559 – and no erosion

It occurred in geography yesterday. The kids were doing coastal erosion. I’m an expert in coastal erosion. I once spent half a term covering a South African geography called Mrs Travellion who provided a constant list of reasons why she hadn’t moved to north west Essex to take up her new position. All we did was coastal erosion. I think that’s all that’s taught in geography. I’m going on a school trip to Walton-on-the-Naze next Friday, they’re studying coastal erosion.

If you look carefully, there’s a basketball post today.

Anyway, it crossed my mind that today is the end of the first half of the year. Technically the middle of the year is July 2, but you get my drift. I then wondered how long my streak of posting at least one load of old bollocks each day. And seeing as day 427 (Feb 28) was Tracy & Luka’s birthday I worked out that today is day 559. The previous record was 558 (I think, there’s been two other 500+ streaks, I’m pretty sure the other was in the 530s).

So I’ve done it. Without realising. Thanks for reading. I will stop soon.

It’s nearly over

Even I’m not insane enough to try running sessions during the summer holiday. And I only run sessions for club members, so by my reckoning we have just three weeks remaining. So, as it’s nearly over, I thought I’d better set up some extra sessions.

We’ve been badgered relentlessly about development sessions from parents whose kids didn’t get through the NBL trials. And that’s despite doubling the number of NBL teams. So I did think when I set up a session for Y7-9 and one for Y5-6, I’d be swamped. I was half right, the older session sold out fairly quickly and now has a waiting list. But the younger session has seen a stream of reasons why the kid can only do one out of three weekends. I’ve reluctantly allowed bookings for single weeks, despite the extra work it causes, but at least one of the weeks will end up being subsidised by the older session. I do wonder what’ll happen when the new season starts and if we’ll be going through this every week, because most of the U-11s I invited are (supposedly) in our main programme. I guess we’ll see.

Tonight sees a pause from Friday Fever for kit night. The evening where everyone moans about their new number. Except Alex because – abuse of power or not – he’s #41. If anyone else at the club has the middle name of Dirk, we’ll discuss. And then give Alex #41. I’ll justify this by the fact in the other half of the gym I’ll be running a chaotic 3×3 session that kids can drop in on when they’ve sorted out the boring stuff.

I won’t make you guess where we’ll be on Sunday. Yep, it’s Oaklands. I can tell you’re shocked.

Cait has a two-hour U-17 training session at midday, during which time I plan to have Sunday lunch. I make no apologies for her missing out. She can’t do basketball and eat lunch at the same time. The U-17 Herts sessions have not been well attended. It looks like they’ll travel to Norwich with only eight players, three of whom wouldn’t have played a proper game of basketball since last year’s tournament and one who’s U-15. 99 Second Girl is at Aspire, where hopefully she’ll get to play, which is a shame as it means Cait will probably end up as centre. When I poked Herts back into life post-Covid I did question whether it was worth doing the U-17s. The boys have more players than they know what to do with, it’s a shame that I could put a list of seven eligible Wolves girls who simply can’t be bothered.

We wrap up the weekend with the East Region U-13B tournament where Tracy and (starving) Cait are on the table while Alex will be chief cheerleader having tasted glory in the A team tournament last week. Naturally, he’ll have his boots in the car. Just in case it’s not over for him yet.

We’re alive. Just

I don’t know how many times I’ve driven down the A10 between the A120 and the A414. I was doing it even before the current A10 existed, back when Ware Rebels and Leopards were separate clubs.

Many (most) of those trips have been for training, and while we never miss training, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we did. And when you do as many miles as I do for basketball, it’s inevitable there will be the occasional technological breakdown. But it was sod’s law that on Wednesday evening as we hurried over to Oaklands for the big game versus American side PBS that I had a blowout at 75mph.

It’s not a great experience, but I’m an expert at this now, though I was going a damned sight slower last time. It happened because of a pothole, I’ll never be able to prove that, but there’s stretches of road around here that are more pothole than smooth surface. Fortunately it was the driver side back tyre, I imagine a 75mph blowout is a lot more scary when you lose steering as well. I guessed before it became really apparent, and my first thought wasn’t how to get off the A10 safely, it was “how the fuck are we going to get to Oaklands?”. I had the kit, the point guard, one of the table officials and the small matter of a daughter already there because she’d had her sixth form induction day. What that says about me is fairly clear.

