Thursday, February 19, 2015

Great Last Second SLOB Look

One of the rare nights off during the season took me over to see Bethany Academy and Hope Academy. I went partially because it was close to home and partially because I have an affinity for Hope Academy as a school. I wanted to see how new coach Kelby Brothen was doing with the Lions as well. I definitely saw a different team this year and Coach Brothen is doing a nice job with the squad. They are pressing, pushing the tempo, and scoring some points.

Anyway, Hope Academy was up 2 with .4 seconds left in the game. It was Bethany's ball on the sideline at about the top of the key extended. Based on the time, they had to go for a tip in to win or tie.

What they ran was pure genius. I don't remember the alignment (I wish I would have!), but they basically ran an action bringing a shooter to the ball and occupying the defense. As they did that, they had a big 1-2 steps off the backside block just hanging out. At the last second they threw it off the backboard to the big for a tip in! Kid missed the tip in, but he was darn close to tying the game. The reason it worked was because everyone was between the ball and their man and his man was, smartly, helping a little more to play anything to the rim. It was the perfect set up and ALMOST perfect execution. I'm always a big fan of out of the ordinary situations stuff and this definitely falls into that category.

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