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.