Saturday, February 12, 2005
It's over.
Our 8th grade girls' basketball season ended today. I already miss it like a drug addict on forced withdrawal.
It ended with a bang. The NGMSAL tournament began last Tuesday, with our girls facing off against their in-county rivals, whom they'd already beaten twice in the regular season. Despite a shaky second quarter (when an assistant coach was told to send in the subs, she sent ALL of them at once, instead of one at a time, and a hefty lead was cut to ribbons within a few minutes of play), our girls won convincingly. On to the second round. A proud moment for the girls' coach, none of whose teams had ever made it so far before, regardless of talent or record.
Last night, our team faced off against North Whitfield, a team that had defeated us twice in the regular season -- though the second time shouldn't have happened. We were up by 3 with 6.8 seconds to go. I distinctly remember the principal standing a few feet away from me on the balcony overlooking the court saying "What can they do in 6.8 seconds?"
Bad question to ask.
Because 6.8 seconds is plenty of time to inbound, get up the court, and unload a three-pointer to send the game into overtime.
Revitalized by the shot -- and our players demoralized by it -- North Whitfield went on to win the game by six.
(Weird thing: that same night, the same thing happened to the Houston Rockets against the Sacramento Kings. The Rockets were up 103-100 with 4.7 to go; Sacramento inbounded to Chris Webber while Tracy McGrady, figuring Webber would pass to Mike Bibby, moved to guard Bibby. Leaving Webber open for the shot. Which he made. And the Kings won by six in OT. The weird part is that I knew it was going to happen. Or, rather, I sat there watching it, still depressed about our game, and thought "Wouldn't it be freaky if the same thing happened to the Rockets... " Color me freaked.)
So expectations and spirits were high going into the game. Coach believed NW was on a downhill slide which our girls might just be able to capitalize on to win a third-time-pays-for-all victory.
It just wasn't meant to be.
The first half was brutal. After scoring only a handful of points in the first quarter, our girls came back to life in the second and clawed back from a double-digit deficit to cut NW's lead to five. I dared to hope that a comeback was on; but again... well, maybe the less said, the better. The final result wasn't close.
What do you say to a kid after a game like that? You're desperately disappointed, not so much for your own sake as for theirs; and you hope your disappointment doesn't make them feel bad. By the same token, if they haven't played their hardest, some disappointment on their part is good; the only shame failure should hold is when you fail because you haven't done your best. It's instances like this that make me glad I'm not a coach or a parent myself; I can play good-cop, I can say Good game, I'm proud of you even when I'm not sure it's the most profitable thing (for the kids) to say. (In any case, the second part is always true, whether the first is or not.)
Remind me to post sometime about sore winners.
Losing Friday night's game (images temporarily here) meant an early Saturday, as the consolation game was played at 9:00 this morning. And from the moment I stepped into the gym, the vibe was totally different.
I arrived at about 8:05; the coach and a couple of the girls were already there, with their parents. Over the next twenty minutes, the rest trickled in; we colonized the bleachers directly behind the scorekeepers' table and I chatted with Brittney's mom and Cassie's dad while the girls took the floor to shoot. (Great people; I've had the distinct pleasure of getting to know several of our kids' parents. They've done uniformly great jobs of raising great kids, a task I don't envy them in this day and time.)
Gametime: our girls jump out to an early and hefty lead over the Opponent, whom they've played twice before. (Opponent's name is withheld for reasons that will become clear shortly; anyone concerned enough to find out who they are can do so easily enough; and remember that all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.) I wasn't at the game our girls played at Opponent, but it was horror stories from that game that convinced me to start going to all the girls' games, home or away; you never know when another friendly adult is going to come in handy. Today's game was apparently a repeat of their first meeting; unable to get anything going early, Opponent resorted to fouling, early and often. They put our girls in the bonus within the first quarter. Our free-throw percentage could have been better; we didn't fully capitalize on the opportunity; but we were still up by a sizeable margin going into half-time.
Second half: same song, different verse. Several runs that brought Opponent within ten points were crushed with mechanical efficiency. And as Opponent saw their hopes dwindling with each passing second, they began fouling again.
Fouling so fast and hard that it was hard to keep track of. Our girls were again in the bonus for a full quarter -- the fourth -- and two of Opponent's players fouled out (vs. one of ours, a guard who takes losing harder than anyone I've ever met). Players were colliding, falling, hitting the floor with alarming regularity, including a scary fall taken by one of our post-players; one of Opponent's players fell on top of her and rolled over her. Bad. Another instance: driving along the baseline, one of Opponent's players decides to screen herself with a flailing elbow to her defender's solar plexus. Repeat after me, class: You can't do that.
