We leave here in 10 minutes or so. I get so focused on basketball. I could do this everyday over and over. I am not always sure my message comes across to the boys. Basketball truly is a metaphor for life. We all need to be teachable and coachable we need to follow a game plan to exactness. We need to re focus try again and make a better effort. Our kids have so much nd where much is given much is required. They don't get much sympathy from me. It is so easy to get off track in both life and basketball without even really knowing. Often it is just too late to avoid the pain and consequences that come with poor choices. In basketball you get yanked out and you sit on he bench. In life it is opportunity wasted. Sometimes just one mistake makes the difference in winning or losing just like in life. The small things tend to become big if they are not corrected. We play a 3 seed from another pool however because there was a forfeit 3 teams from that pool tied at 2-1 and one team 0-3. Which means because of the forfeit we may actually be playing the team that would have ended oup #1 in their pool but because they forfeited the game they may be the #3 seed instead of #1. It is a point system on who beats who and by how much that determines tie breakers. At 10pm tonight we are all going to see The Blue Man Group at the Venetion. However if we lose I won't be much in the blue Man group mood and will go back to my room and mope. The boys are conducting themselves great they are working hard and staying out of trouble, having fun. I just know I can get more out of each of them.
Getting right to it we played a very very small team that was not very good. We won by round 30 did not think we played all that well but playing a much smaller less talented team is hard to do. Everyone played quality minutes and everyone contributed alot. We play in the Gold Bracket tomorrw at 6:20pm. We play a team that took 3rd place in their pool. We will play til we lose. WIll update more tomorrow. I am taking the boys to the strip to eat.
Drake 12 points 5 of 8 shooting 2-2 FT's 5 rebounds 2 steals 1 assist 1 block
Mike 12 points 4-5 shooting 4-4 Ft's 5 rebounds 4 assits and steal.
Marc 4 boards 1 3 pointer
Hayes 8 points 3-6 2-2 from 3 4 boards2 steals 3 assists.
Vic 5 boards 6 points 3-9 shooting
Zach 5 points 5 boards 1 steal
Christian 6 boards 2 steal 3 blocks
Tyler 5 boards 3 assists 3 blocks 1 steal 2 points
Noah 5 points 2 big dunks 2 -8 shing 4 blocks 3 boards 3 assist
9 players scored 9 players had 3 boards or more. We live to play another day!!
Last night we had a great meal thanks to the Sonnemakers. It was 'Taco Thursday' and all the boys got their fill. Thanks so much to the Sonnemakers. They help me stay on schedule and Scott has beome a trusted sounding board and therapist to me so I don'r pull all my hair out. We had a nice breakfast at my place of pancakes, juice, milk, egss sausage, bacon and fruit. All the boys got up OK........... To The GAme
Crazy Game #2 without added drama we won by 6-8. It was a fairly close game most of the way we pulled away with a 14 point lead with 10 minutes in the second half but they lingered around. They hit some shots that they normally don't and we missed a few that we normally do. They spread us out and used their quickness to go around us and got to the basket. Our bigs got lazy and stopped moving their feet and were beat on the perimeter with the drive. I felt the ball bounced their way a bit more and they got some crucial calls during the game, they made some plays we we didn't, but we held on. Hayes made 2 big baskets and a FT in the last minute or two that sealed the win for us. We advance with a win and that is the important thing. We have not hit our stride. We had strange matchups as we were much much taller even 4-6 inches per man sometimes, however their quickness hurt us. We did terrible in exploiting their size disadvantage. They played a zone against us and packed it in, Denied Vic the ball most the time and between some simple missed shots, some not so great shots and TO's it worked out well for them. Bottom line we pulled it off. The guys are resting today some time at the pool and we leave at 6:30 for our 7:40 game. More later..................
Game #2 Stats
Hayes 9-19(but only 2-10 from 3) -3 FTS 23pts 3 assists
Vic 5-9, 3-5 from 3 13 pts. 3 steals 3 assists
Mike 7 boards 3 assists 1 steal 3-5, fg's 3-3 Fts 9 points
Noah 3-6 7-9 ft's 13pts and a Monster dunk down the middle of the lane in traffic
Marc had 5 big points for us on -5 shooting and a great block a couple boards
Christian had a couple baskets a couple blocks and a handful of boards
Zach played solid d and reounded well on both ends.
Game 1. Things started out well I thought this moring guys up at 8:30-9:00 then a hearty breakfast eggs sausage bacon toast milk fruit juice cereal......... we started the game out a bit slow Vic hit 2 threes off the bat the other team a local squad that were giving u 2-3 inches per man matched us shot for shot. We gave them some open threes and they took advantage of our too soft defense. Then in our attempt to pad our resume to work at a bakery, we showed of our ability to make some quick and nice "turnovers" and we just could not make a break from them in the 2nd half. 2nd half started out well and soon we had a nice comfortable lead of 10 points. The we strengthened our bakery application with more TO's. Ended up with around 20 for the game and they were just unforced mental errors for the most part. We were up by 1 with 15 seconds to go we fouled them 35 feet from the basket they hit both FT's our ball 7 seconds to go had a time out but did not want to use it and off we went Hayes with time runing down passe to Vic and missed at the buzzer 0-1. CRAP. Really a game that we should have held on to we had 3-4 critical TO's in the last 2-3 minutes missed opportunities and freebies for the other guys. Tomorrow at 9am.
Zach had perhaps his best game of the year 16 + rebounds, 5 of 8 13 points.
Hayes was 7-14 4-4 Ft's 2-4 3's 20 points 5 asists
Vic 4 of 13 struggled from 3 2-11.
Christian was 2-4 34 blocks 8 rebounds
Mike was 4-6
Tyler drake riley and marc did not play many minutes
We simply had way too many TO's in the worst possible times.
flight 626 is a full one. 6 of the 10 players are on this flight. Tyler comes directly from St Louis, Mike, Drake and Marc on later flights. We are on time and should be in to Vegas less than an hour. It is nice to have access to the internet on the flight!! Upon landing I wil runn off and take the shutle to get the rental Van load up and try to work my magic to check in early to the resort. We have 2 2 bedroom sues for the boys with full kitchens so I will make a grocery run to stock up. Today we check in at tournament HQ and we play tomorrow at 11:40 and then Friday at 9am and 7:40 at night. Then we wil be seeded depending on how we do. Our line up is as follows:
Tyler Sonnemaker 6-7 Post
Christian Parrott from the Boise Idaho area is a 6-9 Post
Noah Kone 6-7 Post
Zach Sweeney 6-7 Post
Mike Moyer 6-3 wing
Hayes Garrity6-2 guard
Drake whitehust 6-6 wing
Victor Aguero 6-0 Guard
Riley Wiggins 6-0 Guard
Marc Eppinger 6-6 wing
I hope to report some good news throughout our stay and will have people (I hope) to keep acurate stats that I can post with results. I am glad the Vegas will a bit cooler as the temp has dropped from 110 yesterday to 108 today and by the weekend should be a chili 106. Darn I only brought shorts. I hope Marc brought his sunscreen!! ( an inside joke)
