Much to Matthew’s delight, the basketball season is over.
This season was not fun for Matthew; feel guilty I made him keep doing it after he bombed the tryout BUT I’m glad he did.
1) He got a heck of a workout; played almost every minute of every game. Great off-season fitness training for soccer.
2) He had to consistently guard kids 4 to 6 inches taller than him; I think the experience of battling against these guys will really help him over the next 18 months as everybody around him grows as puberty hits. I assume he will be like his brothers and late too it…..
3) He had to really improve his basketball skills especially his ball handling. He had to be the point guard (a lot) and did really well with it.
Finished up the season with only one win; that game against Mason. He missed the games against Leslie and Stockbridge (we got slaughtered). We were competitive against St. Johns and Holt but lost; we got killed by Williamston and Portland St. Patrick.
I have highlights from the St. Johns and Williamston games; I’ll post them sometime. There isn’t a lot of Matthew; his contributions were mostly defensive AND it was very obvious that one of the other kids was going to shoot the ball every chance he got. Wish Matthew had been a little more like this….
Anyway, the season ended Saturday with the tournament. Two losses and you are out….
So the kid who took 80% of our shots? He’s not here. I don’t believe that is a great thing as we start but as the day went on I realize it forced us to be more balanced…..and it forced Matthew to finally do what I’ve been wanting him to do….take the ball inside on a consistent basis.
We performed to our seed; we beat Mason, lost a close game to Grand Ledge (really close, was 9-9 at the end of three quarters), beat the other Okemos team, and then got blasted by Dewitt (it was Game 2 for them and Game 4 for us….but even if we weren’t do tired I think they would have killed us…they had a big tall good kid and we have no defense for that).
In our two wins Matthew was completely awesome; had half the points for the team in each game and for Mason in particular just carved them up. He did not start the Mason game strong; two quick fouls, one missed three point shot and a seat on the bench because of the two fouls. But, when he came back in late in the second quarter…and all of the second half? They couldn’t stop him….and they couldn’t get by him on defense.
Video to come.
The Okemos game was weird; we slowly pulled out to a 8 point lead heading into the fourth quarter….and they went on a big run to pull ahead late in the fourth quarter. Our team had no idea what to do; Matthew is the only one who understands what the coach is saying….pressure everything. He’s the only one fouling to stop the clock…..and he fouls out with 30 seconds to go. I figure we are doomed….all the other team has to do is hold on to the ball and make free throws BUT they screw up and take a shot and miss….we get the ball, go up court, and they make the second mistake, they don’t just foul, they do it poorly and really push from behind and get called for a technical with six seconds left. We make the free throws and go on to win. The kid who did it was bawling……and Matthew felt really bad for him after the game.
Video to come for this game as well.
