A rough day back for JV

First game back and it’s a late game in a different gym from where the Varsity game is playing. Those aren’t the worst conditions this JV team has played in, but they definitely didn’t help. While our press wasn’t working well (the back half of the press needs practice rotating and trapping) our press break led to many transition bucket opportunities! It’s just a bummer that we couldn’t buy a layup despite our heart and hustle. Another thing that plagued us early on was our lack of communication and lack of defensive principles. The details in where we’d stand, how we’d move, and how we’d match up led to Ensworth taking advantage of the confusion. Those small defensive mistakes in addition to not making our close range shots meant that Ensworth would hold on to their lead. While our rebounding wasn’t as much of an achilles heel like in the Varsity game, those offensive rebounds for Enworth enabled them to retain the lead, effectively killing our momentum.

This is definitely a game/match up we’d like back because I think normally we’d make more of our layups/jump shots, but that’s neither here nor there. This game showed the importance of building upon our basketball foundation every practice, every game. It’s only wasted time if you don't learn or don’t get better at something. We will prioritize our defensive principles and transition offense so in the future games like this will end with a win rather than a loss.  

FG 2s: 8/39 → It’s great because almost all of these shot attempts were from 15ft or closer, the bad thing is the amount of layups we missed after doing a great job breaking Ensworth’s press. We just need to get better at setting our feet, squaring up to the basket, and being balanced.

FG 3s: 0/5 → I’m glad we are trying to attempt 3s!

TOs: 12 → Not a bad number, but some of the turnovers were annoying due to lack of adjustments on our part. Ensworth started to anticipate the transition passes/the pitch-aheads and we weren’t looking at other options. But glad we are now more comfortable in transition

Fouls: 6 → This number is fine, but is misleading. It shows that we were playing safe and not being aggressive on defense

Rebounds: 22 → An ok number. With the amount of shots that both teams got up this should’ve been higher. Another deficit that as a team we will address in games/in practice 

Steals: 4 → A solid number!