tkihshbt wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

Good point.  It's probably a gender thing.

Another thing I have noticed the girls do, is when they run their relays, if a girl is having trouble making her layup, the girls on BOTH squads start cheering for the struggling girl by name.

Whereas when I let my boys play knockout, the kid under the hoop will use his ball to knock the rebound away from the kid at the free throw line.

When we played Knockout in high school, I'd grab someone's ball and toss it to the other end of the court. That was always a lot of fun.

Depends upon who's ball you're tossing.
As much as I bitch about the politics of our in-town league, the coach of the 5th grade travel team has it worse than I do. He told me last night he was given free reign to pick the 12 players on his team, as long as one was the juvenile delinquent son of a guy who donated a significant sum of money to the program, and another was the son of the CPA who does the league's books for free. Neither kid can play a lick.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (3/07/2011 5:17 pm)

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

When we played Knockout in high school, I'd grab someone's ball and toss it to the other end of the court. That was always a lot of fun.

Depends upon who's ball you're tossing.
As much as I bitch about the politics of our in-town league, the coach of the 5th grade travel team has it worse than I do. He told me last night he was given free reign to pick the 12 players on his team, as long as one was the juvenile delinquent son of a guy who donated a significant sum of money to the program, and another was the son of the CPA who does the league's books for free. Neither kid can play a lick.

on a 12 man team you don't need the 11th and 12th guys.

Ordinarily, you wouldn't. Our travel teams do this goofy rotation thing where two kids are designated to sit out every game. So you manage your roster appropriately, i.e. - your two best players sit when you're facing the last place team and your two worst sit when you're facing your toughest opponent.

Game 2.  So we played the "good team" with just one squad of 9 girls and were up 28-8 at the half and finally won something like 44-16, but I don't think people were keeping close track of the score toward the end.

Upon further analysis, either of our squads probably could have beaten this team, albeit in a closer game, without the coaches daughter.  But the coaches daughter is what is turning these into blow outs. I counted 16 points in the first 4 minutes, and that was dishing out every other possession to a teammate, in between possessions where she simply dribbled the length of the court and drove for a layup.  It was quite disciplined, and literally every other drive was a dish.  I think maybe her dad suggested it to keep the score within reason, because I talked with some of the other parents and we all felt a bit bad about the 40-6 game. 

Anyway, one of my favorite parts of Sports Illustrated over the years is their section on amateur athletes doing amazing things, like high school pitchers who don't allow a single earned run over the course of a season and crap like that.  Well this girl is headed for that.  I will try to track down her full name, I know her first name is Jay-Lynn (spelling?), but her dad is a step dad, and I'm not sure of her last name.  She'll show up on the radar of women's BB someday.  It reminds me of when I had the good fortune to watch Glenn Rivers play in the same high school conference as mine.  By senior year, I believe we knew he was headed for . . . hmm, Marquette, maybe.  But even before that we all knew, just watching him, that that kid was going places.

I knew guys like that, too.  They were standouts in 8th grade because the could reliably drain a 10 jump shot with very elegant form, to boot.

This girl has skills up the yin-yang, and incredible court presence.  I saw her on the receiving end of one hard pick last night, but she was in a crowd and he own team don't yet know to get out of the way.  Other than that one moment, which the other teams are trying do on each possession, she is like liquid mercury.  On defense she has Mike Singletary eyes as she measures up the girl with the ball and times her steal. 

At this point of her career, she can pretty much drive for a lay up on every single offensive possession, and steal the ball on every defensive possession.  So, with your caveat in mind, I still suspect this girl has something special.

We finally lost.  The school sponsored a tournament in which they played once Friday night, then three times on Saturday.  They lost the title game badly to a team collapsed on both our point point guards, and who, on offense, had a pick and roll (including double screens), for which our team had no response (not too mention that there team had 2 comparative 'seven footers' who parked under the basket and put back any and all misses).  I had my first experience as shouting parent, calling out to my daughter to get back on defense.  After the game a couple of parents asked me "Is you your daughter enjoying basketball) with a stereotyped smile and head nod that told, or rather which slowly sank in, was parent-speak code for "mellow out, dude". 

In the end our school took second place and fourth place (because we entered both teams separately).

artie_fufkin wrote:

"I had my first experience as shouting parent, calling out to my daughter to get back on defense.  After the game a couple of parents asked me "Is you your daughter enjoying basketball) with a stereotyped smile and head nod that told, or rather which slowly sank in, was parent-speak code for "mellow out, dude". 

