The 2016 Cavaliers are my Upward Basketball team for the season. It’s been a rough stretch for my guys. \u00a0We’ve struggled with rebounding problems, turnovers, and incredible defensive lapses. \u00a0And then there’s the plain old bad luck. \u00a0But over the past two weeks, the season has turned around.<\/p>\n
Much of the turnaround can be attributed to the improved play of Micah McArthur<\/strong>. \u00a0Micah is probably our most talented player, so when I talk about “improvement,” I’m really talking about his efficiency and his defense. \u00a0Micah has really bought into the scheme of getting all of the players involved, and this has turned him into a devastatingly efficient player. \u00a0He was always solid, but now, it’s stunningly efficient.<\/p>\n The play of Micah is the biggest factor in getting a second player going, and that player is Taysir Yalaoui<\/strong>. \u00a0Now, everyone should realize that Taysir is my best friend’s son, and he’s the reason I’m coaching in Boys 1st\/2nd. \u00a0Taysir is a kindergartner, and this is his first step into actual organized basketball. \u00a0Up until the past two weeks, Taysir had taken only one shot. \u00a0Now, for those of you who know Taysir, you know that the one thing he can do in basketball is shoot. \u00a0Well, thanks to Micah getting him going, Taysir scored four points on 6 shots last week. \u00a0With him getting to shoot, he’s now more involved, and is playing much better defense, getting some steals and recoveries. \u00a0Well, this week, Taysir scored four points again, this time on three shots. \u00a0Two of those points came on a steal and breakaway lay-up in the final period; \u00a0those two points tied the game.<\/p>\n It’s a big change coaching in Boys 1st\/2nd from the older leagues. \u00a0I tend to talk as if the guys all understand the language of basketball, which, of course, they don’t. \u00a0Plus, we’re not good offensively at the things I most want to do – which is implement player and ball movement and a passing game. \u00a0It has definitely been a stretch outside of my comfort zone. \u00a0However, as we’ve gotten better at doing some of the things, our results have looked better and better on the court. \u00a0The last two games have definitely been the high point of our season so far. \u00a0And, as is typical of my teams, it was the back end of the bench that won us this last game.<\/p>\n The Upward leadership is starting to plan for next season, and there may be more news coming in that regard. I’ll probably talk more about that in my next entry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2016 Cavaliers are my Upward Basketball team for the season. It’s been a rough stretch for my guys. \u00a0We’ve struggled with rebounding problems, turnovers, and incredible defensive lapses. \u00a0And then there’s the plain old bad luck. \u00a0But over the past two weeks, the season has turned around. Much of the turnaround can be attributed … Continue reading “The first Cavalier win!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}