Reflection: Singapore Tournament

Now that some time has past since the Singapore tournament, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on a solid weekend of Select basketball.  It is never easy going on the road and playing a tournament, and it is even more difficult flying to a different country to compete. Even though we are disappointed in our second place finish, we have nothing to hang our heads about.  Here are some negatives and positives from the tournament. 

NEGATIVES 

Missed Opportunities – Its tough to look back and see how many missed chances we had throughout the tournament. Obviously the missed opportunities in our two losses are easiest to recognize.  But how about the missed plays from our wins?  Do we all think we played great games in our wins over the Spurs, Dubai (twice), Indonesia, and Thailand?  Even in our biggest wins we made a ton of mental and physical mistakes.  Its important to reflect and be honest with yourself about how you played and use it as a tool going forward.  If you made a mental mistake any time throughout the tournament (ex: not knowing what defense we are in, not knowing how much time is left in the game, stepping on the line during an inbounds pass) you should turn that mistake into a positive.  Tell yourself “I am not going to make the same mistake twice”.  Too many times we had the same player being repeat offenders of the same mistake. And the same thing goes for physical mistakes (ex: missed layups, poor foul shooting, improper positioning on defense).  Use those mistakes as motivation at the next practice or game, and try to get better from your mistakes. 

Team Conditioning– For some reason it seamed that we were the less conditioned team.  That may be due to the fact that it was our first game/tournament of the year, but it is still no excuse.  In our 3 closest games of the tournament (Singapore 1st round, Dubai semifinals, Singapore finals) we looked like the team that was more physically exhausted. We need to prepare ourselves for hard fought games.  The only way we will be prepared to play at a high level is to practice at a high level.  Since the tournament I think we can all agree that practice has been a little bit more serious and we have been conditioning more.   

POSITIVES

We never quit – One of the best things a coach can say about his team is that they never quit.  There was plenty of times throughout the tournament when we could have folded (ex: first game against Stingers going down double digits in first half, Semi finals against Dubai, Finals against Stingers when they started the game on a 13-2 run).  But we never gave up.  We trusted each other and kept listening to the coaches.  We showed great heart and played hard to the last whistle.  This is a great quality that not all teams have, and this will be the foundation of our program going forward. 

Players stepped up.  It always great when you see players make big plays in big moments.  Sometimes those plays come from your star player and other times it comes from someone you don’t expect it to.  Yes, sometimes these plays are huge momentum changers throughout the game, but the can also be subtle plays that might go unnoticed by most.  Here are just a few plays or situations off the top of my head where our guys stepped up 

    Devan coming back from injury in the finals and making big plays in the second half

    Jeff making a baseline jumper in the closing minutes of our semifinal win

    Jet getting every big rebound throughout the tournament

    James playing lock down defense against Dubai and Singapore

    Jon coming off the bench and playing great in our first game against the Stingers

    Nick Wong making multiple big shots 

    Nick P making an amazing bounce pass to a cutting Zach for a layup

    Cole recognizing a mismatch and posting up a guard for a layup

    Stuart playing great lock off defense against the Thailand team

    Tyler making a great pass to a cutting teammate as he is falling

    Ethan hustling for loose balls and communicating on defense

    Harry making big shots in the finals

Every player contributed to our team throughout the weekend which is amazing to see.  We need to learn from our negatives and build off of our positives.

Its easy to go back after a game and say to yourself “what if?”.  What if we made more layups?  What if we shot better from the foul line? What if we communicated better on defense? All of those things played a huge rule in the outcome of the weekend and can be easily fixed.  There is no changing the outcome of our second place finish,  but what we can fix is how we prepare in the future.  We have to start focusing more in practice.  We have to start working on our game outside of Select practice. And we have to continue to stay positive.  Nothing in life comes easy.  We have to work for everything that we want.  Hopefully we take everything we learned from Singapore and use it as motivation for us going forward.

Coach Ryan