Boys Basketball Practice – Monday February 4
Monday’s practice started out slow but ended with a bang. The players were not focused but when you put 25 players on a basketball court with 25 bouncing balls, the concentration level for both teams can be difficult. Many of our players were battling illness so we are not sure who we may have available for today’s game.
We are still trying to improve the 1-3-1 zone defense and spent some time reviewing each person’s job. We also implemented a press break strategy just in case we are ever ahead at the end of the game. We did not handle the press very well against Lake Park in the final two minutes of our last game. Something new comes up every game which has been guiding our learning curve. For us to be successful against the older and taller teams we must learn to box out on every shot. When a shot goes up the tendency is to watch the shot and forget about your job until it is too late. If you wait until the shot misses before you try to box out, you lose the inside position.
Nate Johnson once again held on to the top spot of the free throw ladder knocking down 7 shots. Mitch Moore took the team honors for the day hitting 9 free throws and Alan Fox matched Nate’s 7. Caleb Farmer and Trey Barnes were not far behind with 6. The team combined for 58 freethrows out of 110 shots.
I stated earlier that we ended practice with a bang. The bang came from our conditioning at the end of practice. When we have the opportunity on Monday, we like to run the laps/wall sits. We have set a new team best with each running and this time proved no exception. The players have only finished under 5 minutes once and had to beat 4:55:28. They started out slow but picked up the pace and finished at 4:39:28. Here is the bang. We first ran this conditioning exercise on November 9 and finished at 5:47:00. The players thought they could never go any faster but three months later they have taken 1 minute and 8 seconds off their time. That is awesome. I thank they can go faster.
Game today at 4:15 against First Assembly at Mineral Springs. The girls play at 3:00 and we have asked the boys to come early and support the girls.