Tell them to go fuck themselves. Unless your head is spinning a full 360 degrees and there's pea soup flying out of your mouth, and I suspect in your case it's not, the occasional reminder to your child to "get back on D" hardly qualifies as Marinovichian. 
I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut at games, which is OK since I'm usually the coach, but I'm at a very dangerous place with lacrosse. Three years ago, I knew nothing about lacrosse, but I like to think I've picked up a few things from watching Zach's teams. And you know the conventional wisdom about what a little bit of knowledge entails.

No kidding.  Bob's pretty good about getting back to play defense, but he (like a lot of kids) has a bad habit of looking straight ahead as he's running rather than looking at the ball.  I probably average 4-6 times a game that I remind him to watch the ball as he's moving, both on offense and defense.

The best yell from the crowd this weekend was from the father of one of the kids on Bob's team who rarely scores.  He got fouled trying to shoot so he got to shoot two free throws.  As the kid is standing at the foul line bouncing the ball, the dad yells out.  "Hey Taylor, Grandpa came out to watch.  Make one for Grandpa.  No pressure."

I give the kid credit for at least hitting the rim with both shots.

forsberg_us wrote:

The best yell from the crowd this weekend was from the father of one of the kids on Bob's team who rarely scores.  He got fouled trying to shoot so he got to shoot two free throws.  As the kid is standing at the foul line bouncing the ball, the dad yells out.  "Hey Taylor, Grandpa came out to watch.  Make one for Grandpa.  No pressure."

I give the kid credit for at least hitting the rim with both shots.

Geez-us. Why didn't the dad just come out onto the court and kiss him on the cheek for luck?

"Bob's pretty good about getting back to play defense, but he (like a lot of kids) has a bad habit of looking straight ahead as he's running rather than looking at the ball."

The two main things I try to tell them on defense are 1.) always be between your man and the goal, and 2.) be in a position where you can see your man and the ball at all times.

"but, dad, what if he's standing here and i'm there and i CAAAAAAAANNN'TT see him AND the ball????"

Excuses are like assholes, kid.

The referees are crazy if they expect 11 and 12-year-old girls to read and react to screens every time.
There is a remedy, but it's a little drastic. Have the girl who's guarding the ball plow through the picker and knock her into the girl who has the ball, sending both of them to the floor. It may cost you a foul, but your opponent will become far more reluctant to set screens.
Bonus points to your daughter's team's coach if he says something to the ref like: "That was bound to happen, the way you've been letting them get away with moving picks ..."

My deteriorating knees have really diminished my ability in the past two years, so I've been pretty much restricted to playing in a Sunday morning pickup game at the local rec center. It's about 15-20 guys of similar age and ability who mostly understand that we all have to go to work in one piece the following day, but every once in awhile we'll get a newbie we'll have to break in. On most days, I'm the second biggest guy in the gym, and I usually end up matched up with a guy who's about 6-4 and has monkey arms. He's tough enough for me to guard on my own, but a couple of weeks ago a new guy started setting blind back picks on me with his arms folded across his chest, his elbows pointing straight out, and he'd move with me as soon as there was contact. At first, I quietly said something to him like "Let's not try to get anyone hurt on a Sunday morning, OK?" This had very little impact, and after about the sixth crackback block, I came down the floor, set a pick, and planted an elbow in his neck and my knee brace in his thigh. This guy hasn't set foot inside the 3-point line on offense since.

"it must have done a little bit of good because after she came out during the second quarter the coach slapped the chair next to him, inviting her to take that seat."

Or he's a sex offender.

Last game against the good team, 32-31, good guys lose. 

You guys have probably gotten a kick out of seeing my lose my 'soccer parent' virginity, so I'll tell the brief tale.  The bad guys had it up to an 11 point lead, but with 32 seconds to play the good guys pulled within one.  Bad guys have the ball out of bounds at half court.  Silence.  I yell, "C'mon 'good guys'.  It ain't a screen until they plant their feet."  At which point the opposing coach turns her head and looks to see who said such a thing.  Fixing her eyes on me she gives me an evil, disapproving look.  So I add, "and I haven't seen them do it yet."  In the end, both teams fumbled last minute chances to put the game away and we lost, but I had my moment playing psychology on the minds of 11 year old girls (they didn't get a screen set on that last play).