As the AAU season winds down, I must admit, the separate cars/separate lodging situation we've established has a lot more pros than cons. Dividing and conquering the kids when needed has been a great help, although the Lancaster or Philly to home drive solo repeatedly has forced me to stop and take breaks.
With Millie's team done for the season (Her coach had travelled to Italy with her younger brother to watch him play in an international U17 tournament. His US won gold!), this tournament was just Maja's crew. They have been suffering recently with the spate of Showcases and high powered tournaments, most noticeably shooting around 20% in games and letting the highly competent teams run rampant over them. The poor shooting wasn't largely forced by their opponents. Perhaps 1/3 were forced shots, a 1/3 were poor form, and a 1/3 were botched uncontested shots. With a final showcase in July, it was time to work out the kinks in a smaller tournament.
This weekend was crazy, with six girls basketball tournaments spanning southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. By count, those tournaments had 15 pools of eighth grade girls teams, with over 60 teams teams total. No tournament had more than two quality teams, with a lot of underperforming teams from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and even New England filling the spots.
Maja's tournament in King of Prussia was the victim of this large and diluted pool. As schedules were posted, the division was re-categorized as 7/8 girls and it looked like all of the teams were 7th grade!
Regardless, I made great time on Saturday morning and got an elusive parking spot near the door to the facility. After a quick scrum, the girls quickly settled down and did what was expected, shooting over 50% as a team, with only a pair of girls still shooting poorly. They even managed to hit multiple threes on half the attempts from the last few games. There were still a number of unforced turnovers and poor decision making, but it was nice to see balls go into the basket.
The second game in the afternoon was a far feistier, if smaller bunch. The girls were able to score, but it required multiple attempts for routine shots, dropping down to 43% shooting, including 4 of 10 from the 3-point line. It was as close as 15-11, but there was no true threat as they won 50-27.
Millie had gotten a job pet sitting a dog, two rabbits, and feeding live crickets to a gilla monster back home, so volunteered to drive back. Of course, we had true requirements before the drive home. Millie wanted Buffalo Wild Wings... I wanted to drive a half mile in the opposite direction for The Complete Strategist.
Despite them not being on the search results for #FreeRPGDay, they were participating and had the swag laid on on the table. Millie just wanted to chill in the car, so I couldn't double-up my take. I grab Operation: Seaside Park for Starfinder (very convertible in many ways for our Star Wars game. No Skittermanders, but I'll make it work), and well as a Mutant Crawl Classic scenario which may or many not end up in the Gamma World game.
Many chickens died to satiate Millie's appetite, and after twenty minutes of Taylor Swift, she passed out for the rest of the drive, plus an hour after we got home. Once revived from her coma, she did her animal duties, we grabbed ice cream, and ventured down to Sword in the Stone's mall location.
Sword in the Stone must have either ordered multiple kits, or folks were coming in for CCGs only, because I've never seen dice and accessories make it to lunch, much less a half hour before close. Gina from Sword in the Stone was super excited we were there. I grabbed the GI Joe/Transformers item, Millie got the motherload of anything involving cute animals and a set of dice. We then proceeded to spend an hour going through a long box of Magic: the Gathering art cards for her to decorate her binders for school next year. At 10 for $1, I really couldn't argue, and after all the free swag, this little project sent her over the moon.
It was, dare I say, a nearly perfect day.
Sunday we woke up early so Millie could deal with her animals, and we got back to KoP with plenty of time, and a primo parking spot.
After a positive Saturday and an automatic entry into the championship, Maja's team fell back into old habits in the final pool game. They dropped to 22% field goal percentage, Maja not helping going 0-for-2, but playing a younger team meant more rebounds and second chances for the centers.
At noon, the team played their first opponent in the championship, jumped to a 14-2 lead, got up to 48-8 at half-time, then coasted in the second half, winning 45-19 and never looked back. A couple girls started strong and had a lackluster second half, but the bench was on fire, and ball movement was vastly improved.
After getting all the medals and customary photos, we found ourselves dashing to a back court with only a very cryptic.... "Millie is playing!" Lo, and behold, she was wearing someone else's shoes, wearing a different jersey, and playing in a 4th grade game against a girl who was easily 8 inches taller than her! I'm not a fan of putting ringers on teams, simply because "Everybody else does it," but between the impotent rules for questioning players ages, and the fact that this girl was taller than most of the 6th graders she played against, I wasn't going to protest.
Millie had two jobs. Act as a pure point guard on offense, and guard against the big girl on defense. The big girl only had 4 points in the game, and Millie dominated the boards against her.
Offensively, it was magical. Millie showed the girls how to be a proper point guard by example. Every pass was smart, crisp, in the right position, and to my initial surprise and glee, the girls were catching them and doing something, keeping the game close. I think she took six shots total, scoring six points, but girls kept it close until the last minute. For a team, that only won one game before this tournament, it was amazing what they did with Millie as a catalyst. The coach lavished praise to her for her leadership skills, as we realized, another one of her 6th grade teammates had filled her role in the same match-up on Saturday, but dominated everything offensively and defensively, making it more of a highlight real for herself, than the actual girls on the team.
An even higher point. Two of the girls are part of our school district, so they probably won't play with Millie again until she's a Junior and their Freshmen, but it was fun to see some chemistry between them. The future is bright.
So, this is the last AAU update for the season. Maja has officially decided not to attend the four-day Showcase in Atlantic City in July, so she can attend Historicon with me! Looks like I'll be picking her up from her Sunday-Wednesday basketball camp in Kutztown and heading down.
School Summer Ball: I didn't cover much last year, so I'll keep it simple. With all the changes and drama with coaching changes, the kids are like ducks. Maja's right in the mix for both JV and Varsity playing time, and while Millie's arrival into Junior High ball isn't the second coming, comments from other parents make it feel that way, both JV and JH are undefeated, with Junior High playing the elite Dallas team this week. My Monday and Tuesday nights are full until August.
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