Thursday, Dec. 21, 2000
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts and Catholic Schools extending invitation to their Christmas Tournaments"
I got a call a couple of weeks before Christmas from my friend Kenny Darst, the basketball coach at St. Lawrence. He wanted to know if Berkeley’s Middle Division basketball team would be interested in participating in a Christian basketball tournament over the holidays. All the best Catholic schools would be there. Since we did not have a game scheduled for four weeks due to exams and Christmas break, I said sure.
Berkeley’s coach, Randy Dagostino, had already made plans to be out of town over the Christmas break, so I volunteered to be the substitute coach.
I asked Kenny who the better teams were in the tournament. He said St. Lawrence had won the CYAA (Catholic Youth Athletic Association) league for the last several years and that some of his better players were playing for Jesuit and Tampa Catholic this year. He also said that Villa Madonna was always tough since they played AAU (club basketball) ball year round. He made it clear that both these teams would be in the upper bracket.
“So who else is good this year,” I asked. Most Holy Redeemer was having a good year beating both St. Lawrence and Villa earlier this season. And who plays MHR in the first round ?
“Well YOU do !!” replied my friend Kenny. They really stuck it to the little preppy school.
“But after the first round the four of you will have nice match ups down there (loser's bracket) and we will match up very nicely up here (winner's bracket),” he added.
Thanks !!
Well I know a little about these Catholic schools, and they like to press and play man-to-man defense. So the first thing we did was call for a Sat. practice in the middle of exam weeks. We spent the entire practice going over the press break and man-to-man offense until we were as ready as we could be.
When we got to the gym, the University Church of God, one block off the interstate with the big neon lights, I knew we were in for a treat. It was an old gym with a track up high. The backboards were hanging by wires from the ceiling and the rims were old and one was badly bent. The floor was slippery and the gym was cold.
We watched St. Lawrence and Villa Madonna destroy those other lambs in the first two games. Sure enough they pressed and played a wild man-to-man all out defense, fast breaking at every opportunity. Even when up by 20 points! The second teams off the bench were as good or even more hungry then the starters. Thank goodness for the 25 point rule (once a team is up by 25 points they can not full-court press any longer), but that did not stop them from a half-court press. The gym was full of proud parents, and I'm sure the Bishop was smiling somewhere not far away.
Then it was our turn. I had gotten an inspiration at 2 am the night before. In the locker room before the big game I asked the boys, what does Berkeley have that none of the other teams have ?
“Money!” one kid yelled.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” said another.
I asked if anyone else had to go. THEY ALL went. Even my son, Austin, who was keeping the scorebook had to go. I asked again, what does Berkeley have that the other teams did not ? I ripped off my top shirt to reveal a second shirt that read "Berkeley
Football". That is right, we have football and those other wimpy schools do not.
“Who played football this year ?” All the hands went up.
“Ok then, when they push us, we push them back. If they elbow us, we elbow back. If nothing else, I want you to foul out playing your hardest.” Now they were fired up!
While in the hallway, I ran into the other coach (also a player’s dad) and asked which bench he was using. He said he did not know. I asked for the bench in front of our parents. (This also happened to be the bench in front of the bent rim and in basketball you always start the game with the basket away your bench.) It worked. The other coach let me have the bench I wanted and our team got the good rim to start the game.
I had already told Brandon to line up on the foul line to play defense on the opening tap knowing that the Catholic school would have a play off the jump ball. Sure enough they did and Brandon was able to stop their 3-on-one fast break. We got the ball and scored. They again missed on their next possession, and we scored. I could not believe it. We were ahead 4-0 against the number one seed.
When they finally did score, they put on a 2-2-1 full court press and our guys beat it calmly just like we had practice the Saturday before.
The game went back and forth. It was a hard fought battle. The refs called a "double foul" on our big guy and their big guy. Just what I wanted, we were not backing down!
I had to call several time outs in the first half to let our boys catch their breath and settle them down.
Austin, our scorekeeper, even got us 2 more points at halftime since the clock-keeper had the wrong score. That put us up by 6 at half time. I could not believe it! Our worst problem was that Brandon had 3 fouls and they kept driving the baseline for easy lay-ups.
The second half was more of the same. Full court press and man-to-man defense on us. We had started in a 1-2-2 zone defense, but I decided to try the 1-3-1 that had worked so well in other games against weaker teams in our smaller gym. Well, they ripped our 1-3-1 apart and we quickly had to go back to our 1-2-2. Brandon picked up his 4th foul on a stupid reach in foul.
Going into the 4th quarter, I knew we had a chance to win this game. Our point guard was playing the game of his life. I could see that the full court press was wearing on their players more than ours. Their coach was calling time-outs and screaming at his players. The boy that went in for Brandon was doing ok. Our big guy was hanging in there, picking up his 2 and 3rd foul, but not giving up easy points. But we were losing the battle of the boards.
I asked the other kids on the bench if they wanted to win or play. They said they wanted to win. So I had to put Brandon back in and decided to go back into a tight 2-3 zone, hoping they would miss their outside shots and we could get the boards
On offense we were running a high 4 where the wing man pick for our point guard who then drives around and goes to the hoop dumping to the big man if help defense came. It worked.
Then Brandon picked up his 5th diving on the floor for a loose ball. I went nuts. I could not believe that the ref had called the 5th when no one had possession of the ball. I was discussing (yelling) this with the ref when Brandon walked by me and said something back at the ref. That snapped me out of it, and I told Brandon to sit down and shut up. That probably saved me from getting a "T", which would have meant two more free throws for the other team as well as their possession after the shots, a possible 6 POINT turn around.
Well, we hit the one-on-one free throws down the stretch and they missed their 3-point shots. We won. I could not believe it. Our kids went crazy and the parents came running over and everyone was hugging and high-fiving. What a WAR !!
Afterwards, the team decided to spend the night at one of boy's beach house (Berkeley does have the money), and I asked Austin where he wanted to eat dinner. He said "a sports restaurant". That is what we call the pub for Mom. How could I just sit there while Austin played video games? We stopped at 10 p.m. to pick up an old friend, ex-basketball player, now pastor of small church to share a beer and retell the stories. As my friend and I talked and Austin played his games, I thought that this was a perfect end to a perfect day.