I don’t know how long we drove down the A10 with a rapidly shredding back tyre. Luckily I had plenty of people hooting me, just to let me know I had a rapidly shredding back tyre. Because it would be easy to miss. I reckon it was about six miles, at around 40mph, it put the trip home in first gear to get another car in the shade.  While I could have pulled over, it would have ended our chances of getting to the game, and frankly sitting on the side of dual carriageway with no real hard shoulder isn’t my idea of fun. I owe the guy who sat behind me at a decent distance with his hazard lights on a drink.

With Tracy on the phone to cab companies, we limped into Wodson Park – everything begins and ends at Wodson Park – to find utter carnage. Netball, fucking netball. It’s haunting me. Hundreds of mummies picking up their daughters from a shit version of the sport I was trying desperately to get to. I really should have taken a picture of the wheel. It was only a wheel by the time we arrived.

With cab companies dead to us, we found a Uber conveniently near and after causing our own carnage by getting him to turn around in the entrance rather than getting in that queue, we left Wodson at 4.27pm. That bit’s genuinely true, the Basketball Gods had rescued us. We arrived at 5.05pm, just five minutes late. This is why I tell players to leave early. Laszlo had a point.

We got lifts from Tall Graham and one of the U-12 player’s dad, Green Flag finally showed up and the car now has the spare on. In the middle we played some basketball. But that’s for another day. I need more tea.

Another word from my reader

More comments from my original reader about my new job.

I had a kid tell me his PE teacher told him you are not allowed to knock the ball out of another players hands……to be fair I can imagine why they do that with younger age groups. However it is just one example of how badly basketball is taught in PE in most schools so it sounds like your school is lucky.
On the rare occasion a PE teacher is actually a basketball player the difference it makes is huge……….

I imagine most basketball in primary schools is taught by teachers who know more about netball. Certainly when Cait’s school won the district competition – and it seems incredible that it was five-and-a-half years ago – only a couple of other school appeared to know the basic rules/fundamentals. The boy Cat made cry by stealing the ball on three straight possessions as we took a 10-0 lead inside the first minute simply didn’t know it was allowed.

Alex told me that his primary school netball teacher – who hated the idea of a basketball club despite me handing her a ready-made netball team who swept all before them – also told him that ripping the ball out the opposition’s hands was against the rules of basketball. Apparently they had a row.

Netball has a lot to answer for.

Ready for the big time

It’s the big one.

Possibly the most prepared for game in the history of Oaklands Wolves.

Forget “must-win” D2 games, or the year before Cait joined when the U-14 girl won the national title.

Never has one game had five warm-up friendlies, and six weeks of practice. If we were to include the history the history of Leopards – and I’m not sure we really can in this instance – it might still be game that has had the most preparation.

It’s Oaklands Wolves U-12 boys versus USA touring side Pro Skills Basketball. Simultaneously we have the U-14s playing their older team, but it’s more business as usual for them, they’ve played together all season although we have nicked Jacob, their giant U-12 who starts for them. We decided to go with players from this season’s development teams (plus Jacob) rather than put the team together after the 23-24 trials. Maybe in hindsight we should have simply gone with next season’s U-13s (plus, well know should know by now), but it would only have been tinkering with it. The key players are playing regardless, although having lost a couple of bigs we’ve had to draft in one – and only one – U-13 player. i got to choose my favourite, though – of course – i don’t have favourites to make us competitive. It’s not as if we’ll be checking passports for their players. In the (highly) unlikely event we blow them out, he’ll sit down.

Even with 5.30pm tips we’re expecting a decent crowd, although that tip time has been a bit of a nightmare to get officials for a pair of simultaneous games. With the possible exception of the three who played in Sunday’s Eastern Region final it might be the biggest game in their career. We have announcements courtesy of Tall Graham and National Anthems before the game. I hope the games are competitive and we have a great night for everyone.

My little champions

My babies are champions of East Region. I can genuinely call them my babies because seven of the Herts U-13 team that won Sunday’s competition have been in the Wolves U-13 Prem team this season. I’ve been with them on the bench for every game, coached them a few times and all of those seven were with me ar Billericay the previous week. I’m so proud of my babies. as Freddie Krueger once said “you are all my children, now”. I just help them with good dreams not bad ones.

This was almost an exclusively Wolves success. As well as my Magnificent Seven, the team had two who have played up in our U-14s and two who will join us next season, as well as both coaches I made a half-hearted attempt to recruit the lone non-Wolf (just to complete the set) but he’s happy where he is. One of the pair joining in September is also one of my babies, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I hear that Byron’s mum tells people that he started playing at Manor Fields with Mr Ryan. He’s done his time with Harlow Hawks and will be bringing his little sister with him for next season. She also had her first ever basketball session with that Mr Ryan bloke. They all come back to Freddie in the end.

