8th Grade-Week 3

Xtreme Tournament team Sat Game 1

On Saturday morning , September 25 the YBA Xtreme Tournament team squared off against the Lodi Flying Tigers in their first tournament game.  Lodi proved to be a formidable opponent displaying aggressive full court defense and quickness to the basket for easy scores still YBA kept the game within reach through out the first half of play behind the outside shooting of Ishkhan Oganesyan and Zachary Green and the inside play of Justin DiRuscio.  The second half saw a better conditioned and more athletic Lodi team pull away for a victory but the YBA team showed great heart and competed until the final whistle.  In the end YBA simply turned the ball over too many times allowing the opponent to score easy transition baskets, did not get back quick enough in transition defense and was largely out rebounded at both ends of the court.  Overall for the first game as a team and with only 2 official practices under their belts the tournament team showed a lot of potential and saw positive things happen when they controlled the tempo of the game and ran the offensive sets with solid ball movement instead of settling for the first available shot.

YBA Xtreme Tournament Sat Game 2

On Saturday afternoon , September 25 the YBA Xtreme Tournament team squared off against the Davis Hotshots in their second tournament game.  The game began with a frenzied pace and YBA gave up some early transition baskets that allowed Davis to build a small lead.  YBA looked more comfortable running their offensive sets yet appeared a bit flat and lacking energy in the first half.  In the second half the YBA team showed better energy and made some positive things happen on the offensive end with solid movement without the ball and effective ball movement instead of settling for the first available shot.  Justin DiRuscio turned in a solid effort rebounding and scoring some baskets in the post area and Ishkhan Oganesyan, Sean Patrick Lallen, Nicholas McNamara and Zachary Diele provided solid efforts at both ends of the court as well.   The difference in this game was YBA’s inability to get back in transition defense which lead to a significant percentage of Davis’s points being scored with uncontested transition baskets.  In addition, YBA was outrebounded on both ends of the floor and had a higher turnover ratio than Davis.  But despite these short comings YBA showed great heart in the second half and showed some positive energy to build on for their next tournament game.

YBA Xtreme Competitive team Sat Game 1

On Saturday morning, September 25 the YBA Xtreme Competitive team played their first tournament game against the Davis Hotshots.  Davis came out of the gates applying an aggressive full court press and was able to attain a sizeable early lead by converting a high percentage of forced turnovers into quick uncontested transition baskets.   After a few early timeouts to reiterate the press break YBA did a nice job moving the ball side to side and getting it to a big in the middle of the court to offset the Davis full court defensive pressure and get into the YBA offensive sets.  Joshua O’Neal and Hunter Konrad contributed some valuable minutes on the boards and scoring some baskets in the low post and despite giving away some inches to their much taller opponents Zachary Farr and Gavin Triplett played a respectable game at the guard positions.  Despite a poor shooting night from outside Sanam Bains turned in a solid aggressive effort at both ends of the floor and Nathaniel Smith showed excellent hustle and nice offense presence of mind to ball fake and get multiple three point plays the old school way by making the basket despite being fouled and knocking down his free throw.  Overall for the first game as a team and with only 2 official practices under their belts YBA put forth a solid effort and showed great potential at times and needs to improve going forward on controlling the tempo of the game, rebounding on both ends of the floor and getting back on transition defense.

YBA Xtreme Competitive team Sat Game 2

 On Saturday afternoon , September 25 the YBA Xtreme Competitive team squared off against the Lodi Flying Tigers in their second tournament game.  Lodi came out with aggressive full court pressure and was able to build an early lead off turnovers converted into to easy uncontested transition baskets.  YBA came out with solid energy against their larger opponents and showed some improvement over their morning game with their ability to set up the press break and get the ball more effectively over the half court line and transition into their half court offensive sets.  Joshua O’Neal and Hunter Konrad who played all four games for YBA Xtreme provided solid play on the boards and on defense and the guard play of  Zachary Farr, Gavin Triplett and Max Cohen was much improved over the morning’s effort.  Nathaniel Smith continued to lead the team in hustle and effort and once again turned in some nice three point plays converting both his shot and free throw and Sanam Bains provided some speed and quickness on the perimeter.  Overall the team still settled for quick low percentage shots on the offensive end instead of making the defense work by moving the ball around and looking for high percentage shots.  Transition defense was still a weak spot allowing the opponent to score a high percentage of their overall total points on uncontested transition baskets and second chance put backs on the offensive glass.  But game two saw some positive improvement in the YBA Xtreme Competitive team’s poise, effort and cohesiveness as a team and the potential is there for great improvement in the weeks ahead.   

Sunday intra squad scrimmage 9, 10 a.m games

On Sunday morning  September 26 the YBA Xtreme Tournament and Competitive team’s squared off in their weekly intra squad scrimmage.   You have to hand it to all players as they showed up at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday after four sizable losses on Saturday to be blunt about it and they had excellent energy and were determined to get to work and make themselves better so congratulations to all players for an excellent attitude coming off some not so fun losses. 

The nine o’clock game saw great energy and effort by both the blue and white teams with the blue team maintaining a small lead throughout most of the game.  Both sides continued to get familiar with the offensive sets both against man and zone defense and showed great improvement in their cognitive understanding of the various baseline and side line out of bounds plays.  Joshua O’Neal and Zachary Green saw limited play due to wrist and ankle injuries respectively.  Zachary Diele was impressive on both ends of the floor and Sean Patrick Lallen, Justin DiRuscio and Nicholas McNamara showed played solid defensive and showed great floor leadership throughout the game.  Keys for improvement continue to be getting back on transition defense and not giving up uncontested transition baskets, rebounding on both ends of the floor, solid man to man help defense and reducing turnovers.

The ten o’clock game once again saw the blue team maintaining a small lead throughout the game and both teams looked much improved running the “wheel” offense against a 2-3 zone defensive set.   Both sides still need to improve their cognitive understanding of the various side line and base line out of bounds plays as both teams still looked confused as to what they were to do at times.  The blue team showed solid full court man to man pressure and both teams were at times effective running the special pick an roll play called at the discretion of the point guard but improvement in the area of setting solid screens on an actual player not thin air is still a point that will continue to be emphasized in future practices.   Nicholas McNamara showed some nice outside shooting and Hunter Konrad and Justin DiRuscio were effective on defense both recording several blocked shots and giving solid efforts on the boards.  Overall both teams still need improvement in controlling the tempo of the game and not getting into a race horse up and down out of control type game.  Our offense needs to make the defensive work hard and we need to look for high percentage shots by moving the ball around the floor and moving better without the ball.  Again it needs to be said that the effort of all players was very commendable after some lop sided losses on Saturday no one was feeling sorry for themselves and everyone was giving 100% effort and trying to become better basketball players and the coaches will take that attitude over a win any day. 

Deloe Shively