Using Your Inherent Advantage

I got to watch 4 high school basketball games this weekend - 2 were the WC guys, 2 the WC girls. When it was all over, they'd won all 4 and both claimed District titles. Congrats to the teams, they both played hard and earned the wins.

The WC girls are an up-start crew of mostly freshmen - 3 freshman starters and the only 2 regulars off the bench are also freshmen. They've improved dramatically over the course of the season and I'm anxious to see how far they can go. Whatever happens this year, they're going to be scary the next 3 years (I'm told there are some really solid players on the 8th grade team as well). They struggled on Saturday night as their go-to player didn't have her usual touch early on. But in the 4th quarter they simply wore their opponents down and beat them into submission - it was fun to watch. They're just relentless.

The WC boys are an experienced bunch of very talented, very athletic players. These guys have a team full of guys who have state championship rings - mostly from football, a couple from baseball as well. The point being they are great athletes and happen to be good basketball players as well. 2 of the seniors have signed to play football next year and one to play baseball. Add to that 3 or 4 other top-notch high school athletes and you've got a group of guys who can simply run you off the court at any given moment. And I've seen them do it more than once.

On Saturday night they had to fight long and hard to get past Carl Junction - who they split with earlier in the season and is a good team - but not so much because CJ is so incredibly talented. On Saturday night I watched as WC let a smaller, physically weaker team push them around. Please remember, the WC guys are primarily multi-sport athletes who are very strong physically compared to most of their opponents. I haven't seen a single team this season that WC could not physically dominate at any moment they wanted to. While I love to see them push it up the floor, run breaks, press, dunk, etc. when they get into a half-court set there no reason for them to settle for 3-point jumpers (though at times they hit them in bunches).

My fear for WC is that in a tight game when the 3's aren't falling they'll just keep firing rather than pound the ball inside and use their inherent physical advantage. In addition to having some strong guys, they've got some tough customers, guys who can take it to the rack, get hit and still put it in. Please, please, please use your advantage.

One of the reasons it's important that WC establish themselves as physically dominant in the half-court set is because it will avoid punks (and I intentionally use that word as the best one i can find to describe the behavior I've seen from some of their opponents this season) thinking they can take cheap shots late in the game when they get frustrated. I've seen it over and over, 140-pound weaklings taking a cheap shot at a much bigger opponent because they know the opponent won't pound them into submission the next time down the floor (I'm not suggesting fighting at all, just taking the ball inside and playing physical basketball).

The other thing that happens when you don't establish your physical presence is that you get weaker players thinking they can do what they want all over the court. I'm sorry, if a guy nails a couple of 3's, he shouldn't get the next one off - deny him the ball and if need be foul him good and hard about once. He'll think twice before he fires it up again. Take that shooter into the paint on the other end of the floor and lean on him, wear him down, take those legs away and his shots will start falling short.

In my opinion this is a coaching issue. This team is dangerous and could be a title threat, but not if they keep letting teams of guys who don't even know where the weight room is located at dominate them physically.