Road Trip (9 page)

“And they'll be in use all day. By nine o'clock tonight the first round will be over and every team will have played four games.”

“That's a lot of ball in one day,” L.B. said.

“Four games is a lot,” Coach agreed. “But we have a deep bench. Everybody will see a lot of action.”

“How many teams get through from each pool?” Jamie asked.

“One,” Coach said, holding up a single finger. “So we have to win our pool, and the only way that's guaranteed is if we win all four games.”

“And if we get through this round what happens next?” David asked.

“Correction,” Kia said. “
When
we get through this round.”

“The second round is straight elimination. Only eight teams make it through. You lose, you go home. You win, you go on.”

“How many games?” I asked.

“Three. The third one is for the championship,” Coach said.

“So,” Tristan said, “all we have to do is win four games today and three tomorrow and we're the champions.”

“That's all,” Coach said. “Seven wins and you're the winners of the tournament.”

“That doesn't seem too hard,” Tristan said. “We can do that.”

“I hope we can, but right now let's just focus on the first game.”

“Where do we play our first game?” Kia asked.

“The local community college. We're lucky
we play all four of our games at the same place. It has three gyms,” Coach explained.

“And that's on the other side of town, so maybe we better get ready and get going,” my father suggested.

“Couldn't have said it better myself,” Coach said. “Let's get going.”

We had started to walk toward the elevators when we practically bumped into the New York team and coach.

“So,” Coach Barton said, “we're in different pools for the first round.”

“I guess we are,” Coach replied.

“Lucky for them,” one of the New York players said under his breath, but loud enough for us to hear.

“And the local team isn't in your division either,” Coach Barton said. “That's a good sign.”

“Are they that good?” my father asked.

Both Coach Barton and Coach chuckled. “This tournament has a reputation for trying to get their local team as far as they can every year.”

“How does that work?” my father questioned.

“They usually put them in a weaker division,” Coach said.

“And the officiating can be a little one-sided,” Coach Barton said. “But either way, it's not going to affect
us
.”

The way he said that made it seem like while his team
needn't worry, maybe we should be concerned.

“So, maybe, we'll be seeing your team later on in the tournament,” Coach said. “Hopefully, the finals.”

Coach Barton laughed. “Even
I
didn't get that far my first time, but that's the attitude! Now we all better get going.”

We started off again for the elevators.

“I don't like that guy,” I quietly said to Kia.

“I don't like any of those guys,” she replied. “They just think they're really something. And you know what bothers me even more?”

“What?”

“I'm afraid they might be as good as they think they are.”

I looked around the gym. It was one of three large gyms at the college. Two were simply created by a big curtain that was drawn across the middle to form the two separate gyms. The third gym, the one where we were scheduled to play, was separate. It was the biggest gym in all of Mumford, and we were told that this was where the semifinals and finals were held. All along one side was a large set of bleachers. There must have been room for thousands and thousands of fans. Thank goodness almost all the seats were empty. There couldn't have been any more than three
or four hundred people in the stands… three or four hundred… that was pretty amazing all by itself for a game being played this early in the morning.

“Nick, are you coming or not?” my father asked. He was sitting at the end of the bench, filling out the game sheet.

I looked at the court. Coach was just getting ready to start the warm-ups. Everybody else was already on the court, stretching and shooting, waiting for Coach to begin. Quickly I pulled off my warm-up jersey, grabbed my ball and headed out.

As I dribbled out, I scuffed my feet against the floor. They squeaked loudly. I loved that sound. But even better than the sound was what the sound meant – the floor was good and I wouldn't be sliding around. Basketball was hard enough without the floor being slippery. Sometimes when we played it was more like figure skating than basketball. But not here — this was a great gym.

I put up a shot and it dropped straight away. Instinctively I looked up into the stands for my mother and father. Then, of course, I realized my dad had his head down, busily filling out the game sheet, and my mother was hundreds of miles away. She wasn't up there watching. Actually, nobody that I knew was here cheering us on.

Then I looked over and realized that we did know one person. Standing off to the side, just over from our bench, was that reporter. She was bathed in the bright light of the camera, which spilled past her and onto the side of the court where we were warming up.

“Okay, everybody, let's go!” Coach bellowed. “Two lines for lay-ups!”

I rolled my ball toward the bench and joined the line that was rebounding. Kia settled in behind me.

“You see your friend?” I asked.

“Hard to miss. She tried to get me to leave the warm-ups for an interview. Coach practically bit her head off.”

“And?” I asked.

“She was smart enough to leave. She bothers me.”

“Why, what did she do?” I asked.

“It's this whole story. She doesn't want to interview me because I'm a good basketball player, but because I'm a girl.”

“Actually, Kia, you're both.”

“I know that, but she doesn't,” she snapped. “She doesn't even care if I'm any good and — Nick, you're next.”

In the other line Jordan started dribbling in, and it was my turn to grab the rebound. He put the ball in, I took the rebound and fed it out to
the next player coming in. I then joined the end of the line taking the shots.

Coach broke us up into another drill and then another and another. A couple of times people screwed up, and he said something sharper and louder than I expected. I was wondering if we'd see the new and improved coach or the guy who couldn't control his temper – the guy that none of us had wanted to play for. Just what I needed… something else to think about.

