Game added

We left the date of Dec. 12 on our schedule as an open date hoping to find an opponent. Luckily we have. However, instead of Dec. 12, we will be playing on Dec. 14 at McKinney. All three teams will be playing beginning with the freshmen at 4:30.

We faced McKinney in the area round of the playoffs last year and were able to get away with a win. They have a great program and it should be a good matchup. I'm pleased that we not only were able to fill the open date, but that we found such a quality opponent.

Frisco Tournament update

We were scheduled to play Denton Ryan today at 5:30 at Centennial High School in the opening round of the Frisco Tournament. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and all of the first round games were postponed. We will instead play on Friday, same time, location and opponent. We will play twice on Saturday, hopefully on the winners side of the bracket. The tournament bracket and directions can be found on our PISD website by clicking on the Paris Wildcat Basketball Link.

Idabel recap

We played Idabel, OK on 11/28 and were able to win 61-34.

We played much better than we've played all year. Very few turnovers, better shots, and a great defensive effort. We will get to play Idabel again in a couple of weeks at their place, and I can assure you they will be much, much better. Their game with us was their first of the season, and they will improve with time and playing games just like we have and will continue to do.

We are starting to play better as a whole in all phases of the game, but now need to start "tweaking" things here and there. For example earlier in the year we weren't' in very good position on the helpside and weren't always seeing the ball. Now we are often in position, but don't' always see the ball. We have to get to where we are ALWAYS in position and ALWAYS see the ball to be successful. Likewise we have to do a better job of finding open teammates. We are looking, just not at the right time and not always seeing it as it is happening. Sometimes we try to make the right play but wait to long and by the time the ball is there that guy isn't open anymore.

Its the small things that will win big games.

Terrell game

We were able to pull out a 54-52 victory on Friday at home against Terrell. It was a great win for a lot of reasons.

First of all, Terrell is a perennial power in our region. They have a great scorer/shooter in Antwain Thomas and a really good post player in Brandon Webb. Webb has been committed to the University of Texas at Arlington since his sophomore year, and they are getting a good player in him.

Two years ago we played Terrell three times and they beat us all three times. Last year we won both matchups. Friday was our chance to even the score and we were able to do so.

We had a lot of kids step up and play well. Defensively we were as good as we have been so far this year, and we were able to cut down on our turnovers. Those two things really helped us win the game. The stat of the game however was free throws. We were 11-19, Terrell was 13-13. Of our 8 misses, 5 came in the third quarter. However that was also our best defensive quarter so it sort of evened out.

The score was tied 52-52 and they had the ball with 12 seconds left. We got a steal and the ball back with 4 seconds left in front of our bench and called timeout to set something up. The kids executed it perfectly and we were able to get an easy shot as the buzzer went off for the win. A lot of people have asked me if it was something that we just drew up on the fly during that timeout. It was actually something we have in our system but haven't been unable to put it in yet. During the timeout we just reviewed it and went over options. It wasn't designed for any one specific thing to happen, but to hopefully draw defenders were we want them and put our guys in a position so that whoever got the ball could drive and make a play. That's exactly what happened and the kids did a great job of executing when the game was on the line.

First home win

We opened at home on Nov. 20 with a 74-69 win against Pittsburg. They are the #8 ranked team in AAA and deservedly so. This game was important because it was at home and we expect to win all of our games at home. A few notes:

They have two of the best guards we have ever played against.

We out rebounded them by a large margin, which is something we need to do every time we play

We gave up 69 points, which won't win us many games down the road in district. However I think it is more indicative of the turnovers we had that led to easy points for them rather than our lack of defense. Make no mistake, we have to get better defensively, but our biggest deficiency right now is making too many turnovers.

All in all it was a win and we will take it, but we just have to get better. We play them again on Jan. 5 in Pittsburg and that will be a good "measuring stick" to see how much we have improved in that span of time.

Tough loss

We took one on the chin last Friday at Sherman, 88-59.

They are a very talented team with a deep bench and do a lot of things well. They will probably win their district again and be a contender in the playoffs. It was a very physical game and we weren't ready to play at that level yet, but we will be. Even their coach, who is a friend of mine, told me after the game that a month from now it would be a much different story, and I think he is right. However it is over and behind us, and we will learn from it and move on.

We played them last year at the same time at their place and the same thing happened, and we bounced back after that game and continued to improve. I am confident that we will do the same this year.

Not a bad way to start the season

We have our first game and our first win under our belt. However, by no means was it in any way pretty. In fact it was pretty ugly. But again, that's to be expected.

I told the team I had three goals for them for the first game:

1. Play hard 2. Compete for 32 minutes 3. Play together

Without question we accomplished those three things. We also got to overcome a little adversity early on (foul trouble, missed free throws that kept the score close) and it was good to see that we could overcome it.

Several of the guys were disappointed in their performance as if they had let the team down by not being on top of their game. I had to keep reminding them when it was over, and even the day after, of the circumstances surrounding this game that mad e it tough to play in, including guys fresh from football, only one one-hour practice as a team, a road game on a Tuesday night with officiating to match, two starters in foul trouble all night, not being anywhere we need to be defensively to be successful, missed free throws due to lack of practice, and not rebounding well at all. Despite all of that we still won by 19. That is a very promising start to the year and tells me that if we can win a game like that under those circumstance, once we get some practice time on the floor and figure things out we will have a chance to be really good.

Second scrimmage results

A few notes -

We improved a lot from Thursday to Saturday

We are close to being in competition shape, but the football guys will probably have to catch up in this category

We played well at times and not so well at times, especially against full court pressure

Denison has some really good guards

Southlake Carroll can hurt you in a lot of different ways

We still have a long way to gobut that's ok.

scrimmage results

I was very pleased, for the most part, with the results of our scrimmage yesterday against Hugo and Princeton. A few notes:

Hugo will be a lot better once they get their kids from the football playoffs.

Princeton is a very good basketball team. Pre-season ranked #10 in 3A, they have all of their kids and will be a force in their district and region.

We are a lot farther along defensively than I expected.

We are a little bit better offensively than I expected.

Our performance declined in direct proportion to our increase in fatigue as the scrimmage went on.

All in all I considered it a success because we played very hard and tried to do the things that we know we have to do.

Great practice

Today, for the first time in a long time, we had 10 healthy guys at practice and were able to get some things done. Mondays are always hard and usually it is a sluggish practice. However today was different. It didn't start great, but it only took about 10 minutes to shake the cobwebs off and really start to show some intensity and focus. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow.

We will scrimmage Hugo and Princeton on Thursday at Paris High beginning at 5:00.

New NBA basketball

There's been a lot of discussion about the new NBA ball. Some like it, most don't. They say that it feels "new" all the time, meaning it's much easier to play with a ball that has been broken in and played with.

One thing that I think everyone can agree on is that it is really ugly.

Less than a week

We are now less than one week away from competing against other teams in scrimmages and games. It's time, because frankly I think these guys are tired of beating up on each other! We've had to take it easy in practices for a couple of days due to illness, injuries, etc., but will get back into full swing soon. The guys are very much looking forward to the scrimmages and upcoming games, and so am I.

Big game

Tonight our football team will take on the Mt. Pleasant Tigers in Mt. Pleasant. A lot is riding on this game because it has playoff implications - we win and we're in. There's nothing more exciting than big games and playoffs. I'm looking forward to a big playoff run so those guys that come over to basketball will do so on a high note and with a lot of confidence and winning experience.