Up and Running

Two weeks down, so many more to go. Tonight the football players come out to practice for the first time. The Raiders are looking forward to them because they will just added to the athletes we have out there now. Truth be told, three of the football players are projected starters.
Practice has been going well, we have had some players who have been designated as JV step up and fill in, the only problem we have is size. Even with our football players out, we will still be undersized in our region. Our tallest player will be 6'5" tall but in our region that is not very tall at all. I know when I was in high school we would have loved to have a 6'5" player, but now, I would not mind having a few players who are a little taller. Although, our tallest player is also one of our best athletes, so he plays a little bigger than he is. With this lack of size we are going to look to run teams off the court. It is one of the advantages of having exceptional athletes on the court. We will be in shape, play aggressive defense and run the floor. I think we will be able to play 8 or 9 players per game, giving our starters much needed rest. I am not sure how many teams will be able to say that.
We have been working on a new offense in the past two weeks. It is more along the lines of what colleges and pros run. Instead of a continuity style, where the offense flips over every time we reverse the ball, this offense is more about the players and what they see on the court. It is more of a read and react offense than, follow this pattern and hope we get a shot. The players have been picking up the concept well and have started to read each other in the offense. Some players can almost think what the other is and beat the defense with eye contact. It is difficult to explain with out showing you, but I also don't want to give too much away.
Our defense needs some work. In the past, we have not been very aggressive because we really have not had the players to be aggressive. This year I think we will be very good at pressuring the opposing team into turn overs and quick shots. We will need to work on boxing out, again because of the lack of size we are going to have to be good at the fundamentals. We will play man to man defense with a few adjustments thrown in. We will try to disguise the defense and hope we can catch opposing teams in confusion to take advantage.
I am looking forward to tonight. It will be good to see this group of young men on the floor. We will play a scimmage game one week from today and our first regular season game a week from Saturday. I am ready for the season to begin already, but we have some work before we are ready as a team.