On a rainy Central Valley Saturday the Generals fell to the Selma Bears 42-35 in the 9th place tilt at the Kingsburg tournament. The game began hopefully as Adrian Trujillo nailed an early three pointer. But the Generals' offense went stagnant and they went into the locker room at half-time trailing 24-19. Then, hope burst forth as the Generals put together a spirited third quarter that ended on another three-pointer by Trujillo. With that the Shafter boys found themselves leading 32-29 entering the final quarter.
Unfortunately things did not go well in the fourth quarter. Trujillo just missed a three-pointer to begin the final eight minutes, and a nice steal and lay-up by Angelo Senoran looked good until the ball caromed off the rim. Twice in the final minutes Selma rebounded their own missed free throws and converted contested underneath the basket shots. Christian Barios fouled out with just over four minutes left to additionally injure the Generals' chances.
In summary, it was a winnable game, but it just slipped away in the final minutes.
4 comments:
After the Sunnyside game on Wednesday night I shook Coach Wiebe's hand and he said "we need more endurance." It sounds like this game was similar to that one in which a late lead was lost, perhaps due to just getting worn down. Well, it's only December, plenty of time left to circle the gym, cross-country style.
I think they would win more games if they got away from the offense they are running. There isn't enough play makers on that team to run that type of offense!
Don - Sounds like the dreaded Hampton circle running!
Anon - You may be right. However, I have my doubts about how helpful it is to say so.
I also have my doubts about how informed such an opinion is. I assume you are talking about DDM. DDM is a man offense. In at least the last two years Shafter has done very well against man defense. Perhaps some other offense would do just as well, but frankly, man offense has never been the problem. The problems have come once teams realize they can't match up in man. They pack in with zone and try to force Shafter to shoot jump shots. Against zone, Shafter runs very conventional offensive sets that have nothing to do with DDM. My understanding is that both Selma and Coalinga played mostly zone. All to say, the man offense is the wrong culprit for Shafter losses.
I’m sorry, I was just talking about games in general. The Kids tend to attack the zone offense with that DDM. I haven’t seen any other sets, maybe missing the Kingsburg games didn’t allow me to see any other sets that Shafter runs. Against the Zone with a shooter like Greg on the inside & Trujillo and Chris bombing from the outside I don’t see why a zone should shut down the generals! I see them struggling more with a man defense than a zone, but in this case looks like they are just struggling with both!
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