fom Mitch. Mitch hung on and prevailed but not without a good amount of effort and a moment of doubt. What a great drill. What a great practice.
