Hello Basketball World
This week we played in the Rebounds Hoop Group Tournament down in Neptune, New Jersey. We played a total of four games, two Saturday and two Sunday. This was our season opener. We played 4 different teams we had never played before, even though I did see a few familiar teams out there. Right now I am playing 15u, so all the kids have a year of high school under their belt even some varsity, so it was different for me being 13 in the 8th grade.
Overall I think my performance was well. I had about 10 points each game and stood aggressive attacking the basket. Our first team we played was a team from around that Neptune area. We came out strong and got to an about 12-point lead. Our coach then made subs and they cut it. This has been an issue for us with subs and energy off the bench. As the season goes on and we continue to work on our game I am sure we’ll improve. In the second half, we kept our composure and took the lead big and ended up winning by double digits. Our Second game was against the South Mountain Y. This was a very hard fought game literally, there was pushing and shoving along with trash talk all game long. The refs did not take control of this game at all. One thing about AAU that I noticed is the consistency with refs is not good at all. One game they call everything and the next they let your intentional foul; you never know what to expect with these refs. One thing I think we improved on since last year is we do not live and die by a three more guys need to and are attacking the cup more often. In the second, we played great defense, this is why we were able to come out with the victory. Our third game on Sunday was verse a team from Long Island, this game was in our favor from the start being that they only had 6 guys we just ran on them all game. The refs were on top of us the whole game they took control of the game as it went on. Both teams had to stop playing as aggressive because the refs were calling fouls on almost every play. Some bad calls, some good, I got into early foul trouble and had to sit most of the second half. In the first our threes were off they stood with us, but as the game went on fatigue set in and we ended up winning by about 15. This win made us 3 and 0 and we won our bracket.
We continued on to the championship in a clash with a team from Delaware called Team Flash. We were both 3 and 0; the game was a good up and down battle. In the end they pulled it out and beat us by 4, which hurts. We work so hard in practice 3 or 4 times a week, we don’t run anywhere remotely close in games as we do in practice and we as a team all work extremely hard. So to lose any game especially the chip always hurts. On the positive side, shout out to my boy Kyle Menard who caught his first in game dunk in our second game Saturday, the gym went crazy and that gave us good momentum. Next week we will be in Pittsburgh for the jam fest, which will be a good tourney. Hopefully we have not lost our 6’8 big who had a bit of a meltdown this weekend, hopefully not, stay tuned.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, its courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill…Young One Out
