Today was the first loss that we have had as a PJB elite team, which puts us now at 2-1. It was somewhat of a bummer, but under the circumstances, we learned a lot. Early in the morning at 7 o clock we met at circle sportif (our home court) and set off for Gisyeni, Rwanda. Gisenyi is a beautiful tourist town that borders Goma on the Rwanda side. It is about 5 Km from our court. We had a group of 12 players and a couple boys and girls that wanted to come watch, so we had a big group, but had no transportation. Luckily two of our elite players have a huge Lexus SUV, so we were able to drive most of the team to and across the border and to the basketball court. One of the coaches and the people coming to watch ended up walking or taking public transport to the court in Gisenyi.
The court we played at was out from of a church, and kind of reminded me of the old SIS soccer field. It had two outdoor courts, and a dirt/gravel soccer pitch. Anyway, the court was horrible. It was small, the rims were each bent to about 9.5 feet and there were dirt and water patches all over the ground. The other team’s coach suggested we move courts, but the team from Gisenyi didn’t want to. It turned out to be great for them as it gave them an incredible home court advantage.
Nothing against their team… they had great size and jumping ability. Had about 4 or 5 guys between 6’5-6’8. We should have beat them though. Right from the tip off I knew we were in trouble. Our guys were slipping all over the place and had trouble judging the way that the ball would come off the rim. They were getting every rebound and scoring all off of fast breaks. They also played a zone, and the first couple trips down our team had no idea what to do against it. It was like we were trying to deflate the ball we were dribbling it so much. We had no ball movement. Yet, we kept the game close, and after the 1st quarter (the time guy didn’t understand how to stop the clock, so it was a very short quarter) we were only down about 2 or 4 points.
The second quarter was much of the same. A very short quarter again and just completely unorganized fast break crap. It would have made any coach in America sick to watch. So the first half ended in almost exactly 20 minutes and we were down about 4. The third quarter is when they began to blow us out. I cant really recall how it happened, but all of the sudden we were down 14 points and my assistant coach was taking a jersey from one of the players that wasn’t going to see action, so that he could get in the game. Our guys were playing without any knowledge of the game, so us coaches felt like we needed to get in to show them how to work a zone, get back on defense, and be patient. After that though it was between a 7 and 15 point game the rest of the game. It also wasn’t due to Gisenyi’s dominance. Instead I feel like we beat ourselves. Our defense was horrible, and our offense was even worse. I wish I could have put it to the guys as clearly as the speaker at Brent’s 2005 APAC when the principle (atleast I think that’s who it was) told us bluntly, “when in doubt… shoot the ball.”
A guy told me after the game, its ok because if you win all the time you get to happy and forget about basketball. When you lose you are able to take a step back and evaluate and learn more about basketball, your teammates, and your strategy as a whole. As a coach I try to take that step back in a win as well, but it is just easier for some reason to do it after a loss. When things go wrong is usually when you see people evaluating situations, but when everything goes right you usually see people just riding along with no evaluation of what is going on. I think it is always important to step back in all situations, good and bad, and evaluate and learn from each of the situations. This is the way you grow, either as a team or an individual.
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