“Why can’t we get into our freaking offense!?” This is all I really remember from Coach McKendrick at halftime last year against Niles North in what was a tough night for our basketball team. Prior to this, we beat New Trier at home and then went on the road and beat the pre-season unanimous vote to win conference, Highland Park, in our first conference game. Before the New Trier game, our game plan was simple: we were smaller, but faster, so we were going to run the court and make this is a fast pace game. We executed our gameplan, and we won. Then, against Highland Park, we were going to stop David Sachs and Luke Norcia and make the rest of their team beat us. They did not. Then, with all the confidence in the world going into our first conference home game, we played Niles North, and they took it to us. Unlike New Trier, Niles North was fast and wanted to run up and down, so we wanted to slow it down because they could not guard us in our half court offense. We were going to run Platteville as our primary offense. However, we …show more content…
Thirty seconds on the clock. They shoot the ball, and they miss. The ball is in the air. Who is going to go get it? Every time it is a close game, or we are playing against a bigger team, Coach has a simple message to us: just go get the ball. If we want to win, we need to just go get the rebound, or go dive on the floor for a loose ball. It does not matter how; all that matters is that we need to just go get the ball. It is when the ball is in the air that the game plan goes out the window, and whoever wants the rebound more is going to succeed. This is why I love basketball, because when the game becomes close and it comes down to effort, I know that no one is going to outwork me for the ball. We could have played badly and not gotten any calls from the referees all game, but it doesn’t matter, because if the game is close at the end, one’s internal drive to accomplish what they want could still propel them to achieving