Karly’s basketball season will be ending this week. I love how we will seamlessly go from one season to the next without any downtime! Karly has done incredibly well this season. I am still amazed that for as little basketball as she has played she plays so well. She sat out last season because of her grades. So she has only played for one season before now. We are not all that cracked up on the coach but that is part of sports. You aren’t always going to like what the coach does.
The one thing that we do not like at all about young girls basketball is how rough it is. I think you could search the best web directory and find that only professional football and rugby are rougher. Part of this blame goes on the referees. They allow the girls to be rough by not calling fouls. We see it time and again. They seem to be more worried about calling travels and jump balls than they are fouls. Here is a good example of what I am talking about.
Clearly, intentional or not, Karly (#11) was tripped. It appears the ref is watching and sees it but his whistle remains silent. Now, on the other side of the coin, the girls are not taught how to guard properly. They think they need to be body to body with their girl all the time. This results in a lot of attempted ball stealing. Normally this means you will have 2 or more girls rolling around on the floor trying to gain control of the ball. Karly is bruised from head to toe because she spends so much time on the floor from being pushed, tripped or grappling over the ball. And she isn’t the only girl. They all are this way. Its sad really. The jr. high coach will have a lot of bad habits to break next year. The girls just get used to committing fouls with no consequences. Next year should definitely be interesting!