As their fouls (including a technical -- four free-throws plus possession, muwaha-ha-ha-ha-ha! -- mounted, Opponent's fans began accusing the refs of the most improbable combinations of parentage, origin, and unethical conduct. For those of us there in support of our girls, it was hard to resist the temptation to answer in kind.
So we didn't. Resist.
But there was -- for me, at least -- an element of fun to it. What can you say to people who yell out things like:
Is it a coincidence that (Opponent) hasn't been to the line this entire half?
No, it's not a coincidence; it's called you foulin'.
Or you could say what one of Opponent's other fans (or maybe the one who yelled the question to begin with, I can't quite recall) said: It's all about the money!
Odd, because their county's per capita income outstrips ours by about 30%. I guess we're working miracles of economic efficiency over here, if we have money to spare to bribe refs.
And then there was the comment from Opponent's coach to one of the refs, passed up into the crowd from one fan to another: You must be from Murray county.
Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. Derisively.
In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel, "No such thing bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do." Considering what the fans and coach were doing and saying in full hearing of their kids, it's not really surprising that Opponent plays such a brutal game.
Fortunately, our girls play brutal, too. They just play brutal legally. Last night they fell apart; but today they were a buzzsaw, picking off passes, making tough shots, cleaning up the boards. Girls put points on the board today who'd barely done so at all this season; and it was a joy to watch how much fun they were having. (You can see how much, at least until March 12th, here.)
Or maybe I'm projecting; because I sure as shootin' was having fun. So much fun that for a while I even managed to forget it was the last time.
There's next season, of course; the freshman and JV teams next year will, I'm sure, be dominated by players from this team. But today was the last time this team was together, as a team, with these particular kids.
They had a rollercoaster season that's ended on a high note: third place in the NGMSAL tournament is quite an accomplishment. But the only award that really matters is the one each player receives in her own mind, when she knows whether she's played her best, if she's left it on the floor or if there's more she could have done. I hope all our girls are satisfied and have no regrets. I have none myself, except that it's over.
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It ended with a bang. The NGMSAL tournament began last Tuesday, with our girls facing off against their in-county rivals, whom they'd already beaten twice in the regular season. Despite a shaky second quarter (when an assistant coach was told to send in the subs, she sent ALL of them at once, instead of one at a time, and a hefty lead was cut to ribbons within a few minutes of play), our girls won convincingly. On to the second round. A proud moment for the girls' coach, none of whose teams had ever made it so far before, regardless of talent or record.
Last night, our team faced off against North Whitfield, a team that had defeated us twice in the regular season -- though the second time shouldn't have happened. We were up by 3 with 6.8 seconds to go. I distinctly remember the principal standing a few feet away from me on the balcony overlooking the court saying "What can they do in 6.8 seconds?"
Bad question to ask.
Because 6.8 seconds is plenty of time to inbound, get up the court, and unload a three-pointer to send the game into overtime.
Revitalized by the shot -- and our players demoralized by it -- North Whitfield went on to win the game by six.
(Weird thing: that same night, the same thing happened to the Houston Rockets against the Sacramento Kings. The Rockets were up 103-100 with 4.7 to go; Sacramento inbounded to Chris Webber while Tracy McGrady, figuring Webber would pass to Mike Bibby, moved to guard Bibby. Leaving Webber open for the shot. Which he made. And the Kings won by six in OT. The weird part is that I knew it was going to happen. Or, rather, I sat there watching it, still depressed about our game, and thought "Wouldn't it be freaky if the same thing happened to the Rockets... " Color me freaked.)
So expectations and spirits were high going into the game. Coach believed NW was on a downhill slide which our girls might just be able to capitalize on to win a third-time-pays-for-all victory.
It just wasn't meant to be.
The first half was brutal. After scoring only a handful of points in the first quarter, our girls came back to life in the second and clawed back from a double-digit deficit to cut NW's lead to five. I dared to hope that a comeback was on; but again... well, maybe the less said, the better. The final result wasn't close.
