Monday, June 4, 2012

Diary Of A Baller: Tyus "Kid Mamba" Battle (Edison, NJ) Entry # 40


What’s up basketball world, it has been few weeks since I last wrote my diary. There have been a lot of things going on in my life in basketball and everything else. First of all I have been working extra hard in school to finish up the year strong. Graduation is now one week away and I am really excited in anticipation of the summer. I took a bit of step back from the basketball to focus on my studies. Therefore basketball and everything else was put to the side. Last week my dad would only allow me to spend one hour per day focusing on basketball and that meant no phone, no video games or hanging out until finals were over. Well finals are over and I think I did pretty well so basketball and the rest of my life is back on. 

With my limited time on the court, I had to really focus on getting better and my conditioning. I have played in a lot of games this season because I have been on 3 different teams. I loved all my experiences but the 16U Roadrunners seem to be a good fit in my development at this time. Like Team Final, a lot of time is spent on individual skill and development. Coach Sandy and the Roadrunners really do a great job at developing young guards from their program such as Kyrie Irving, Randy Foye and 33 other players who have played in the league. The way I see is that both programs are great in their own way and I am very lucky to have experienced playing with both! 

This weekend I had my first tournament with the Roadrunners 16U at Philadelphia U at the Reebok Jam Fest. We have not really practiced much as a team, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Despite the lack of practice we were still able to win the first game by 10. I managed to play well and did a good job rebounding and scoring the ball. The second game we did not do as well. We started out fast, but we started to fall apart during the middle of the game, because of our lack of transition defense. We tried to pick it back up at the end of the game, but it was too late and we lost by 6 after being down by 18. Despite the loss my dad was pretty happy with how I played, especially with my 3 point shooting where I was 4 for 4. We played great in the third game and won by 36. We picked up our defense and played well as a team. Overall it was a successful weekend and we are just going to improve as we continue to get to learn other through practice and games experience.