The team was given a late start as our game was not until 9 pm. Team breakfast would be at 9 am. I was up just before the alarm rang at 5:45. I rolled over expecting to find Joan and was disappointed she was not there. I showered and shaved and set off down to the lobby for some hit or miss internet access. It was again difficult to navigate and I spent over an hour try to write an update. I assembled three paragraphs. I have decided to write in a different program that works offline to see if it improves my day.
The hotel here in Changzhou is great. Top of the line amenities and a great restaurant. The team boarded the bus for our walk through. Along the way we stopped at a sponsor location. Today was Opel, the car place. It was a shiny dealership with about two dozen employees excited to meet basketball players from around the world. When we walked into the showroom, there were 5 basketballs that each player signed and everyone had a camera. The players posed for a group shot with the dealership big wig and then with many photos with employees. I too was asked a few times to stand with a smiling car sales employee. That was humbling as I thought about how far I am from where I was five years ago. We left the dealership and went to the arena.
As the walkthrough progressed, all I could hear in my head was Coach Chiampi telling me I was not spending enough time on defense. I know I shorted it yesterday, so today I made sure to cover things more thoroughly. After a practice and a half, I felt we covered a lot of ground: man inbound, zone inbound, man offense, zone offense, press break. The good news was the guys seemed to pick things up quickly. The bad news is with just 8 guys, we do not get to scrimmage at full speed so knowing it and knowing it at game speed are quite different.
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| Coach Beebe, 6 feet tall, stands with team during introductions. |
Ours was the second game of a double header. The first game was China and Canada. We played Lithuania. I thought as the host team, China felt Canada was the weakest team so they could play in the championship game tomorrow night. I left ahead of the team to scout the first game. Head coaches are control freaks and I am no different. I normally have a very good understanding of the team we are playing, how a game will be officiated, and about a million other little details that are important for me to know to have a feel for the game. I had none of that. I have never been to the arena, seen any of the teams play, or even understand how the crowd behaves internationally. I was pleased to see that things were fairly normal. The others teams were not running anything too complicated, and the crowd cheered even when a Canadian made a good play.
It has been a while since I wrote out the pre-game plan on a white board. The points of emphasis were simple for tonight. Take care of the ball. Rebound. Communicate. All basic things, but so important for a group of guys just getting started. The saying tonight was," Believe in your dream, and be willing to be physical enough to go after it."
We got off to a slow start. Maybe nerves, but maybe an exposing of our talent level. We are down 8 quickly and it levels off. Back and forth, but not gaining. The lack of full speed practice is showing. The offenses are slow to set up, and our defense is disjointed allowing too many offensive rebounds. We go into the half down 12.
I was hoping to get off to a good start, but we slip farther behind. 13 to 18 to 20. At one point, I thought we were out playing them by far and we were still down 12. At the stat of the fourth quarter we are down 8. They get a three to open things up and we scrap and we scrap and we scrap. Until, we are down 6 with 1:25 to go. Time for some magic. Anyone who hates the last minute of a game would hate watching me coach. I will foul until the end, putting pressure on the other team to make two, settle for one, instead of letting them bleed the clock. At 8 seconds, it is 4 points. Seriously could we steal this?
What Lithuania did well all night was shoot the ball. They looked like a group of corn-fed, mid-western, farm-strong dudes. They converted their fouls and we did not close. The final is a 66-61 loss. I usually win my first game at a new level. In fact, the only time I lost the first game was Camden County...but I won the second. I am hopeful I can repeat that. Tomorrow we play China. Canada had a thrilling come from behind win. We have our work cut out for us.
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