What’s up basketball world? It has been a long but very good week filled with some fun and exciting things.
On Monday my dad and I spent a few hours with the guys from Saint Joe’s Metuchen doing ball handling and skill work. We also shot 200 jumpers in that 2 hours and played a little full court. There were a few Big East schools in the gym but I cannot say I remember who they were.
Tuesday my dad, Khalif and I ran a basketball clinic at the Scotch Plains, NJ Jewish Community Center (JCC). Battlebasketball is my dad’s training organization, where he specializes in clinics and private sessions, focusing on skill training. Now we are teaching a clinic at the JCC once per week on Tuesdays. The clinics are for kids 1st through 8th grade. We did 2 hours with the kids and I must say it was tough at first but in the end it was a lot of fun. It made me think back to when we first began doing clinics when I was about 8 years old. Lucky for me my dad had me work with a group of kids that were 6th and 7th graders, which made it much easier because they were more mature. The clinic went well and we had a lot of good feedback from the parents.
Wednesday, I had practice with my Demons team to prepare for the Hoop Group Fall Jam. We reviewed our plays, did some skill and played some 3 on 3 games. Coach stopped the 3 on 3 games several time to review help defense and communication. My dad showed up about 30 minutes before practice ended and got on me for not going hard on every play. Afterwards we stopped at Wendy’s hit the dollar menu and went home.
On Thursday my dad, step-mom, Khalif and I went to the gym to workout. My dad and I had a few shooting competitions where you had to make 10 elbow jump shots as fast as you could while rebounding your own ball. I hate to admit I lost the first round because my dad only missed one shot and finished with a time of 55 seconds. I shot horrible and finished with a time of 1minute and 21 seconds.
Friday was cool because it was my 14th birthday. For my birthday, part of my family and I went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory in the Menlo Park Mall in my town of Edison. I received a GameStop gift card and some cash from my dad and step-mom. Afterwards, we went to the gym at the Club at Woodbridge and did skill work for an hour. My Dad trained a 7th grader from East Brunswick while I worked out with my Team Final teammate Jason Grahm, who also lives in Edison.
Entering the weekend and finally it was game time. At 1230 Saturday we played a team called Youth Interlock. I am proud to say I was able to get my first 17U win. We played great as a team and I played well also; scoring 25 points 9 rebounds and 4 assists. Game 2 was against a very physical team from New York State and we pulled out another win. I scored the ball well and had a lot of assist but I thought I could have tried a few more things. On Sunday we played the Rarington Valley Roundballers and they were very tough. They played a trapping defense that gave me a little trouble but we pulled out the win, after I got a steal and threw it to Justin Sears (Plainfield High) who laid it in with 3 seconds remaining. Another win for the Demons. Now we are in the semis against another tough team and won by three. My team and I were starting to get used to the pace of the game and we were playing very well on both ends of the floor. Now we are in our first championship game of the year and we are playing the Maryland Spartans, which was a very athletic team and they played very hard. It was a very close game throughout, but unfortunately they started to make a run with 2 minutes remaining and we never recovered. We ended up losing by 10.
I would like to say good job to my teammates and coach for playing so hard and hanging in with some good teams. This is Tyus battle signing out. Peace!