Anyway, two groups of three in a rather dusty gym, and with no semi-finals, it was effectively knockout basketball throughout. We sat and watched Essex live up to their title of tournament favourites by comfortably beating Cambridgeshire in the first game. Cambs stayed on to face the Green Machine in the second game, and after a 12-4 first period (eight-minute running clock) Herts never looked back as they ran out 59-30 winners. Alex – the team’s baby – was first off the bench and played reasonable minutes. It’s tough getting 12 players court time in such short games, especially when a loss means your title hopes are (almost certainly) over, and although the coaches might have been a bit over-cautious at times, they did a decent job.

It was effectively a semi-final against Essex, and Herts started well with the first eight points before a complete change of personnel from Essex saw them peg them back to 10-8 at the first break. The second period proved to be a bit of a farce as the scorers again put a Herts’ baskets on the Essex score. I missed the one in the first quarter , but statto Cait saw both (we were sitting at opposite ends of the court) and had the numbers to prove it. But they wouldn’t listen, the scoreboard matched the book because the bloke on the book was looking over to see what the scoreboard said. It shouldn’t be that hard to get the scoreboard correct when you don’t have to worry about the (running) clock. But it was officially 22-13 at half-time, and with the Essex heads clearly dropping in the third period Herts closed out a 46-31 win – though, of course it was actually 50-27. It’s just a good job it wasn’t close. Alex didn’t get on until midway through the third period but he did okay and got reasonable minutes.

Hosts Bedfordshire – who’d won a thriller against Suffolk while we were beating Cambs – awaited us in the final, after the classification games where both teams from our group recorded comfortable wins.

It was a shame that one of the referees decided to try to be the star of the show for this game. No one really came to see him, but Herts never looked in trouble, forcing a timeout after just 70 seconds with a 6-2 lead and going into the first break 26-12 ahead, The teams shared ten second period points before an 18-4 third period ended it as a contest. Alex came up with a massive steal as he forced a jump ball against their best player, and he’d have taken the ball if the ref had given them another three seconds to find out. He got his minutes and a couple of assists, including one to his schoolmate Byron, and we ran out 57-33 winners.

It was a happy bunch who celebrated at the end. There will always be that nagging thought that we should have put Alex’s team in the NBL but they’ve had a good season  and none of those boys have lost a game against a genuine U-13 team (don’t start me about London Elite) all year. How Zac didn’t get tournament MVP is a mystery, it went to a kid from fifth placed Cambridgeshire – a decision that appeared to have been made before the final baffling.

My angst about the lack of semi-finals hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. The suggestion is they drop the third place game (awarding it on over all tournament record), which means that the tournament doesn’t take any longer. The 5/6^th game takes place alongside the final, meaning the court doesn’t sit empty. I heard the Essex coach saying they were the second best team in the competition and it would be have been good to have the chance to play in the final. The fact our group were 3-0 against sides from the other pool helps prove his point.

But my babies are champions. I’m a proud dad.

I’m not sure how this happened

Back on December 31st when I looked back at 2022 I said that I was desperate to get out of my job. Six months later I’ve agreed to be the Y7 girls basketball coach for 2023/24.

These are crazy days.

I’ll admit that the place has grown on me. It’s still a bit mental, but I’ve learned to embrace the craziness and not let it get me down.  Having a lot of PE helps. I’ve done six straight days of it before today’s inset day where I have the joys of a full-day’s first aid court. I even ran the PE department without any PE staff for a couple of days which was interesting to say the least. Getting to know the kids properly certainly makes it easier.

I blame Tor for this. When next year’s head of PE said “are you going to run a club for us?” I didn’t even hesitate before saying I’d take Y7 girls. The two guys are doing fine with the boys, I’ve persuaded them to enter Junior NBA next year, and starting with a new group seems a good way to get things going. Everything I’ve seen with U-14s girls since Covid has terrified me. They won’t be joining us at Oaklands – it’s in the other direction. I still have a stalker so I’ve never mentioned where I work – but if I can get some kids to other clubs will a basic idea of how to play, it’ll be job done.

 

Just one more

I’m still not going to go through the NBL 23/24 line-up line-by-line, it turns out I’m up to three readers and one of them has raised some good point here. It’s genuinely nice when people make proper, constructive comments.

But I couldn’t let the “Under-14 Boys Regional” division pass without comment.

It has four teams. That in itself is useless. Six games isn’t a league season, playing each other four times is better but tedious and still only give 12 games.

