Game Reports
13th April 2024
Coach Martin Says:
Massive well done again today girls.
Constant great team work and fantastic work ethic.
Everyone contributing and playing as a team, makes coaching and watching you play an absolute delight.
The Games
Game 1 Vs Daventry Swifts
Won 58-19
Quarterly break down
Q1: Win 22 - 0
Q2: Loss 6 - 9
Q3: Win 23 - 0
Q4: Loss 7 - 10
Massive efforts from our starters in Q1 and Q3 meant that we had the luxury to experiment in Q2 and Q4 where we gave some of the girls different roles from what they are used to, and sat our starters on the bench.
The Girls took on additional responsibilities where they were asked to either be the ball handlers or team leaders.
The girls on the court held their own extremely well and played their hearts out with passion and composure.
Only losing Q2 and Q4 by 3 points is a testament to the growth they have shown over the season, where we now feel comfortable sitting the starters on the bench for extended periods of time.
Game 2 Vs Abingdon Eagles
Won 53 - 17
Quarterly breakdown
Q1: Win 17-2
Q2: Win 12 - 1
Q3: Win 14 - 8
Q4: Win 10 - 6
Again, massive efforts by our starters in Q1 to give us a buffer to give players more minutes in Q2, Q3 and Q4.
This time we opted to mix the bench players with the starters a little more. Swapping 5 for 5 at regular intervals ensuring we always kept at least 2 of our starters on the court boosting our bench players.
This worked really well for us as it helped get multiple players on the score sheet.
Special shout to LB. who scored 8 points in this game (her season best) with multiple assists from SM.
And then SS and AT, who were both asked to guard players twice their size. On defence you 2 were amazing. You forced several mistakes and turnovers by fantastic hustle and being irritants. Well done girls.
3rd March 2024
Coach Martin Says:
Wow. Just Wow
3 games. 3 Wins
Game 1 Vs Riders
Final score 15 - 64
Q1: Win 6 - 23
Q2: Win 4 - 14
Q3: Win 3 - 5
Q4: Win 2 - 22
Game 2 Vs Eagles
Final score 15 - 74
Q1: Win 8 - 22
Q2: Win 4 - 24
Q3: Win 0 - 20
Q4: Win 3 - 8
Game 3 Vs Lightning
Final Score 38 - 47
Q1: Win 11 - 16
Q2: Win 7 - 16
Q3: Lose 14 - 6
Q4: Win 6 - 9
Throughout the whole day we controlled every game, leading from start to finish. Only losing one quarter in 3 games is amazing.
What makes this even more impressive is that we played 3 games back to back with just 8 players.
All the other teams had 12 players.
Riders were the only other team to play a back to back. Everyone else had breaks between games
The girls were exhausted but kept on going right to the end. Simply amazing. So massively proud of their hardwork
I do want to give a shout out to LH. Being injured in the 2nd quarter in the last game, meant she sat out most of the second quarter and for the entirety of the 3rd quarter.
Her presence was clearly missed. With this being the only quarter we lost. I had to sit LT in the 3rd due to foul trouble...The girls who remained on the court did an amazing job. With LT and LH on the bench, to only lose the quarter by 8 points is a testament to them.
Then with sheer grit and determination LH rejoined the game and played through the pain in the 4th quarter. She was a massive contributing factor for us holding onto the lead to get the win.
Well done girls. Mega proud
10th Frbruary 2024
Coach Martin Says:
Excellent work again today girls
2 games in 2 days
2 very convincing wins
So very very proud of how far the girls have come this season.
Last night's game was a little one sided with us having such a big height advantage over the opposition. But we can only play who are in front of us. It's not our fault that our opposition were generally younger and couldn't match us for size.... So under circumstances we played well in an easy game.
Today's game I felt on the face of things, we were more evenly matched with the opposition (size wise).
I was slightly worried in the first couple of minutes, as we couldn't seem to compose ourselves, and wasn't really playing the game our way.
Quick time out called. Reminded the girls to breathe and that we had a whole game to play. And that we didn't need to win the game in the first 2 minutes
Straight out of the timeout the girls looked a lot more composed. Slowed the game down when it needed to be slowed down. Sped the game up when we needed to speed up
We completely controlled the tempo for the remainder of the game. We played our way and pulled out another very convincing win.
