Monday, September 8, 2008

Bad Basketball!

Fall ball is here and the season is around the corner. Local basketball enthusiast could not wait for the regular season so we packed the very hot Churchill gym on Sunday to see the girls lace them up. Here are some views on the first day play:

  • Antonian looked good. They played an undersized and over matched East Central squad and blew them out by 30 plus. They have strong guard play and a quality big. They also have a 6'1 freshman that looked promising.
  • Judson beat Steele by double digits. Judson is deep and athletic.
  • Speaking of deep and athletic, Wagner still looks like the team to beat. Great guard play and a smothering defense will make them tough to beat.

I must say that I was very disappointed by the play on Sunday. But here are the excuses why play was so bad:

1. The real coaches are not allowed to coach

2. The girls are not in basketball shape

3. Some basketball stars are playing volleyball right now

Now here is why these excuses are not valid:

1. I saw at least 3 AAU coaches coaching these girls. One team had an AAU coach that runs a very popular club with numerous teams in town and they scored less than 20 points in the entire game. Twenty points in 36 minutes is sad. Real coaches or not, the kids should know how to play the game enough to score more than 20 points by the time they are on varsity.

2. Most of the teams on Sunday had at least a few AAU players. These players just finished long summer seasons that saw them play through July. How out of shape can players get in one month.

3. Missing volleyball stars are no excuse for such a lack of skills shown on Sunday. The team that had an AAU coach and scored less than 20 points had at least four AAU players on it.

One thing that Sunday promised was that things can only get better.

A side note:

Roosevelt's Felicia Jacobs was in the building observing the scene. A source close to Jacobs says that St. Mary's has already offered her a full ride. She is also being pursued by numerous small Division 1 schools and SMU has offered her a ride to run track.

Alamo Heights Stephanie Wittman is reportedly drawing heavy interest from Princeton, Rice and Kansas among many others.

Wagner's LenNique Brown is reportedly getting major attention from South Carolina. South Carolina is led by women's basketball great Dawn Staley. Brown is getting a lot of attention from UT Arlington as well.