8th Grade-November 21st

Placer Blazers vs. YBA Xtreme 8^th grade

Sunday morning brought a cold morning a cold gym and a cold start for YBA.  A sluggish warm up transitioned into a sluggish first quarter allowing Placer to grab an early 10 point lead.  YBA woke up a little in the middle of the second quarter and finally took the lead with some strong defensive pressure, defensive end rebounding and some transition baskets by Bret and Parker.  YBA was turnover prone through out this game maybe due to cold hands but never the less YBA turned the ball over again and again allowing Placer to believe they were in this one.  Noah stepped up from the seventh grade team and played a solid game at both ends of the floor both rebounding and scoring on the interior.  And Ish continues to show excellent grit, superior court vision and a talent for turning the game flow in YBA’s favor.  The bench played some solid minutes led by Austin and YBA held on in the final minutes due to some clutch free throws from Parker.  A step in the right direction but YBA still continues to play hard in spurts rather than for 28 minutes of the game and when they do play hard for the full 28 minutes this team will be a tough opponent.  Nice win have a nice Thanksgiving break and be ready to get back to work in practice next week.

Fairfield vs. YBA Xtreme 7^th grade

A slightly warmer gym (but not much) hosted a tough opponent in Fairfield in YBA’s first of two games.  Some early turnovers allowed Fairfield to stay in the game in the first half but YBA turned up the defensive pressure late in the first half and took a lead into halftime.  Noah and Brandon led YBA in the first half owning the defensive glass and controlling the interior on the offensive end.  Cole and Bailey turned in solid performances at the guard positions and Tre and Gauge provided some solid minutes off the bench.  Team defense was outstanding in the second half with two charges taken and the ability to turn the opponent and jump the ball creating turnovers and easy transition baskets allowing YBA to stretch the lead for a comfortable win.  Learning points out of this one:  as a team we need to get into the fast break initial offense quicker and our guards need to do a better job pushing the ball up both the right and left sides of the court and hitting the corner earlier,  also we need to learn our out of bounds plays so we don’t need to waste timeouts to go over them, and we need to run the offense instead of being in a hurry and forcing low percentage shots out of the rhythm of the offense.  Finally we need to get better in our 2-3 zone offense I could not put you back into it as we let Fairfield back into the game as we failed to fulfill our defensive assignments and we gave up to many easy baskets and became complacent we will work on it. Otherwise this was an impressive win.

8^th Grade Placer vs. YBA Xtreme 7^th grade

Ok the gym was a few degrees warmer in this the 12:10 p.m. game but I think hands were still a little cold.  This one got off to a frantic pace with Placer content to apply full court pressure for the majority of the first half and capitalize on quick YBA turnovers for easy transition baskets and a large lead that they maintained the rest of this one.  YBA panicked a little in this one but settled down to do a nice job breaking the press at times for easy transition baskets and once we learn to keep our poise against pressure we will be able to compete better in games like this but that only comes with experience so we will be better the next time we face full court defensive pressure for having experienced it in this game.  YBA needs to get to the positions in the press break quicker and all five players need to fulfill their role or we will fail as a team as we did today.  Guards need to get to their spots and set solid screens and bigs need to flash middle and come to the ball.  We need to realize that the faster we pass the ball the easier it will be to break the pressure but we were content to dribble too much and allowed ourselves to be trapped but we will get better.  Great performances from Noah and Brandon again in this one we made some impressive three point shots in the second half so that was a positive.  We played an older opponent and we did not have our entire team there for this one so it was a good test and a good measuring stick for things we need to improve on.  Thanks to Zach for stepping in and helping us out since we had a small roster with players missing today.  Lessons learned:  need to set up the press break and move the ball not dribble to break the pressure don’t be in such a rush, break the pressure and if we don’t have a lay up set up and run the offense we failed to get into 23/Kentucky once the entire game, be stronger with the ball, and we need to work on our ball handling but a respectable performance we just need to believe in ourselves more and compete like we know we can.  Have a nice Thanksgiving break and be ready to get back to work next week.