Happy New Year!

J.P. Flynn tournament had some good moments and awful moments. We played tough vs. Delbarton, won the 1st quarter and the 2nd half, but in the 2nd quarter they took advantage of their bigger guys and pounded it downlow and outscored us big. Depaul was ugly from start to finish. We found out right before game time one of our best players would not be playing because of an injury. Players had no confidence and no motivation. In the last game vs. Watchung Hills, we came out with purpose and bounced back with an excellent 21 point (first!) win, making us 1-4.
Records and numbers never tell the whole story. We started off the season with some tough opponents. It's about how we are playing, and besides a couple of hickups and things we need to improve on, we are improving almost daily. Which is the number 1 most important thing.

If we put 5 of the top teams in the state on our schedule to start the season, we know we are going to be 0-5 by the end of that stretch. So is it an automatic, "they are a really bad team"? No, it's a matter of if we have been playing better as a TEAM, game by game. Or if we scheduled 5 HORRIBLE teams, and we were 5-0, does that make us "an incredibly great team", NO. If we are 5-0 and not playing well, I would be nervous that we are not improving.

We are going to continue to improve tonight (January 5th) and get our first home win vs. Parsippany at 7pm!!!

Alumni Game A Success!

What a great day for Morris Catholic Boys Basketball Alumni. We had a total of 23 players. The format was setup so we would play 5 on 5 starting with the oldest alumni playing first. Games to 7, win by 2 or straight 11. Back in the day, we would always play winner stays on but we got 10 new players on the court, mostly because these old guys needed breaks!

It was great to see old faces and see everyone renew old friendships. After the games, we spent about 90 minutes in the cafeteria, had some sandwiches and socialized about the good old M.C. days. Great time had by all. Hoping to do it again next year, and make it even bigger and better!

Morris Catholic Alumni Basketball Game

Set for all Boy's basketball alumni at M.C. on January 2nd, 2010 at 11:00am! It will be an excellent day of playing ball and then having a lunch and social afterwards. I have contacted many alumni but if there are any boys basketball alumni you know that are unaware, please let them know. Thank you!

Opening Night this Friday December 18th at Hackettstown

Freshman play at 4
J.V. plays at 5:30
Varsity plays at 7

Program is fired up and ready to ATTACK!

1st Test/Scrimmage Today vs. Hawthorne Christian

They boys J.V. and Varsity have their first scrimmage of the season today at Hawthorne Christian. I am excited about the J.V. team, they are first and foremost a great group of players who are very coachable. Secondly, they have some nice talent and are ready to go to battle for 2 quarters today!
Varsity is so amped up and ready to play that after I talked about some of the things we are going to do in the game and how we are going to play, they pleaded their case to scrimmage eachother after practice last night! I let them run up and down for 2 minutes, running time. We are ready to let the beast our of their cages today! The effort, intensity and focus will be there today but the coaching staff will need to have patience because we will be working out the kinks and smoothing out our style of play. There is one thing to look good in practice but it's how well they pick up on our practice schemes and relay them into game situations. As mentioned before, this scrimmage is a test, and I am looking forward to how we score!

Varsity Progress

Basketball is normally the name of the game but at recent varsity practices the name of the game is ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. Offensively AND defensively. We want put so much pressure on each team and make them play our style of game....uptempo! Our new motto/slogan for the year (which seniors voted on) is "It's not how big you are, it's how BIG you play". If you got the idea that we don't have towering 6 foot 8 centers walking our hallways, that idea would be correct. We don't want to rely on rebounding to win us games, therefore we want to limit the amount of shots the other team takes. The way to make it difficult for them, is to strap on a full court press. Think about this. If we have players who can put alot of pressure on the ball, force turnovers, get steals, and wear down the opposing guards.... if we are DEFENDING a basket and the opposing team has to travel 84 feet to get there, why would we allow them 50 feet of free space?!?!
Offensively, I want to put as much pressure on their defense with dribble penetration. I want the players to ATTACK the basket at will. They are understanding more and more each day how to do this within our "DRIVE" offense.
We have an intelligent group of players who are picking up on (offensive & defensive) concepts beautifully. It will take a high level of focus and a matter of time in practice in order to master our style of play. If we continue to get better everyday, I am excited about the product that will be on the floor!

Freshman Tryout Weekend

The freshman tryout consisted of 31 players which was the highest since 2001. That is an excellent and difficult number, all at the same time. It is great that there is such interest in players wanting to participate in the basketball program. On the other hand, unfortunately, we cannot take 31 players for the team, so we had to make cuts. It was not an easy decision, but after every second, of every player being evaluated through 6 hours, the team was formed sunday evening. Looking forward to watching Coach Hall develop this talented group of freshman!