For the most part, I tend to avoid issues where Suzanne and I have differing opinions out here….just not worth it to put up even mildly dirty laundry for people to randomly encounter. But, this weekend’s sports events require me to go down this road a little bit. Suzanne and I disagree when playing time issues come up; I tend to take the long view, she is more immediately upset. Of course, I’m not the one schlepping two boys to sports for over 16 hours this last weekend….
Cpher: Lost, 42-41, to Haslett. Lost, 40-18, to Williamston. Neither game was as close as the score indicated.
For as long as the boys have been in sports, Suzanne has been more cognizant of the boys’ playing time in games than I have. Or better said, Suzanne is more disturbed when it seems to be unfair (although I am the only one to ever confront a coach about it, when Kevin played two minutes out of 48 in a soccer game way way back). Even when I was coaching the boys I didn’t start them all the time (unlike a lot of other coaches, especially the ones that the boys have now for basketball) even when Matthew was clearly one of the best out there. And Suzanne would express her displeasure at that, or when I would slight either Fric or Frac in playing time.
I know I’ve written here how in fourth grade Cpher would play 90% of some basketball games. That’s steadily evened out….and now it seems like, especially with me gone and not helping to coach, he’s not even getting the time that is the general guideline of the league. I think, on Saturday in the Haslett game, it was pretty close to what it should be EXCEPT that he got pulled early in the second quarter because the coaches weren’t happy with his boxing out and rebounding, and he never came back into the game in that quarter. I don’t have enough video to tell what happened in the third quarter (video/Kevin/computer difficulties are a subject for a future post!), and, in the fourth quarter there is no guideline, do what you have to do to win. And when we are down in the fourth quarter, Cpher is not going to play much…the team will sacrifice his defense and rebounding for scoring and the ability to press the other team to get the ball back. And we were down most of the game to Haslett, only two 3-pointers in the last 30 seconds made it as close as it was.
But we got hammered by Wston on Sunday and we were losing 18-4 at the end of the first quarter and 28-6 at the half. 38-10 at the end of three. No reason for him not to play; that game was over early.
Conversations about playing time have been a constant theme on Cpher’s basketball team for years; I have tried to suggest to the head coach that in games when we are getting blown out or blowing people out that we should do a better job of benching starters and letting the reserves play so that when it slants the other way to try and win a close game, at least you can say for the season you are doing ok. But the head coach does not share this long view; and I think sometimes he tires our best players out playing them so much. Two or three kids aren’t going to win games; the team is going to win games.
I understand not playing kids who don’t show up to practices. I understand kids getting pulled out of the games for not performing; don’t have an issue with why Cpher was pulled in that 2nd quarter I saw against Haslett.
Don’t understand why Cpher wasn’t playing as much against Wston…..because we certainly weren’t mounting a comeback. The video I watched of him in the first quarter I was pretty happy with how he did; held his own against their very big kid, grabbed two or three rebounds in his three minutes, one guy fouled him as he was battling. He probably played the ‘right’ amount in the first quarter; it never was as much as two minutes per quarter the rest of the game.
the big kid for Wston is very very good; he’d be the one player I see every year that I think could play for a long time. Most kids, including Cpher, have no shot against him one-on-one. Cpher does what he needs to do, gets his hands up and slows him down…when the guy gets the ball the smaller guard towards the camera immediately comes in to double him. And most times that doesn’t even work well…
Matthew: Won 37-31 against Williamston on Saturday, won 41-27 against Eaton Rapids, won 33-21 against Perry on Sunday.
Wston was going to be the game of the year, and it was, we were up by two at the half, five at the end of the third quarter, and the game see-sawed back and forth until we made free throws at the end to put it away.
Matthew’s team has eleven players; this is not an optimal number for basketball. The coach, I think, has done a nice job this year of rotating kids in, and, at times, with eleven, one kid is going to sit for an entire quarter.
Matthew’s quarter off was the 1st quarter against Wston.
Wston is strange, they only have 7 players, and against us, that seventh player didn’t even show up until halftime. I think they must have made the decision, or must have had the kids at tryouts to make the decision, to take the top seven and not fill up the ‘A’ team. And our coach changed the entire approach to substitutes for this game because of the opponent…he put arguably the best 5 on the floor to start and subbed in when he could with the others. Those other six, including Matthew, probably only saw six to 8 minutes of time in the first three quarters (when it should be twelve) and very limited duty in the fourth. Kind of surprising to me; never really seen this coach shift away from the playing time guidelines like this.
As I said, this really infuriates Suzanne. I have a longer view about it, basketball isn’t his sport, heck, it’s not even in his top three, although he goes after at it as hard as he does the other sports. He gets more than his share of playing time at soccer and football; I’m not going to get upset by an occasion or two of not-so-much playing time. Especially in a game like Wston, where, it wasn’t just him, it was half the team that was slighted. I’ve watched too many other kids get slighted at soccer or football to really get excited about Matthew not seeing ‘playing time’ here…especially when the situation wasn’t just him, it was five others.
Suzanne was irked enough about this development to specifically tape the clock in the games on Sunday as Matthew came in and came out (probably an outgrowth of last weekend, she told me Cpher didn’t play at all in one quarter and I was watching the video and there he was, on the court, for almost half of it! Had to ask what game she was watching…..). Sunday’s games were back-to-back; surely the playing time was going to switch back to the norm for the year to date.
Not so much. I think one quarter out of the eight (back-to-back games!) he hit the league-suggested half. Most times it was less than two minutes.
(maybe some video of Matthew later; he scored a few baskets)
So what does this all mean?: I’m home this coming weekend and will be with Cpher for his 2nd game this weekend; will probably have the opportunity to ask the coach how Cpher is doing and probably will have the opportunity to ask is there some reason he isn’t playing him. None of which will do much I am sure but I will feel better about it. I’m certain of this; if there is any game more than 30 minutes away (and the last game of the season is…) that the likelihood of Suzanne driving all that way to that game to come away frustrated is pretty low.
I’m less bothered by Matthew’s situation; won’t say anything. Matthew would be fine stopping basketball and freeing up some weekends to get better at snowboarding. Don’t get me wrong, he has gone whole-hog into basketball and really enjoys it (dribbling the soccer ball has been replaced by dribbling the basketball around th house). But he is having fun now, so, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I know there is a basketball / soccer conflict coming up soon (either go to one basketball game or two soccer back-to-back games) and we talked last week that it would probably be basketball.
Not anymore. *grin*
Oh, speaking of soccer, Matthew had a game on Saturday. Played goal in the first half, had an adventure where he came too far out, bobbled the ball, and almost gave up a goal. Played some midfield in the 2nd half and scored an absolute beauty of a goal! Click below for the video….three sequences of passes (more on that below) and then the goal is near the end (edit; video won’t post tonight. Will try and get that done later but am going to publish this post now…)
I like the evolution of the go-left, fake-back-right move. See it in basketball, see it here.
When I was watching the video during the first half I was a little big frustrated that his team was just getting the ball and shooting wildly, there was no passing. So I was very happy (VERY HAPPY) to see Matthew, his first three times up the field as a mid with the ball at his feet, make sweet passes to set up opportunities (but no goals…)
