Champions!!!!

Last night, the Westgate JV Basketball team became immortals as they lay claim to their AAA League Title. The Westgate Wings took on the St Norbert Celtics at St Norbert (took place 2 mins from my house!). SNC has had our number going 3-0 this year. Each game had been close and chippy for the most part. Each team so different in styles almost made it like Good Vs Evil (not to say that they are actually evil). SNC has a cocky, streetball style to them while Westgate is more team oriented. Earlier on Thursday, I told someone that I wanted to win so bad for the boys. That winning tonight would be like Good overcoming Evil. I told my guys before the game that believing in what we stood for as a team and honouring those values on and off the floor, made us a champions no matter if we won or lost the game. I told them that it would just be sweeter if we won!

We had made a couple of adjustments that we thought about after our second game against them. First we stayed with pressing full court against them. We had not pressed after the first game to try and cut back on the lay ups given up. However, instead of using the press to cause turnovers, we used it to slow them down and give them less time to run their offense. We noticed that they are pretty patient and when their initial looks breaks down; their coach would start yelling out what to do. I thought that by getting into the offence late, it would give less time for their coach to give them directions.

After 35+ turnovers the first game, we modified our press break to put a post in the middle of the press and a guard up the floor. We had a bit of success in our last game against them when we went to a smaller line up in our last game. The guard up the floor was able to catch and attack better. It lead to 3 or 4 lay ups and they actually stopped pressing us. We hoped that our posts were able to just catch and reverse the ball and not try and bring it up.

The last adjustment and probably the most important one was playing a 2-3 zone for the entire game. For those of you that don't know me as a coach, I have said on many times that I am not good teacher of zone defences so I don't usually play them. Our zone defence was actually introduced in order to work on zone offense in which teams usually switched to because we are too fast and too big for most teams. Most of their offense comes from dribble penetration. Our theory was that if we could stop them from getting in the key, their shooters won't get as open. Playing zone also kept our big guys in the key instead of out on the wing. We tried this in the 4th quarter in the last game and it actually slowed them down quite a bit. We thought that these three adjustments would allow us to control tempo and allow our size to make a difference.

Before the game I got a great omen. I don't usually talk to the other coaches before the games, I like to keep my game face on and focus. Before the game the St Norbert coach came up to me and started talking to me. He was telling me how parents of his players liked how we were competitive with them and gave them good games. Ya thanks buddy. He kept talking about whoever wins between us is great and then it hit me! I realized that he was scared and now I had a edge on him mentally! This was great, I knew good things would soon come...but not like this.

In front of a packed crowd, The Wings came out flying out of the gates, literally. They played as best a team can play in a championship game. We started out scoring at will and were up by 10 at the end of the quarter. They didn't press us which I thought was weird but now they would have to because we're up. Sure enough, they pressed us in the second. After turning the ball over the first 2 times, we gave them false hope that it would work on us again. After a timeout to review the press break, we came out and delivered an early knock out blow. We broke the press with ease and also ended up with lay ups at the end of it. Having either one of our 2 best players catch up the floor had the defence at their mercy. Not only were they making lay ups but when we missed, we had our bigs trailing for put backs. Our lead which went down to 5 at one point shot right up to 20 and the noise in the crowd made it sound like a home game.




In the locker room up 20, what could I say to these guys? Normally I'd talk about the game being 0-0 and we would have to re-establish ourselves, blah, blah, blah. I was just so pumped. I walked in last to a roaring locker room and when I got their attention, I yelled out "is this game over?" "NO!" "Do we want to win by more???" "Yes!" "Now let's go out there and pound them! And then we will take our rightful place on top of the league!!!!! "1-2-3-TEAM!"

SNC started out the 3rd hitting a pair of 3's right away and they were starting to get a bit of momentum. The lead would get down to 12ish but big time plays and shots were made by everyone would keep the lead at 15 going into the 4th. We had talked about them making a push and we had to weather the storm earlier in the quarter in a timeout. Going into the 4th, I heard guys yelling at each other that it was our time to push back and lets push harder. They wanted to keep the foot on the gas. The last thing I told everyone in that timeout "by no means should anyone think for one second that we might lose this game because WE AREN'T". The look they showed me after that comment let me know that it was over. We weren't going to lose.

The fourth showcased our depth and talent (if people didn't already know). We scored in every which way possible with everyone chipping in. Turnovers were kept to a minimum and frustration had totally set in. You could tell because when they scored, it sounded like cheers of false hope and short lived. We answered every last bit of effort. It would take a lot of work for them to score and then we would make a play for an easy lay up or a wide open 3.

With just a few mins left, hugs and congratulations were going around the bench and we knew it was just a matter of time. We stood and clapped for the last minute and as we counted down to zero, the guys ran out and cheered. It took a second for it to kick in but then I was right in there jumping around with the team. We did our pregame jumping around yelling "OOOOOOOOOOOO.....1-2-3-TEAM!" After getting our ribbons and taking some pics we got back into the locker room. A really quick recap of the game ended with "you have all just become immortals under the new title of CHAMPIONS!!!" And we all yelled out "CHAMPIONS!!!!". After yelling that a few more times, we had our team prayer for all of our blessings this season.

It was a moment in time that will live on with me forever. I can't describe how happy I was for these young men. This is why I coach. I am so proud of those young men, they believed in me and I in them and they let me have the best seat in the house and took me for a wild ride. I told those guys that I love them and there wasn't anyone that could take this moment from any of us. In the past I probably would have shed a few tears but tonight was different. All I could feel was how happy and proud I was of the team. There would be no tears only cheers. "CHAMPIONS!!!!"