So how much of a drop off do you see in talent from the starters to the bench? 

I have two players off the bench without much dropoff.  They aren't as quick as the starters, but are capable.  After them, I have a couple of decent hustle/rebound guys and that's all.  Pretty good depth for a JV team of a school our size.

Last night my JV rolled 47-17.&nbsp; The 30 point loss couldn&#039;t have happend to a better coach either. [/sarcasm]&nbsp; It was the hardest game for me to coach so far because the other team was talking the whole game, to the refs, to my players, they even talked back to their coach with no reprecussions.&nbsp; They were shoving and scratching us and their fans were terrible.&nbsp; It was the first night in two seasons of West Texas basketball I have seen bad sportsmanship like that from a school.&nbsp; 99% of the time the kids out here are very respectful and play hard.<br /><br />My new 6&#039;3 post dominated the boards and the 1-2-2 half court defense looked pretty good.&nbsp; I only pressed twice, and got two steals in the first quarter.&nbsp; Offensively, they were alternating between a man defense, a very tight 1-3-1, and a 2-3.&nbsp; Against all three we got in our spread formation (four corners and a high post).&nbsp; We have several plays out of this alignment, but mainly, we just reversed the ball around, caught the defense rotating, and drove to the lane.<br /><br />The varsity game was another thriller.&nbsp; We won in overtime despite our worst offensive game of the year.&nbsp; We ended the fourth quarter missing 14 field goals in a row.&nbsp; That is not good, though somewhat misleading because we were driving to the rim and getting to the free throw line a lot.&nbsp; To survive a game like that and win is very good.&nbsp; We just can&#039;t try it again.<br /><br />Tuesday we play our biggest rival from down the road and it is always a good game in any sport.

My JV moved to 8-2 last night with a come from behind win.&nbsp; We were down as much as 9 points in the second half, but came back and won by 4.&nbsp; We switch defenses almost every trip with a 2-3, 1-2-2, and man to keep the offense from getting comfortable.&nbsp; I am worried about Friday, we have a 2.5 hour trip, I will be missing both my 6 ft+ guys to a stock show, and Stanton won district in JV last year.<br /><br />This varsity team is something else.&nbsp; To recap district play so far:<br /><br />Game 1 - game winning falling down shot at the buzzer<br />Game 2 - three pointer at the buzzer to force overtime, lost in OT<br />Game 3 - won in OT<br /><br />And, continuing the tradition, we&nbsp; won by 1 point, in OT.<br /><br />We were down 41-26 going into the fourth quarter, and then stage a furious comeback to send the game into OT at 46-46.&nbsp; Then things were just getting started.<br /><br />Our Jones county rival scored a basket with about 30 seconds left in OT to go up by 3 points.&nbsp; The game was an away game and the gym was pretty loud.&nbsp; We came down the court and our leading scorer swished a three pointer to tie the game.&nbsp; Anson took the ball down the court and called time with 7.6 seconds left.&nbsp; Our HC told the team to go for the steal, and if we didn&#039;t get it, to foul.&nbsp; This is unconventional to say the least in a tie game, but they were struggling from the free throw line.<br /><br />They got the ball in and we hacked them and they had two shots.&nbsp; They missed the first and then made the second to put us down by one.&nbsp; After the make, we called timeout before the inbounds, yet the hometown scoreboard lady managed to run a couple of seconds off the clock despite the fact the ball never went into play.<br /><br />Our HC said something to the refs, and they told the lady that we needed to make the clock 5 seconds.&nbsp; It was on 4.48.&nbsp; They walked away, and our HC was drawing up a play, and the lady wasn&#039;t doing a thing.&nbsp; I hopped on one leg onto the court and asked if we could get some time.&nbsp; The female ref said &quot;that&#039;s what she&#039;s doing right now&quot;, and I said, no, she didn&#039;t change anything.&nbsp; So the ref went to the table and leaned over to see what was going on.&nbsp; Then the lady finally started to type in the right time.&nbsp; I was still standing there, and was going to until we had 5 seconds up.&nbsp; This lady keeping the score was VERY slow to put up our points all night, a few times we even had to remind her.&nbsp; I don&#039;t have to tell you that nobody had to remind her to put up Anson&#039;s points.&nbsp; While I was standing there waiting, the female ref came up to me laughing and said &quot;it&#039;s just a little bit of time&quot;.&nbsp; I was blown away that a ref would say that out loud to a coach during a game.&nbsp; MAYBE you THINK to yourself that it won&#039;t matter in the end, but her laughing at me and saying that was amazing.<br /><br />We had the length of the court and 5 seconds left.&nbsp; We inbounded to our PG (state track medalist) at about the free throw line.&nbsp; The defense was set up to stop the touchdown pass around mid-court.&nbsp; He blew past his man and was picked up by another guy outside the lane, and he jacked up a crazy shot with about a second left.&nbsp; It bounced off the back of the rim, off the front, and then right before the buzzer, our SF jumped up and tipped it in the hoop to win the game.<br /><br />I was very glad I raised hell about the half second on the clock, it turned out to be the difference.<br /><br />We are now 3-1 in district and tied for first place.&nbsp; We play the three most talented teams the next three games before going back through the district.

I haven&#039;t posted because I have been sick as a dog since Thursday.&nbsp; Trips to Roscoe and Stanton it turns out, do not lend to a fast recovery.<br /><br />I was right to be worried about the JV game Friday, and when I saw the Stanton JV warm up, I knew it was the wrong night to be missing three 6ft+ players to a stock show.&nbsp; They were big, and they could shoot.&nbsp; I started five guards and we pushed the ball the whole game, and on offense just drove to the hoop.&nbsp; We actually did well at these things and scored enough points to win.&nbsp; However, Stanton did not miss often, and when they did, one of their big guys discarded our little guys and put it right back in.&nbsp; We lost by 15.<br /><br />The varsity started off on fire.&nbsp; We were hitting everything.&nbsp; But in the second half, Stanton made a comeback.&nbsp; They were rotation the ball quickly, and isolating their 6&#039;3 post on our 5&#039;10 post on the block and he went to work.&nbsp; Their coach said it was the best game he has ever played.&nbsp; It was all Stanton needed and it ended being about a 10 point game.<br /><br />We play the other two pre-season playoff favorites other than Stanton this week, so it is a big week for the team.<br /><br />The good thing is, no matter how a game goes, we don&#039;t have kids who gripe at each other, mope, gripe to refs, talk back to coaches, loaf, or pout.&nbsp; Seeing this from other teams nightly makes me feel good about our coaching.&nbsp; I have a belief that 90% of the time, a team takes on the personality of their coach, or the personality their coach allows them to take.&nbsp; Obviously, there are bad situations that no coach could control, but for the most part I believe this is true.