Playing over here at Olney J.C. something has kinda gotten under my skin. It has before, but now I write about this stuff to make me feel a little bit....better.We have in two games here, been highly patient trying to score. In one game, we played a superior team physically and went to a spread offense trying to slow the game down which along with our 2-3 zone did just that. We were able to spread them out and get back doors and open shots. The final score was 21-19...that same team, in it's next game, scored 19 points in the first ten minutes of the game.
The following game, we decided we didn't want to compete until we were down 32-17. At that point, in the second half, we decided to play and went on to tie the score at 36-36. We had not substituted at all in the second half and our guys were tired. At the 4:30 mark, I decided to hold the ball out top against this teams packed 2-3 zone. We waited, and waited, and waited for them to come out and they didn't. While this is happening, fans are yelling at me, our team and saying "this is summer ball, come on...play!"
Two things get under my skin about this: 1. that is how we will play at times and with young, inexperienced guards we need to practice in the summer when real games aren't on the line, and 2. how come the defense doesn't get any blame for this? If they had come out at any point until the 1 minute mark, we would have attacked and played. Instead they stay in their packed zone, and we are at fault? Why don't fans yell, "come on coach, go get them!"? "make them play!"?
I can promise this that until we get athletes who can just dominate games, we will continue to be patient at times, heck, even then we will do it because I believe it is intelligent basketball. Here is a little sidenote for my 5 years as head coach at HHS....the fewer shots we take in a quarter/game, the more points we score. So when we shoot more, we score less? Yes it is true.
It's been fun over here and oh...in that game we held it for 4 1/2 minutes and everybody was getting mad....we won in sudden death when freshman to be Andrew Jones hit a floater over a 6'6" kid.
That made it a little easier to face the hostile crowd afterwards....
