Following last Sunday's city championship win, this week was a bit of a whirlwind. It was a week of planning and organizing for the weekend in Albany with my team combined with the stress and excitement of preparing for the actual Championship game. This was major. If we were going to Albany, I didn't want to lose. I didn't want our perfect undefeated record tarnished and I wanted that State title. I was hungry for it. It's known that city teams don't often fare well in the State tourney (and for us the city title is really the big deal. State is just the icing on the cake.) Our team went three years ago (before I was the coach) and got smoked in the first round and went right back home. I definitely didn't want that to happen to us, but at the same time it took a lot of the pressure off me because that's kind of what everyone expected. Except for us. We knew we could actually win this whole thing. We believed we could.
Practices all week actually weren't that great. The girls were tired yet excited (a weird combination FYI) and just kind of wanted to get this show on the road. I felt the same way but knew we had to fine tune some things before we left town because practice time in Albany was very limited so we all had to be patient with each other and just get the job done here first. Soon enough, it was Friday morning and we were on the road to Albany.
Since we left on Friday morning but didn't play until Sunday afternoon there was a lot of downtime. A lot. (Because our record was so good, we got a bye in the first round and were going directly to the championship game which was awesome.) Our hotel and the arena were right in downtown Albany but there wasn't much else to do there. Since the other city teams were also at our hotel, we saw them in passing quite often. For the most part, we kept to ourselves and did our own thing because after all, this was a work trip; we were there to win a state title.
Although our eyes were on the prize, the girls had been fangirling over a boy on the AA city team who is going to St. John's next year and is the number one player in the city. This was so funny to me because he is only like a year or two older than them and they were treating him like a celeb. However, it took me back to my high school days when I was obsessed with some of the elite high school players in Chicago. Corey Maggette. Quentin Richardso. Imari Sawyer. Dwyane Wade. Swoon. I was so obsessed with elite basketball players (not much has changed) and my dad would take me to games all the time to watch them because Chicago high school basketball was just that good. Anyway, I saw some of myself in those girls in that regards but now with all the social media around, especially with teenagers, it's insane. They all got pictures and posted them on their Snapchat stories and on IG and FB and the likes we're rolling in for them. It was too cute.
Traveling with a team the way we did, I wanted us to spend some time together as a team, but also give the girls their freedom a bit too. There's a fine line to walk in that regard, but it worked out pretty well which was a relief. If I had to sum up the weekend, we mostly ate, watched basketball (either NCAA games in our rooms or live high school games at the arena), ate, laid around, ate more, and watched more basketball. This is basically how Friday and Saturday went with the addition of a little site-seeing (the girls did humor me a bit with this since myself and many of them hadn't been to Albany before) right when we got to Albany. We also had a team dinner at Dave and Busters with all the other city teams Friday night (and got our sweet city championship hoodies!!) and had a practice Saturday. I also got my sunrise runs in Saturday and Sunday morning which was cool. I was able to run along the Hudson and around downtown Albany. I love exploring cities on my morning runs. It gives me my special alone time doing something I love, all while getting a lay of the land. Although this trip wasn't super stressful, this helped clear my mind and keep me sane.
My Sunday morning run was important because I wanted to get focused for the chip. I scheduled a shoot-around at the arena for us Sunday morning just for the girls to get an idea of what's it's like to play in this environment. While the actual court is the same size as we are use to, the fact that the arena is so big can definitely play with their psyche so I wanted to prep them for it. The team we were set to play had played in the arena Friday night so they had a bit of an advantage over us in knowing the court a little better. We didn't let that bother us but I wanted my girls to get some time on the court and see the enormousness of playing in a college arena. The shoot-around went really well and then it was back to the hotel for a lot more laying around before the game. This is when the nerves for me started to set-in. The girls all hung out together and relaxed before it was time to head over to the arena for our game. When we got there, we got a huge professional locker room which was pretty cool, and before we knew it, it was game time.
The little that I knew about our opponent, I still felt that we would win. They were tall and could shoot and although we were not as big, we were faster and more athletic. We are a run and gun team that would be our biggest advantage. We were in the lead for most the first half, however we were plagued with foul trouble. At halftime we were down by one, but thankfully no one was panicked. We still all knew we could handle this. We'd been down before by more and have been in these close games and still managed to prevail. Everyone's heads were on right and once we got the lead in the third quarter we never let it go. With a few dumb errors in the last minute that almost cost us the game, we managed to keep our lead and when that buzzer sounded, we stormed the court and jumped and hugged and cried some more happy tears. We were crowned state champions of New York. I was in shock. In awe. In disbelief. It was truly awesome. I knew we could do this. I knew this was ours. And we actually did it. State champs, baby. Pure happiness. More of it. I think I've had more of it in the last two weeks than I did all of last year combined and I am super grateful for that.
So with all of that, my second year of coaching girls varsity basketball is in the books. And it was absolutely incredible. And here it is by the numbers:
-Five months.
-12 girls.
-25 wins.
-Zero losses.
-One City Championship.
-One State Championship.
-One very HAPPY and very PROUD coach.
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