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| We used our time between games for a little shopping. I made T walk behind me so I wasn't downwind. He did NOT smell good. He says that helps when people try to guard him😂 |
This week we had two practices and a total of four games. This is the worst our team has ever played at ANY tournament! I am not sure exactly what the problem was. I think it was just a combination of factors. It's not like the boys didn't play well. We played some of the most physical games we've played all season. I think the combination of injuries, illnesses, and players that are hurt so bad they can't play anymore just wore on us. The first of our games we only had 7 players and since 5 play at one time, there was basically no subs. They hung in that game for about 2.5 quarters and then just started to collapse and get sloppy from being tired. When you play really good teams, the tiniest mistake, such as a not 100% perfect pass, can IMMEDIATELY get turned on you and you lose points, or more accurately give them the opportunity to capitalize on your mistake. The boys ended up losing that game by about 12 after keeping it to a point difference in the first half. That game just pretty much set up the tone for our tournament games. We had 3 games over two days, which was really nice since we usually have 2-3 each day at tournaments. Unfortunately, it was an hour and a half away, sans traffic, so we spent a long time driving. Because of where our team was in the seeding, we played the number 2 seed overall in our district, which is from Oklahoma.🤷 How Oklahoma is in our district I have no idea. They also go to state with us. Anyways, this Oklahoma team was a whole team of T's pretty much. In fact, two of their starters were bigger than T. T is the strongest player on his team. Hands down. No one can usually move him if they are just pushing on him. He plants his feet and will not budge. However, two kids on the Oklahoma team could move him! Now they couldn't move him very easily, and only one was strong enough to really over power him, but the fact they could put us at a huge disadvantage. T's job is to occupy the big guys and take them out of play and to push through them to make a lay up if the others aren't able to get any shots off. When T can't control them completely, our team is just way too small to be able to be effective against a bigger team. I wish the other boys were into lifting weights and getting stronger like T, but they're not. Now, they are great at the cardio part of basketball, but the teams that also lift weights are not only great at all the sprinting, but are also really strong and can just dominate. We got smoked our first game and basically that just got in their heads and the rest of the tournament was horrible. I did learn how to run the clock though. It was a lot harder than I thought, but the coach for our rival team was really nice and helped me through it. It was a good way to learn. I am sure I will have to do it some other time. Home team is in charge of keeping the books (fouls, baskets, timeouts, etc) and the away team is in charge of time (starting and stopping the clock at appropriate times, setting each period, keeping the score for guests to see, counting down half time, etc). It's hard to watch the game because I was basically watching the ref the whole time.
L went with us and I gave her some anxiety meds that we normally don't have to give her and she did really well, even napped on the way home😂. Tournaments are just so loud and long that I think we could all use anxiety meds!
I hope the boys shake off this horrid tournament and refocus this week. We have another game this week and then it's off to Austin for State Finals. We should get back T's back up next week which will help. He has been out with a broken thumb. We also have 2 boys with ankle issues, 2 with knee issues, and a dislocated finger. To say we look like a ragtag group of misfits showing up to each game in our braces and bandages would be an understatement! We have almost two weeks to hopefully heal and recover. If we can't bounce back at State we'll probably move down in the seeding which will really be hard since we'll have to play higher teams (ex, seed 1 plays seed 8, etc).
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