What’s up bballspotlight, it’s your boy Champ with the highlights of my week. This was a good week for me. Report cards came out, we practiced a couple of times, and finally we participated in the Pitt Jam Fest in Pittsburgh.
Monday and Tuesday my dad and I worked out for a couple of hours as usual. Every year he and I focus on some areas of the game that I can improve on and work on that most of the time. Last year it was shooting and defense and amazingly on my evaluation from the Jr. Elite top 100 I received my highest scores in shooting range and defense. This year we decided that our work would be focused on finishing with the opposite hand, ball handling and decision making. Three areas of my game can stand improvement. We work hard at it and I am expecting great results.
Wednesday report cards came out and I finished as an honor roll student again. Getting good grades takes hard work and I am happy about the results. Being a scholar athlete is a challenge sometimes because to be a top athlete you have to stay focused on your grades. Lots of things can be distractions from keeping them grades up.
Friday we had a really tough practice. I think the practice was so intense because we were heading for Pittsburgh the next morning to play in the tournament and expectations are high for our team. But it was good as we ran up and down that court working on our secondary break getting our bigs to run the floor.
Saturday it was show time. Our first game was against Grassroots Canada. I had went on the website and pulled up their site and noticed that they had a video of the greatest 14 yr old. I came ready to play and showed my improvement in ball handling and decision making by dropping several dimes on the break to my bigs. It was a hard fought battle but in the end we outlasted them to the tune of 67-38. Our second game of the day was against the Millennium Fire out of Ohio. Those boys were srappy and tough as nails. Every time we thought we had a comfortable lead they would claw there way back into the game. This was a good victory for us 55-37 against a tough team. The victory gave us the advancement to the Gold Bracket playoffs as pool winners.
Sunday is championship day in AAU for me. Saturday you play so you can compete for the title and fortunately our team has always been in the hunt this year. Our first tournament the Spring Fling 14U we lost to New Heights in the semi’s in OT by a buzzer beater. Our second tournament Big Shots 15U we lost in the Quarters to VA Assault. We wanted the Gold this time. First up on Sunday was DC Team Takeover a team that we had scrimmaged before. We came in a bit confident as we handled them in the scrimmage game. We jumped on them early and took a 15 pt lead, but we slacked up and they came all the way back and took a 5 pt lead with 5 minutes to go. We had to dig deep as a unit to pull this one out, but we did it. My teammate Darian Anderson hit the game winner at the buzzer for a 57-55 victory. Next up was Ohio Basketball Club in the Championship game. They jumped on us early beating us at our own game getting out and running. They made shots and we didn’t in the first few minutes and we where down 17-3 before you could say DC Assault. Oh well needless to say we lost. I finished the game with some nice stats (15pts, 5 rebounds, 4 assts) but I would have preferred worst stats for the victory.
Those are the highlights of my week. Stay tuned next the Southern Invite May 7.
Champ Out !!!!
