I Coached The ‘Other’ Barstool Basketball Team And Lets Just Say I Am DEEPLY Concerned About Their Match Up With The Purple Starfish On May 30th
People may not know but there are actually two basketball teams at Barstool. The one that get’s all the attention and the one that doesn’t. Besides Tex, the latter consists mostly of non-content guys: interns, production, Australians etc. Erika was out so I had the distinct the honor of coaching the Chipotle Chippewas to their first victory third loss. Being two weeks out from the May 30th game against the Starfish I think its important to provide a little insight for my players to help them prepare them for the big game.
Pregame:
We couldn’t warm up because no one had a ball, kind of a problem if you’re a basketball team. Instead we took turns “trying to touch net” and spraying axe on our shoes for the “extra grip”. Despite the Jackie moon style warm up I was confident. Several teammates assured me that they were sober so we had a good chance. We didn’t. As a coach I should’ve took this time to strategize but instead I took a backseat and let them do their own thing. My mistake.
For Next Week:
Bring a ball. This will help with the warm up and it’ll show the other team that we aren’t a laughing stock. Axe was a good idea.
First Half:
We jumped out to a commanding 4-3 lead with 22:00 left in the first half thought we had it in the bag. We didn’t, it was the last time we would lead all night. The themes of the first half were spacing and shot selection. On multiple occasions all five players were within an arms reach of the person handling the ball. The green team took advantage and went on a 10-0 run. We responded by panicking. Australian Tim started jacking up contested three pointers and Tex got into some early foul trouble. Social media Tom said he was worried about his “stamina.” I could see we were falling apart. I called a time out to bring the guys in. Tex gave a pep talk and threw a lip in. I’m sure the other team was confused as he was in ‘dude wipes’ shorts packing a lip mid game but confusion wasn’t enough to give us an edge. We ended the first half down by 25.
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For Next Week:
Spacing, spacing, spacing. Pick a position and play it. We looked like a youth soccer team crowding the ball. That and maybe don’t shoot contested three pointers every possession. Or ever for that matter. The fact that Tom (21) only played four minutes in the first half and was tired is alarming. The whole team could benefit from some light conditioning. I’m not saying we looked bad but we definitely didn’t look good.
Second Half:
The story of the second half was defense, or a lack there of. We switched from man to zone no fewer than 5 times in the second half which I think confused out own team more than theirs. Besides Tex’s huge baseline block the green team pretty much scored at will. It doesn’t help when the average size of your team is 5’9 145lbs but we can’t change that. Australian Tim’s strategy was to just keep shooting and it paid off, temporarily. He hit a few big shots to cut the lead down to 15 but his efforts proved futile. The green was able to weather the Chippewas run and ended up beating us by 15.
For Next Week:
Grow, we need to be taller if we’re going to compete with the Starfish. They’ve got some big boys down low and we’ve got to get a body on them in order to stand a chance. Also, decide what defense to want to run and stick with it. Switching every possession is not a good strategy.
OVERALL:
It wouldn’t be right to call out our weakness withoout pointing out some strengths. We may not have height, size, or a general knowledge of the game but what he lack in skill we make up for in heart. The following is an excerpt from our General Manager’s (Tex) pre-season email.
On October 5, 1898, US Army General John Bacon and 80 men conducted an ambush on a 19 man group of Chippewas, with the objective of capturing Chief Ojibwe Bungonaygeshig (Old Bug). Not only did Bacon and the US lose the battle, but 7 Army infantry men were killed while 0 Chippewas were. The Chippewas were victorious because their mental fortitude allowed them to ignore reality. No upset is possible without the ability to ignore reality.
Ignoring reality is something that the Chippewas are good at. Don’t count us out because we’ll never count ourselves out. I’ll be at the Starfish game tonight scoping out the competition, getting ready for the 30th. Don’t sleep on the Chippewas.
Follow me on Twitter: @BarstoolPAT