Mandatory Basketball Rant - Winter 2022-23 - Week 15

I really thought the winter season was over, I really did.   Then one final tournament appeared out of nowhere and Millie's Freeland team would make one last charge into the abyss before AAU.  

The tournament was boys and girls, grades 4-6.  We're quite familiar with the gym it was held (Maja's played basketball and volleyball there a couple times, but we were surprised that a) the games would be run across the court b) one court had a marked 3-point line, the other did not and c) there was a third gym at the school, with proper markings but about 6 rows of seating in the stands.  

While I don't have Freeland's record against the host, Berwick's team during the Winter season, Millie's school team beat them twice by a combined 76-7 score.  I believe that they retooled since the season ended and their players I remembered did get better. Without a three point line, the girls had trouble gauging their shots and went 1-for-12 to start the game and actually were down 8-2 halfway through the 1st half.  Eventually shots started falling, while other girls turned to driving to the basket, but Berwick's  center kept paced, rebounding anything that came her way, and having an uncanny knack for putbacks that most varsity teams have trouble with.    

The other game was a complete rout, so it came down to a game against Dallas that was an inevitable win, followed by another game against Berwick.  And it was when one of the extra players went of.  

The Freeland team, outside its superstar guest stars this season, is a top-ranked guard, a forward who fouls as hard as she flops, and three local girls with limited time.  But on Sunday, one of the girls, Nadira, went from a solid rebounder and a below average shooter to a a white, short, female Dennis Rodman.  The Sunday morning game she dominated everything that remotely came her way, so against Berwick in the afternoon, she split her time defending against the big girl on the team and the second- biggest girl equally.  The video is sketchy, but I tally 18 rebounds and 6 pounds,  while their bigs were limited to 6 points in a 45-12 rout.  The best news /worst news?  She's only a 5th grader, so she has more time to get better.  

Oh yeah, I had a kid playing in the games, too!  Millie was as sound and relaxed, like she always is around these girls,  She made every type of shot save a dunk and a half-court shot, while scoring double digits against Dallas, and she initiated most of the passing to the three "regular" girls, who got plenty of scoring opportunities and did not back down. 

I could finally take a breather and relax, but we also found out that Millie's AAU team will split away from the normal program tournament schedule for three different weekends.  With the exceptions of Palm Sunday weekend,  Easter Sunday Weekend, and one weekend in May, the next two months of weekends  are completely full.... STARTING NEXT WEEKEND!  WEEE!

Millie got to do tip-off for the finals.  Always fun.

And if that wasn't enough, Maja's basketball banquet was Sunday night!  After a month off, it was nice to see everyone again, celebrate every teams' successes, and grant a proper farewell to the graduating Seniors.  Varsity had a lackluster year that was short on personnel.  Junior Varsity played slightly better, and actually won games with only only five players.  The Junior High girls got mad props for their unexpected success under a first-year and first-time coach, but the majority of the accolades belonged to Maja's Freshmen team.  Her coach, who had also been an assistant coach for Varsity, took extra time to speak to every girl he's coached.  I mean, when the fun exercise to start the banquet was girls randomly getting questions out of plastic eggs, and the Freshmen player who pulled "What was your favorite game?"  and she mentioned the game they LOST, the coach just took that and ran with it. 

I'm trying to be the 8th grade parent to recognize and announce that next year's Freshmen (Class of 2027) will take over Varsity, even with the chaos and regime change that this year's Freshmen (Class of 2026) caused (Recap: Two additional Seniors didn't make it to the banquet because they quit after Christmas... all of the issues caused by the vastly superior play of the '26 Freshmen.) 

The scary thing is, the only girls who might be able to stop the onslaught of the Class of 2026 across the region, is the Class of 2027. May God have mercy on our souls.