“Bring it in!” Coach bellowed, and we went over to the bench.

Quickly we grabbed our water bottles and then gathered around him.

“Here we are,” he began. “Biggest tournament any of you have ever been in. How many of you have butterflies in the pit of your stomach?”

Nobody said a word. Reluctantly I raised my hand a little.

Coach looked confused. “You mean to tell me that Nick and I are the only two people who are nervous?”

That felt good. Slowly everybody else nodded their heads or raised a hand or said they felt a bit nervous.

“But that doesn't mean we're not going to take them,” Tristan said. “We're a lot better.”

“And what makes you think that?” Coach asked.

“I've been watching them during the warm-ups.”

“That would explain why you weren't paying much attention to our warm-ups.”

Tristan looked down at his sneakers.

“And what did you see?”

“Their center is tall, but he has no jump,” Tristan said. “Jordan's going to eat him alive.”

“I'd rather have a burger,” Jordan joked.

“Anybody else see anything?” Coach asked.

“They can shoot from the outside,” Jamie said. “Particularly from the three-point line.”

Coach nodded.

“But it looked like they were taking a long time to get their shots off,” L.B. added. “I think they can shoot good
if
we give them enough time.”

“So?” Coach asked.

“So we can't give them time for a good look,” L.B. said.

Coach nodded his head. “Anything else?”

Nobody answered.

“Nick, you're always watching the other team during the warm-ups. What did you notice?” Coach asked.

I was startled out of my thoughts. Actually, I'd been so distracted during the warm-ups that I'd hardly noticed there was a team at the other end of the gym. I could have told him all about the stands and the number of people and the reporter.

“Well?”

“I didn't see anything… except what's been mentioned. What did you see?” I asked.

It's always a good strategy to ask a question when you don't have an answer for the question you've been asked.

Coach smiled and chuckled. “Nice that somebody wants to know what I saw.” He paused. “They have twelve players on their squad. Five look to be first class. From there the talent drops off sharply.”

“So we have to get to their bench,” Kia said.

Coach nodded. “We want to wear their starters out by making them work for every basket. I don't want any uncontested outside shooting because those points come too easily. I noticed that almost all their warm-up drills were focused on outside shooting. I don't think this team likes to go inside. I watched both their big men repeatedly fumble the ball. That means they're not going to be reliable targets for inside passes. They're going to win or lose from the outside.”

“They're going to
lose
from the outside,” Tristan said.

“That certainly is the
idea
. Now I'm going to tell you the
plan
,” Coach said. “We're going to spend the whole game in a full court press.”

“The whole game!” Kia exclaimed.

“Yes, the whole game. And if they manage to beat the press we're going to go with four men playing man to man with our big man staying under the hoop. We're going to force them to put the ball on the floor and drive or put the ball inside. We're going to make them play our game. Understood?”

Everybody nodded or voiced agreement.

“I'm starting four small, and one big. I expect everybody is going to be running flat out the whole time, pushing, pressing, fast breaking. Expect no shift will last more than two minutes because we're going to be making rapid and frequent changes.”

That all made sense. Run them silly.

“Okay, starters are Jordan, Jamie, Tristan, Al and Nick. I need two minutes of flat-out fury that'll have that team thinking that the jet they traveled over on was slow compared to our team.”

The ref blew his whistle, signaling that it was just about time to begin.

“Now remember,” Coach said. “Nobody is going to live or die because of this game. We're here to play some basketball and have some fun… but remember… winning is
really
fun. Now break!”

“Time out!” Coach yelled.

The five players on the floor, as well as the rest of us on the bench, gathered around him.

“There's under ten minutes left in this game and there's no way they're coming back,” Coach said.

We were up by an even twenty points, so what he was saying couldn't have been truer. We'd pressed and pressed and pressed harder, and they had gotten nothing but more frustrated.

“Should we drop back to zone?” L.B. asked.

“Why should we stop doing what worked?” Coach asked.

L.B. shrugged. “We've already won, so do we have to kill them?”

“Yes, we do,” his father said. “The second tie breaker in this round is most points scored.”

“What's the first?” L.B. asked.

“Head-to-head play. We beat this team and even if we end up with the same record, we'd go through and they wouldn't. But just in case, we want more points… we
need
more points.”

“No problem, Coach,” Tristan said. “How many you want?”

“Thirty.”

“You mean you want us to win by thirty or you want us to go up by
another
thirty?” Tristan asked.

“Win by thirty. I want to beat them, but I don't want to completely kill them… not completely.”

Winning by thirty certainly seemed like a complete kill to me.

“Besides, we're not just trying to win this game. We're sending a message to every other team in the tournament that we're for real… that we're a team they should be afraid to play. Okay, same five players back on,” Coach said.

Those players went back onto the floor while the rest of us – except Coach – settled onto the bench. He hadn't sat down once during the whole game. He was continually pacing, and jumping and spinning and calling out plays and yelling things. I couldn't be completely sure, but I figured he'd covered more ground than anybody who was
actually playing in the game.