All of that might – just might – be okay if the make up of the division wasn’t so terrible. Braintree-Worthing is 120 miles, it’s 120 miles on the way back, as well. Romford-Worthing is 82 miles each way. In junior basketball terms, that is not “regional” in any sense of the word. It’s a lunatic amount of travel in a league that isn’t even viable.

The crazy thing is there’s room for all four teams within the conference structure. A bit of movement in the two East Conferences makes room for Braintree. They went 0-10 last season but they weren’t completely uncompetitive, and there’s worse examples around the junior NBL. Likewise there’s room for Worthing in the division their second team play in. Again neither team were great last, but they went 4-19 combined in games against other sides in 22/23. It’s hard to see why they’ve been effectively relegated when there’s plenty of teams who were worse.

I have no knowledge of Romford HOF, or even what HOF stands for. Google was not my friend, although I don’t think Romford has a Hall of Fame. But as they’re as new club – at least at NBL level – giving them a six-game league schedule or a 12-game one that involves four 164-mile round trips in not the way to introduce them to National League basketball. There’s room for them in the one of the London conferences.

It’s also worth mentioning that bit you get in the financial services ads; Previous performance is not necessarily a guide to the future. Junior teams change every year. The reason for a “national” league at this level is to provide a reasonable amount of reasonably competitive basketball with a reasonable amount of travel. It can’t be this difficult.

I’m confused

I wasn’t happy when Mavs tanked their season to protect their top ten draft pic. If they’d “missed out” on a bottom ten finish, they would have lost their pick to Knicks as part of the Kristaps Porziņģis trade. You might remember the Kristaps Porziņģis trade, it involved Mavs giving up a lot for a guy who never fulfilled his potential.

So, having got that #10 pick and drafted Cason Wallace they then traded him for #12 pic Derek Lively II (not to be confused with Derek Lively, of course) and gave them Davis Bertands to get him off the wage bill. I’ve got to feel for Davis – he’s sort of a fellow Dave – Mavs were so keen to get rid of him they actually traded down and gave him away.

I like Lively, I watched quite a bit of him at Duke. He’s a decent seven footer. But I still wonder if binning last season was worth all of this and if GM Nico Harrison knows what the hell he’s doing. A recent poll showed twice as many Mavs fans would prefer to see (coach) Jason Kidd than Harrison. They’re wrong. The guy hasn’t been a disaster, but he hasn’t been far off it. He drove Rick Carlisle out, the Irving trade hasn’t exactly been a roaring success and there’s been zero improvement he arrived.

Mavs really should’ve gone for the play-offs last season. This wasn’t the plan.

Is the season over yet?

If it wasn’t for the facts that I’m hot enough to  explode and my reward for a week’s PE is a slightly sunburnt nose, I’d wonder if the close-season was really.

Because it’s another mental weekend of basketball.

I started this epistle sitting at Oaklands as my kids had a shootaround before Friday Fever. Attendance was a bit disappointing, I’d restricted it to 24 kids per session. I had 18 in the younger group – including a kid who hadn’t booked or paid (yet) – and 16 in the second. I’m not disillusioned or disheartened. You can lead a horse to water, I can’t make it drink. Our new coach was really good with the first group, Lee Ryan [still no relation] took the older lot and they all got something out of it. You don’t get better sitting at home, whatever the excuse is.

Tomorrow sees a rare situation where I’ll stay at home while Tracy brings them both over for county training. This has something to do with having to buy clothes to attend her backup sixth form induction day, her second choice are a bit on the strict side when it comes to “uniform”. I won’t moan about the cost, if I’ve learned anything from being at Oaklands and basketball in general is to be prepared and have a second option. So I get to sit at home on the afternoon of our wedding anniversary and let Tracy spend four hours in St Albans.

For Cait it’s her second session with the U-17s, who she captained to second place in the East tournament last year, as she skipped the last one due to exams. For Alex it’s the final one for the U-13 A team as they play their tournament on Sunday. He’s delighted to be in the A team. The older kids he plays alongside in the Wolves U-13 all played B team last year.

So we have a fun trip to Bedford on Sunday lunchtime for what are probably the biggest games of Dirk junior’s career. Herts are in the same group as Essex and Cambridgeshire which is a big of a shitter as Essex are normally the strongest in the region – certainly now they’ve stopped handicapping themselves by fielding U-12s in the U-13 tournament , U-14s in the U-15 tournament etc.

It’s going to be a tough ask because there are no semi-finals. If they’d scrapped the bronze game (and just gone on over all record), they could have had a final four stage, still given the bottom side a third game and not used any more time. But, hey, it’s basketball. I’ll even endure a running clock if it delays the close season.