A defensive gem

Last night, we beat Central Noble 66-27.

I have been coaching high school basketball for nearly 25 years. In all that time, I have never had a team come out and dominate defensively the way we did last night. Maybe I should temper my enthusiasm a little bit, but it's hard after witnessing what I did last night. It was a total team effort and mostly in the half-court. It was against a team that came into the game with a 10-5 record and a reputation for being a disciplined, ball-control squad. There was no special emphasis on any single player. In fact, I let the girls sort out their matchups before the opening tip. Then, we just exploded on them.

By halftime, the score was 36-5 and our fans were grumbling about another boring game against another substandard opponent. What they don't understand is that they were watching a brilliant game against a very solid and competitive team. We just made it look bad, something that is actually a stated goal of ours. My dad's Columbia City teams play some great defense, so it was nice that he was on hand last night to give his seal of approval on our effort. I never believe that we have played our best game (yet), but I'm not sure how we might have improved on what we did last night defensively. We also were solid at the offensive end and in transition, but the swarming, trapping, harassing defense we played last night was clinic-grade. Replicating it will be tough, but once it happens, it should be much easier to reach that plateau again. I'd like to see it about 14 more times.