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Monday, January 10, 2011

The return of Monday morning quarterback

Things are never good when you lose to the Clippers.
 Not a good Sunday if you were a Bay Area basketball and hockey fan, who went down to Southern California, to watch your teams get pooped on.

When you lose to the Clippers, let alone by double digits, you have problems.

Another problem is not being able to score goals, and the Sharks were shutout once again, the second time in three games. And in their other game, they scored one goal. Lots of struggling going on for the local hockey team this year.

But on a more positive note, St. Mary's collected 6 wins this weekend, and only one loss, and all of the teams that won have set themselves up nicely for a playoff run.

In CYO, every game is important in the 8 game schedule and you cannot afford to take any games off.

Let's go around the school.

Red Team
If you haven't gone to a Red Team game this year, or ever for that matter, it is the place to be. They play an exciting brand of basketball, and are the best 8th grade team since 2007, when that 8th grade team won the championship.

They play in such a competitive division that every game is going to be close, as it was on Saturday.

In the end Miles came through big with a St. Mary's modern day record high of 33 points. Someone posted on Facebook a kid named David Wu scored 40 points one year. I've never heard of him, so if someone can confirm for me this person exists and also scored 40 points, that'd be great. Otherwise, Miles holds the all-time high to my knowledge.

Two things that stood out from Saturday's contest was the play of David (DeMarillac) and Michael Ng. David chased down a lot of loose balls, and just has a good feel for the game of basketball, even though he has played less than 5 total games. Without him, they probably don't win this game.

Michael Ng, who has had his shortcomings on the defensive end, especially being out of position on rebounds and lack of boxing out, turned it around in the second half. Hopefully this will continue, because defense is half the battle.

White Team
Two games, two blowout wins.

In such a weak division, the White Team has almost assuredly already locked up a playoff berth. Now, it will be how they play the rest of the way, which sets them up for the playoff game, and then hopefully the championship.

Do know this -- It's great Mark is scoring in bunches. Some even go as far as accusing him of being a ball hog, which in my opinion, isn't a fair critique.

A lot of times, there will be no better shot than what Mark takes because nobody else on the team can create their own shot off the dribble.

Can Mark do a better job of setting up his teammates? Yes. But his teammates need to do that by getting open and moving without the ball.

Case and point. Gavin Lin has been doing that as of late and has scored a few points recently running the lanes in the fast break. If everyone starts to get open, other team's will soon crowd Mark, and leave others open. If they can get contributions from everyone else, they will be dangerous come February.

Calson has also played pretty strong as of late, ditching the brutal soccer throw-in shot, and putting it back strong with a more traditional big man type maneuver.

6th grade
And back to .500.

How many more teams can a team get chewed out? It's tough, because the 6th graders play in a competitive division and their margin of error is very slim.

Part of the problem as I see it is that they are just physically outmatched right now. Some of the players on the team are simply too small and get the ball taken away from them so easily. Also, some of the players on the team can't even put up shots anymore, because other teams are a head bigger than them.

They don't fast break anymore, something they did so well last year, so their easy buckets are hard to come by.

And Daniel can't be the only one who not only says he wants to win, but shows he wants to win. There are at least two individuals on this team that I see that are mentally checked out, and just don't focus.

This can't happen for a team that needs to compete at a higher level.

4th, 5th and 7th still all undefeated
This week, we will look at the mid-season report for the 4th, 5th and 7th grades, so we will spare them on this MMQ.

Epic Video Tuesday is tomorrow. Check back for episode #7 tomorrow, or you could possibly get a sneak peak tonight if you look at the Twitter.

Have a Happy Monday.

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