by Alan Stein 9. January 2011 02:44
For those of you that follow me at www.Twitter.com/AlanSteinor www.Facebook.com/StrongerTeam, you know we lost our first game of the season yesterday to St. Andrews Prep (RI) and their All-American shooting guard, Michael Carter-Williams (Syracuse commit). We played them in a showcase in Wheeling, WV.
While we certainly played extremely hard, we did not play particularly smart, and thus did not deserve to win. We had more than enough opportunities and we didn’t capitalize. In the final minute of the game, a series of mental mistakes took us from a 4 point lead to a 3 point loss.
Basketball is a game of execution and effort. To win consistently, against quality teams, you need to do both. Teams that play hard on every possession and minimize mental mistakes are almost always successful.
As coaches, we can live with physical mistakes. We have no problem with playing aggressive defensive and getting called for foul when attempting to block a shot or run through a screen. We know that when players are assertive and attack the basket that occasionally turnovers will happen (traveling violation or offensive foul). These are physical mistakes and they go with the territory.
But mental mistakes need to be eliminated. A lazy perimeter pass that gets stolen and taken in for an easy lay-up is a mental mistake. Not closing out with a high hand and a sense of urgency on a great shooter is a mental mistake. Not finding a man and boxing him out is a mental mistake. And missing free throws down the stretch is a mental mistake. Those are the plays that really hurt you… not the physical ones mentioned above.
Great players and great teams are consistent. Our team isn’t quite there yet. We play really, really well for several minutes at a time… and then revert to stretches where we breakdown. Even at 11-1 (4-0), we are yet to string together 4 solid quarters in a row on both ends of the floor. Our team’s calling card is our defense. When we lock in, focus, and eliminate mental breakdowns… our defense is stifling. We have held several teams to less than 5 points in an entire quarter.
Unfortunately, we aren’t as consistent as we need to be – we will go from holding a team to 5 points in a quarter – to giving up 10 points in the next two minutes. All because of mental breakdowns.
We have a few players in particular, who are unbelievably talented, but aren’t as consistent as they need to be. They are trying… and they are coachable kids… but they just haven’t gotten over the hump of becoming elite players because of their erratic play. They will make a highlight reel play one minute – and then be ‘vacant’ the next.
We have a gifted wing player who only crashes the offensive boards about 20% of the time. The other times he is caught standing and watching. Guess what happens when he does crash? He gets the rebound almost every time (as most high school age wing players don’t box him out). On several occasions he put the offensive rebound back with a thunderous dunk! Our goal as coaches is to get him to be consistent – to crash the offensive glass every time a shot is taken.
In most cases, high school age players don’t see the same thing we see as coaches. That is why film can be an invaluable tool if used appropriately. Coach Jones had one of our managers film this player with an HD Flip camera for the entire game. Didn’t film the game, just filmed this player – to show him exactly what we see from the sideline. The result? The next game he had 6 offensive rebounds and was our leading scorer.
While our staff was certainly disappointed in our loss, we are hoping this serves a wake-up call to our players and hammers home the fact that we need to be more consistent and we need to eliminate the mental mistakes if we want to be a impressive basketball team.
We also learned about the character of our team in the locker room after we lost. No one pouted. No one pointed a finger. They accepted the loss together. I am very proud of the way our players handled themselves and am confident they will respond positively.
As Coach K once said, “You can’t win every game, but you can learn from every game.”
I sure hope we did.
Train hard. Train smart. Enjoy the ride.
Alan Stein
PS: A few days ago I posted a NEW pre-game warm-up at http://TinyUrl.com/NewDeMathaPreGameWarmUp
PSS: This warm-up ‘worked’ – we came out like gangbusters and won the 1st quarter 16-5!