Monday, December 13, 2010

Diary Of A Baller: Otis "The General" Livingston (NJ Got Game) Entry #11


Week Of (Dec. 6th thru 10th)

Hey Mike, Congrats on the tournament!

Whats up everyone?

It’s “The General” with another week of basketball and school. Last week I was really looking forward to the Grand Finale. I was really excited and that’s all I thought about for the whole week. To start off the week, I did a lot of physical workouts like push-ups, sit-ups, toe raises, and jump rope. I have to keep doing work if I’m to keep banging with all the bodies.

Almost everyday I either had school practice, Got Game practice, or a workout at my brother’s practice. So this week was a hectic one as far as basketball. At school practice we worked on plays and did a little 3-on-3. On Tuesday I worked out with my dad at my brother’s practice. We worked on 3 point shooting, and floaters in the lane. The next day I had Got Game practice and it was good. We worked on beating the press and we went over all of our plays. Thursday I had another school practice. I was unfortunate enough to jam my thumb. It was not a good feeling. I was really mad, because we had a big tournament, and my thumb was messed up.



Friday was my rest day before the Grand Finale. I spent the day thinking about what we had to do to be successful. I knew it would be a tough pool with Philly Aztecs and Team Scan NY. Saturday we opened up against the Aztecs. We started off sluggish and they got ahead quick. We played together and pulled it to within 3. But then a turnover here and there, and they were ahead by 12. Against a good team like that, you can’t turn it over, and you can’t make silly mistakes. After that we had a little rest, then played Team Scan(NY). We started off really well, and had lots of energy. The score was close. But then we started making bad passes and they were stealing them. They were just out hustling us, and we can’t be out hustled in the future. We got blown out that game. I was really disappointed in our play and I was embarrassed. I do not want to have that feeling for any games for the rest of my life. I went home that night thinking about what it would take to win our last game the next day. I always believe my teammates and I will win.

Sunday we played MABC. We played a lot better and we sustained high energy throughout the whole entire game. We really hustled for loose balls, and we just wanted to end the tournament well. We ended up losing in overtime by 5. I was a little mad, I mean we didn’t win a game this tournament and we are a much better team than we played that tournament. You can’t be too mad after that game because we played hard but it just didn’t go our way. We need to clean up on the mistakes and we’ll be fine. We have the coaches and talent to do that. We didn’t play up to our potential this tournament. But we’re going to keep working, and continue to try and improve. When I got home I just thought about how we performed at the tournament. I did a little studying and just rested up.

That’s my week stay tuned for more from
“The General”

P.S: Shout out to my man Mike Silverthorn on making varsity at Blair Academy. He works hard all the time and he deserves it. Good job Mike!