A Bad Day at Village Christian

Hi Ladies;

Not a good night for us. V.C. ran exactly what we prepared for. It is called the run and jump #32, it was invented by accident at the University of Kansas when Dean Smith was a Senior player and his team used it to win the National Championship in 1953. Coach Smith brought it to Chapel Hill as a coach and popularized it. We have tried to put it in use I know for the last two years maybe even before that but we have not been very good at running it. It requires a lot of practice time and quickness. So due to lack of practice time to spend on getting good at it we don't run it. It is a great defense and very hard to play against since you have to be very disciplined and have everyone do their jobs consistently and precisely to beat it. You absolutely cannot pass the ball sideways once you get near the half court line since they overplay the passing lanes once the dribbler is trapped and a turnover at midcourt leads to a lay up for them. That is why we had those other 3 downcourt options since they did not always send the same girls to run the double team. That is why we were supposed to stop before half court and before dribbling into the double team. They only double you if you got near the half court line and they wanted to make the trap just across the half court line.

We lost by 16 points, 39 to 23. As you can tell from the other scores against our schools teams they are a very powerful basketball school. I doubt we will play a better team this season. We lost by 16, the JV Boys lost by around 40 and the Varsity Girls lost by around 50. Our shooting in the end killed us. We only made 6 shots out of 32. By my best guess 25 of the shot we took were lay ups or short shots within 4 feet of the basket. If you do the math,that means we missed around 19 short shots, if we made half of them we would have won the game even with a terrible 18 turnovers.

Stats:

Scoring by Quarters: 1st; 10 to 15, 2nd; 8 to 10, 3rd; 3 to 10, 4th; 2 to 4.

Scoring: Mer 7 pts, Jamie 7 pts, Emily 5 pts, Alex 2 pts, Lindsey 2pts.

VCA Scoring: #35 Lauren Goldner 16 pts, #20 Hannah Morrison 7 pts, #32 Brittany Tschida 5 pts, #5 Brett Hinkamp 4 points. No other higher than 2 points.

FG%: Team 6/32 18.75%; Individuals: Jamie 2/6*,Alex 1/4, Emily 2/9, Mer 1/6, Lindsey 0/1, M&M 0/1,
Jordan 0/1, Kaela 0/1, Kim 0/1. 33.3% is the minimum winning % against a decent team. This team was a very good team so we would have had to make around 44% to have won. That would have been 8 more lay ups or shots to tie.

3pts shots: M&M 0/1. Jordan 0/1.

FT %: Team 11/23 48.8%: Individual Lindsey 2/2****, Jamie 3/4***, Mer 5/11, Emily 1/4, Megan K 0/1, Jorday 0/1.


Rebounds: Team 6off/17Defensive; Mer 3/11****, Jamie 2/0, Alex 0/2, Kelly 1/1, Jordan 0/1, Leslie 0/1,
Emily 0/1.

Assists: Team 5; Alex 2*, Lindsey 2*, Jamie 1*.

Steals: Team 8; Alex 4****, Mer 1*, Jamie 1*, Lindsey 1*, M&M 1*.

Blocks: Lindsey 1*, Kim 1*.

Turnovers: Team 18; Lindsey 7, Jamie 4, Mer 1,Emily 1, Kelly 1, Megan K 1, M&M 1, Kim 1, Brooke 1.

Bottom Line: Too many turnovers and too many missed lay ups. Make our lay ups and we win. Make half our missed lay ups and we win a close game. Make lay ups and take away the turnovers that led to lay ups for them and we win big. Chances are we will not see that defense again this year(I hope not), unless Brunswick runs it no other team on our schedule used that defense last season or in any other year I have coached. That is one of the things that makes the run and jump work good for them, teams hardly ever play against that defense so it is hard to get used to it. Even with 7 defensive players on the court yesterday at practice all at once we really could not simulate the pressure VCA was able to create and the speed they were able to do it with.

As you know, we are not allowed to practice during exam week. As it stands right now I plan to practice Friday after exams at our usual time if the gym is available after the Octagon Club Christmas meeting scheduled there for Friday after exams. Keep Sunday night open also 5:00 to 7:00 approximately if I can get the gym for those times. We play the annual JV Christmas Tournament on Monday 12/20 and Tuesday 12/21. We have never lost this tournament since I have been coaching and I do not plan to start this year if we can help it. We will need Friday and Sunday to get the kinks from exams out in order to play close to our best.

Study hard, Basketball is fun but grades are what will get you where you want to go in life. Take studying seriously and do your best on the exams.

BTW, if you did not know it, Village Christian has an enrollment of 791 students. They are one of the largest 2A schools in the NCISAA. I for one would rather find another school of similar enrollment of us to play. Having such a numerical advantage gives sports teams huge advantages in finding 6 or 7 real good players in sports like Basketball.

***As I have told you in practice a number of times I am on the court almost always by 3:00pm, If you need help with your skill development or understanding anything we do in practice all you have to do is ask. I also am usually available after practice everyday. We only practice about 75 to 70 minutes per day depending on how fast all you girls get on the court from class so if you want to really improve you have got to take ownership in your improvement and understanding your job on the court. For most of you this will mean putting in some extra time.

Thought: The best way to improve the team is to improve your own play. John Wooden UCLA
***If every player would do this think how much we could improve.***

Coach May