Splitting the Weekend

Well, my team experienced the good and the bad this weekend by splitting our two back to back games. Friday dated the good while Saturday might in fact have marked the ugly, rather than the bad. Nevertheless, we learned quite a lot about our team in the past two nights.

On Friday we jumped on the opposition from the tip, as we managed to score the first seven points of the game. Perhaps this early cushion caused us to feel comfortable, and consequently relent, because the Razzle quickly matched our seven points in addition to making an early run of their own. We trailed for most of the first half, and much like our first game, we found ourselves down by a point at the intermission.

I was to blame as much as anybody for our first half blunders. While I felt great defensively, I went only 1-6 from the field in the first twenty minutes with only a single assist. Also much like the first game, however, the second half was a different story; the second half belonged to the Rebels.

The third quarter was a back and forth contest in which we won by five points, giving us a four point advantage going into the final quarter. In the 4th, we wore down the opposition, increased the tempo, and hit shots that we missed early on. As a result, we won the game decisively by 19 points. I, like my teammates, also picked up my game, finishing with 16 points and 5 assists. My 16 was broken up into 4 three pointers, one pull up jumper, and two free throws. And though my assist total for the game was not what I hoped for, I have nothing to mope about given we won the game to put us at 2-0 on the young season.

That unblemished record, we would soon find out, was quite ephemeral having lasted just less than 24 hours. We played a team of men that made us look like a team of boys. To get straight to the point, we lost by thirty. This is the part I hate to write about, but for the mere purpose of updating my family and friends back home, will record anyway.

We did not lose because we fell in love with ourselves or are quick and short-lived undefeated record, but because we got out played, out coached, out skilled, out hustled, and out executed. We got mopped off the court by Palmerston, a veteran ball club that not only plays well together, but also has two of the league's top three leading scorers. One of those leading scorers, was a big man (he played for New Zealand's national team) who we failed to match up with. Jermaine, our starting center, was unable to suit up for tonight's game. Having him would have been ideal, but would not have changed the outcome. We can't use the loss of his presence from our roster as an excuse, because it's extremely unlikely the big fella would have accounted for a thirty point swing. What we failed to do instead was step up and rise to the occasion to lift up our teammate who was unable to be there tonight. As a result, we got smacked.

Palmerston did everything. They hit multiple contested threes. They killed us on the boards. They killed us on the loose balls. They blocked shots while we picked up fouls. They executed to a T with beautiful ball movement and an understanding where one another would be on the hardwood at all times. We failed in multiple aspects of the game. Offensively, especially, we were stagnant. Much of that blame should be put on me, the point guard. If you look at my statistics, it appears as if I played decent. I scored 17 points (4 threes, 1 floater, 1 layup, and 1 free throw) and dished out 8 assists. But stats don't tell the story. I didn't do what it took to lead my team, nor did I make many others better. We just seemed flat, and with the exception of sparking a run to cut the game to 8 points in the third quarter, for the most part I felt as if I could do very little to fix the problems we were having. It was a game to remember insofar as we use it as a lesson to learn from. And at the same time, it was a game to forget. On to the next one!