Buckeyes 29, Eagles 16

We lost again, 29-16. Several good things happenned in the game.

First off, the 16 points is the most we have scored yet. Not only that, we had 5 different players score, and our 2 high scorers, Nathan (6 pts) and Chris (4 pts) had not scored at all in the first 3 games.

Second, assistant coach Mike quickly recognized that we were getting beat by a high-post screen, so at half-time we quickly worked through a drill where the player guarding the high post stayed a couple steps behind the offensive player and was ready to help on defense when the dribbler drove around the pick. Several of our players picked up on this quickly and our defense improved significantly in the 2nd half.

We have an offensive play but the kids never run it. I'm at a loss as to how to get them to execute the play in the game situation.

It is nice to see the players sharing the ball. In 4 games, 9 players out of 10 have scored at least 1 basket. I think that is remarkable at the 3rd & 4th grade age group.

I didn't count the fouls for the entire game but at one point we had 9 fouls and our opponent only had 2 fouls called on them. I don't know what we did to get on the officials' bad side on Saturday but it sure seemed like we were, which is frustrating. One of our best players, Jacob, fouled out at the end of the 3rd quarter. He was upset but he handled it pretty well.

I challenged the kids to try to score 20 points in our next game. (We've scored 7, 6, 14, & 16 in our first 4). Hopefully that will motivate them.

I haven't decided yet what we will do in practice on Thursday but I am considering spending the entire practice focusing on defense & rebounding.