What do you say to a kid after a game like that? You're desperately disappointed, not so much for your own sake as for theirs; and you hope your disappointment doesn't make them feel bad. By the same token, if they haven't played their hardest, some disappointment on their part is good; the only shame failure should hold is when you fail because you haven't done your best. It's instances like this that make me glad I'm not a coach or a parent myself; I can play good-cop, I can say Good game, I'm proud of you even when I'm not sure it's the most profitable thing (for the kids) to say. (In any case, the second part is always true, whether the first is or not.)
Remind me to post sometime about sore winners.
Losing Friday night's game (images temporarily here) meant an early Saturday, as the consolation game was played at 9:00 this morning. And from the moment I stepped into the gym, the vibe was totally different.
I arrived at about 8:05; the coach and a couple of the girls were already there, with their parents. Over the next twenty minutes, the rest trickled in; we colonized the bleachers directly behind the scorekeepers' table and I chatted with Brittney's mom and Cassie's dad while the girls took the floor to shoot. (Great people; I've had the distinct pleasure of getting to know several of our kids' parents. They've done uniformly great jobs of raising great kids, a task I don't envy them in this day and time.)
Gametime: our girls jump out to an early and hefty lead over the Opponent, whom they've played twice before. (Opponent's name is withheld for reasons that will become clear shortly; anyone concerned enough to find out who they are can do so easily enough; and remember that all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.) I wasn't at the game our girls played at Opponent, but it was horror stories from that game that convinced me to start going to all the girls' games, home or away; you never know when another friendly adult is going to come in handy. Today's game was apparently a repeat of their first meeting; unable to get anything going early, Opponent resorted to fouling, early and often. They put our girls in the bonus within the first quarter. Our free-throw percentage could have been better; we didn't fully capitalize on the opportunity; but we were still up by a sizeable margin going into half-time.
Second half: same song, different verse. Several runs that brought Opponent within ten points were crushed with mechanical efficiency. And as Opponent saw their hopes dwindling with each passing second, they began fouling again.
Fouling so fast and hard that it was hard to keep track of. Our girls were again in the bonus for a full quarter -- the fourth -- and two of Opponent's players fouled out (vs. one of ours, a guard who takes losing harder than anyone I've ever met). Players were colliding, falling, hitting the floor with alarming regularity, including a scary fall taken by one of our post-players; one of Opponent's players fell on top of her and rolled over her. Bad. Another instance: driving along the baseline, one of Opponent's players decides to screen herself with a flailing elbow to her defender's solar plexus. Repeat after me, class: You can't do that.
As their fouls (including a technical -- four free-throws plus possession, muwaha-ha-ha-ha-ha! -- mounted, Opponent's fans began accusing the refs of the most improbable combinations of parentage, origin, and unethical conduct. For those of us there in support of our girls, it was hard to resist the temptation to answer in kind.
So we didn't. Resist.
But there was -- for me, at least -- an element of fun to it. What can you say to people who yell out things like:
Is it a coincidence that (Opponent) hasn't been to the line this entire half?
No, it's not a coincidence; it's called you foulin'.
Or you could say what one of Opponent's other fans (or maybe the one who yelled the question to begin with, I can't quite recall) said: It's all about the money!
Odd, because their county's per capita income outstrips ours by about 30%. I guess we're working miracles of economic efficiency over here, if we have money to spare to bribe refs.
And then there was the comment from Opponent's coach to one of the refs, passed up into the crowd from one fan to another: You must be from Murray county.
Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. Derisively.
In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel, "No such thing bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do." Considering what the fans and coach were doing and saying in full hearing of their kids, it's not really surprising that Opponent plays such a brutal game.
Fortunately, our girls play brutal, too. They just play brutal legally. Last night they fell apart; but today they were a buzzsaw, picking off passes, making tough shots, cleaning up the boards. Girls put points on the board today who'd barely done so at all this season; and it was a joy to watch how much fun they were having. (You can see how much, at least until March 12th, here.)
Or maybe I'm projecting; because I sure as shootin' was having fun. So much fun that for a while I even managed to forget it was the last time.
There's next season, of course; the freshman and JV teams next year will, I'm sure, be dominated by players from this team. But today was the last time this team was together, as a team, with these particular kids.
They had a rollercoaster season that's ended on a high note: third place in the NGMSAL tournament is quite an accomplishment. But the only award that really matters is the one each player receives in her own mind, when she knows whether she's played her best, if she's left it on the floor or if there's more she could have done. I hope all our girls are satisfied and have no regrets. I have none myself, except that it's over.
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