4A State Basketball Champions!
So I know this post is a little late, but I did give fair warning when I started this blog that I couldn't promise I'd be good keeping it up to date, so I don't even feel bad.
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to help coach an amazing basketball team at Timpanogos the past couple of months. I was the head JV coach and the assistant coach for the varsity. The two teams practiced together every day so I got to know all the girls really well. From the very beginning I knew this was a special group of kids. I felt like from the beginning of the season we had just the right mixture of young, up and coming talent and solid senior leadership. The girls also got along really well (quite a feat for any group of high school girls that spend 12-15 hours together every week) and I loved being around them.
We played well all season, only losing a few games here and there, but I never really felt like we totally lived up to our full potential. We almost never had any blow-out games, even when we were playing teams that we should have dominated which is always frustrating to see as a coach. All season long, we'd show flashes of brilliance, but those flashes never lasted long enough to put teams away. We ended our season placing 2nd in regionals, which allowed us to advance to the state tournament.
We entered the tournament un-ranked, and as far as I know, our girls were the only people in the state that were predicting that we'd have a shot at getting to the title game. Our first game was against Woods Cross. That game was a nail-biter all the way to the bitter end. Both teams struggled scoring, mostly due to the crazy pressure defenses both teams played all game. Here's a link to an article about that game if you're interested.
The next game was against Bonneville, who came in to the tournament ranked number 2 in the state. Once again both teams struggled scoring, but my girls never gave up and pulled ahead in the end to win 31-25. Here's that article. The funny thing about that win was that I had no clue that our game was considered an upset until I saw the newspaper articles that had been written about our game. In my eyes, my team was the favorite coming in to every game.
Our semi-final game was against Skyline, a team that we had beat in the pre-season, when they were without their main scorer. This game was very different from the others, we finally started knocking down our shots and took much better care of the ball. We also were very balanced offensively and had three players score in double figures. We ended up winning 55-49. Here's yet another article.
Finally on Feb 25th we had made it to the state championship game. The girls seemed confident and took it all in stride, but I was an emotional wreck! The final was made even better by the fact that we were playing against a team from our own region, who we had both beaten and lost to in regular season. The game was back and forth until right before half, we were up by 4 with about 15 seconds left. Our senior point guard brought the ball down the court, crossed it over, stepped back and drained a 3 pointer at the buzzer from a good 2 feet behind the arc. Not to mention she was being double teamed at the time... Taking a 7 point lead at half was huge for our confidence coming out in the second half. Both teams struggled with foul trouble on some of the best players, but our team was able to adjust and 2 of my JV girls stepped it up big time in the final to help compensate for some of our starters having to sit. One of the biggest plays of the game was made when our sophomore small forward stepped up and took a hard charge from the opposing team's best player and leading scorer, fouling her out of the game. Once she was out, the other team struggled finding their offense and we were able to pull away. We ended up winning 62-47, which was one of the biggest differentials we had all year. Here's the article about the final
A couple of my JV girls after the final
Our parents did a great job decorating our team bus, and then making the necessary adjustments after we won :)
Overall it was a great year and an amazing end to an amazing season. I also can't believe how lucky I am. As a player, I never came close to a state championship, but in my first year as a coach my team wins. The best part about all of this is that we are still a really young team and will have a lot of our best players returning next year. I'll keep you all posted next year as we attempt a Back-2-Back state championship run!
