Ready for a game

You get to a point during the pre-season when the kids get tired of doing the same old thing every day. They get to practice and we do ball touches and conditioning. Some days we scrimmage, but then that is against the same kids as the time before. We do shooting and other various drills, but even that gets old. The kids are ready for a game! On Thursday night we have the Blue/White scrimmage and even though they will be scrimmaging against the same old team they always scrimmage against, they at least will be on Flinn Stadium and that in itself will be different.

I have yet to see the fire in practice to convince me that we are ready for our first game, but I think that we need to play that first game. I know that sounds strange, but there comes a time when you need to play somebody besides yourself to get a true evaluation of yourself. In Kentucky and Indiana, teams are allowed to schedule scrimmages prior to the start of their season. I think that would be beneficial to a lot of teams.

We are just over a week away from the first game and it's not like we are starting off with a group of patsies. We open with McHenry High from the Chicago area in the 1st round of the tournament we host and end that weekend against traditional power Collinsville. We will know exactly where we stand after that weekend and will then know what we need to work on.

This week the coaches have taken the time to talk to the Soph's - Sr's about where we see them in our program. We have always believed in the honest approach and hope that the kids relay exactly what was said when they get home. I think most of the young men deep down know where they stand, accepting it is a whole different story. Coach Longo always tells the kids, "don't worry about where you want to be, but focus on where you are at." I think those are very good words to go by. There are only so many spots on a field. We are very fortunate to have a strong program top to bottom and with that comes a lot of competition for playing time. Sometimes it's not a case of the player not being a good player, but more about them not being "good enough" to beat out a player in front of them. We have kids on our team who will struggle to find minutes at the varsity level, but would be good enough to be a starter on 70% of the teams we play. This is why our program has been very consistent from year to year.

Will try to post something tonight after the Blue/White. It starts at 5:30 and admission is Free. Come on out!!!