Today I was part of my first ever match. I was a player/coach for PJB as we played the Goma Bulls. The league here in Goma is interesting because they don’t really have leagues for teenagers. It is like a regular adult league and there is a veteran’s league for the old guys. Anyway, from the kids I am training I will be selecting four teams: two boys and two girls. These teams will be playing in a league with adult players both men and women, so out teams will be teenagers in a league full of adults.
Anyway, today was my first taste of Goma’s basketball league. We had a match against the best team in Goma, the Goma Bulls. Early at 7 AM we arrived at the basketball court for the 8 AM game. Even though the game was set for 8 AM, we are in Africa, so the Bulls didn’t show up until about 8:10 then had to warm up. So we ended up having like a 40 minute warm up. I was exhausted before the game even started. Goma is at a higher elevation than the Midwest, so it has been hard for me to breathe when I do anything active.
We were playing with PJB's founder, my boss, Dario, a PJB graduate who is 24 named Tchitchi, and a two Congolese brothers from the US named Adler and Christian, along with about eight of the boys that we are training for the regular season. We jumped out playing very well and led at the end of the first by about 12 points. The tempo of the game was very fast paced with most of the points coming off fast break lay-ups. The players in Goma have little to no fundamentals, but they are really good athletes.
The second quarter the Bulls began to come back. This was due to the fact that they had three guys about 6’5” and they were pulling down every rebound. Even their big guys are fast and can jump high. One thing that I love about the way they play here is that they go after the ball on the glass. Everyone crashes the boards hard, and they make sure that no one else gets the rebound except them. It makes for a very physical game, but that is the attitude you need to be a great rebounder. So their big guys really hurt us by pulling down the rebounds which led them to some fast breaks.
At half time we were up about 7 points. The second half was rough for us. We seemed to be very tired and looked beat up as a team. They had bigger guards and bigger forwards than us and they were just playing very scrappy. They scored a lot of fast brake points in the third and fourth to pull the game to a one-point advantage for them with about 2 minutes to go in the game. It was at this point that I called time out. I told the team that we had to control the ball. We had to slow the pace of the game and even though we are down we only should take a wide-open lay-up. As we slowed the ball down and passed it around we exposed the defense a lot. Within 15 seconds we had a wide-open lay-up to go up by one. The Bulls called a timeout, and so this time I stressed defense. They were terrible shooters and not great ball handlers, so we decided to pressure the ball handler with the point guard and then pack the paint with the rest of the guys. The other coaches also decided to put me in at this point. So we packed the paint, and our point guard forced them to take a contested three, and an air ball led to a fast break lay-up for us. Up 3. Next possession for them we trapped them at half court and got a steal and then slowed the ball down. We swung the ball around for about 30 seconds and got another wide-open jump shot and our guard, Jerry, knocked it down. We were up 5 with about 20 seconds to go so we just packed the paint and let the clock run out.
We won the game, which was huge for PJB to beat the best men’s team in Goma. It also goes to show people that slow, controlled fundamental basketball is essential when a fast paced up and down game gets out of hand. It was a great day and a great experience. It also taught me a lot about what I need to focus my training on for the kids so that they can learn the right way to play the game.
Here are a couple pictures from girls practice:
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