Bball

Damon just finished his first season of basketball. It was very entertaining. Or torturous, depending on how you look at it. Damon is by no means the most skilled player on the team. He's also not the worst on his team. He's one of those kids that most of the parents who watched the game probably wouldn't be able to recognize once the game was over. He's just sort of there, not drawing attention to himself. And yes, sometimes playing with his hair.

The boys line up across from each other after every timeout and at the beginning of each quarter. This is so they know who they are supposed to be guarding. I know my nephew in Springville plays in a system of wristbands, where the man who is wearing your same color wristband is the man you are supposed to guard. Whatever works, I guess. Damon figured out the concept of guarding his man. He is an excellent "face guarder." Not so great at seeing where the ball is, but getting better.

The boys play on the skinny side of a junior high gym. And yet they are still playing 5 on 5. I think it's silly. I would suggest 4 on 4 on these little courts. I mean, no one is playing positions, so why cram 10 kids on half a court?

Also, there is no defending until the other team crosses the "half court" line. I do like this rule a lot, because it gives the kids a chance to actually play defense and not just steal the ball back and forth. And back and forth. Because you know that's what would happen.

A few things I didn't particularly care for:

1. Damon's coaches had the boys running a couple of plays, which is really cool. But the plays were usually for the "good" players and involved no passing whatsoever. Just clearing out or setting screens and letting the boys who could dribble and shoot a layup go to the basket. They worked well. But I would REALLY have loved to see some more passes. In this video clip, the tall boy actually passes the ball to Damon and Damon gets off a wild shot. I can't blame him for not being ready to catch the ball. This is probably one of 5 times (or fewer) anyone passed him the ball in 8 games.

2. 10 boys play on a team, and each boy is supposed to be guaranteed to play at least half the game. And for the most part, they did. BUT, when there were fewer than 10 boys, the coaches had to do some subbing. And the "good" players ALWAYS got to play significantly more than the rest of the boys. That was a little frustrating to me because how do you expect the other boys to get any better when they get to play so much less? Also, there were a couple of times when Damon got taken out of the game and he hadn't even played the full quarter. I know the coaches probably just lost track of who was supposed to be in when, but when he didn't even get to play half the game, it was frustrating.

3. It was, quite frankly, hard to watch Damon play. He tried hard and really improved, but he was so timid on the court. He has no killer instinct. He doesn't go get the ball. Which is why he only took a handful of shots all year, and most of those came from offensive rebounds. He did make one basket for his team (and one basket for the other team, a moment Jeff called "the low point of his fatherhood"), but mostly I just wanted to run out and tell Damon to be a LITTLE more aggressive. I guess I need to be more easy going as a sports mom. But it's hard.

I do think he'll play next year, because he seemed to really enjoy it. And, like football, he learned a lot about the game and wants to go to the church to practice with Jeff. So I count it as a positive experience.

This is just a random one I threw in because it makes me laugh. We had the scout Blue and Gold banquet last week and blue punch was served. Damon got a bit of a mustache.