Lots of really good stuff to talk about. Some nice passing (especially on the fast breaks).
We made some great baskets.
We had lots and lots of rebounds, giving us second attempts at baskets.
Our on ball defence was good. With several steals and blocked shots.
We do need to work on our off ball movement a little bit, as at times we were crowding the ball or looked lost at times when we needed to be cutting to the basket or trying to create space.
We could also improve a little bit with our help side defence. Where we step away from our man (girl) to help out team mates out and stop potential drives to the basket.
Remember this phrase on defence
"me-you-ball"
Me - Where am I stood in relation to the ball and the basket?
You- where is my man (the girl I am guarding)?
Ball - Where is the ball?
For many of the girls though this is their first season. These things will come with time and experience. Coaches are aware that Rome wasn't built in a day. We are extremely happy with the progress....
#LetsGoPreds
#PartOfThePride
4th December 2023
Coach Martin Says
Just wanted to say how proud I am of all the Girls who played this Saturday. The improvements from one week to the next are incredible and a testament to the hard work that is put in during training
We won the game 61 - 35.
However in truth we could of easily put a lot more points on the scoreboard If we had wanted to
Quarterly breakdown down
Q1 win 26 - 4
Q2 win 15 - 7
Q3 lose 11 - 10
Q4 lose 13 - 10
Thanks to our massive 1st quarter, we were really able to give some of our younger or less experienced girls more minutes.
We gain nothing by just keeping our best players on the court to run up the scoreboard.
Additionally, it is not nice for us to do this and demoralise our competition (this is not the kind of club Nuneaton Predators aspires to be)
So hopefully all of our girls gained some good experience
Top scorers were PW and DG, both scoring 20 points each, which is a fantastic effort
However, scoring isn't everything. Basketball is a team sport, which is won by good defence and good ball movements
I love nothing more than seeing players working hard together on the defensive end of the court.
LB, JZ and SMi deserve mentions with regards to the effort they put in on defence ... We could see you actually improving as the game progressed and you grew more and more in confidence (please take this confidence and effort into the next training session and future games)
We also saw some very nice passes between the girls at times (there was one incredible sequence where every girl touched the ball as it was passed around the 3pt line.... It was such a shame the shot just rattled the hoop and popped out, because this would have been the play of the game)
Girls. Keep up the hard work. This team is growing and growing (plus we haven't had a game yet where we have our full strength). All the coaches are extremely proud of you
21st October 2023
Coach Martin Says:
Wow.
What a day of basketball
Some very good things to take away from the games as well as a few things we need to work on
Game1: Daventry Vs Nuneaton
Win: 12-38
First game was a game of 2 halves
We played really really well in the first half taking control of the game and playing some fantastic basketball.
We were sharing the ball nicely. Playing good solid defence and making sensible decisions on offence
However, for some reason, in the second half we actually seemed to forget how to play basketball a little.
Even with the win, it was quite disappointing to watch considering we had such a strong opening where we had played so well.
We seemed to start to rush things. Force our shots and play more selfishly rather than playing as a team like we had in the first half.
Coaches were watching forced miss shots followed by more force missed shots
Our defence and rebounding also declined....
Quarterly breakdown down
Q1 win: 0-16
Q2 win 4-10
Q3 win 4-6
Q4 win 4-6
Sometimes it's is understandable when we are against a weaker opposition to allow our concentration to slip. However this is not a habit we want to get into, as it does not put us in good stead when we then face tougher opposition.
So maintaining intensity and concentration throughout the entire game is something we need to work on.... We know how well you can play. Just keep at it from game start to finish
Game 2: Nuneaton Vs Northants
Loss: 28-56
Considering the loss, we actually played better in this game.
We need to put into consideration how big and established a Girls club Northants Thunder actually are
They literally have 100s of girls attend their girls only training sessions.
They have been a dominant force in girls basketball for many years
The girls we played against today would have been playing together for several seasons already. So know how to play together
They also had some absolute giants on their team.
Considering this is our first official all girls game, and we had a couple of our key pieces missing today, I felt we held our own extremely well.
We can hold our heads very high following our performance in the second game
Quarterly scores:
Q1 Loss: 8-17
Q2 Loss: 4-14
Q3 Loss: 5 -15
Q4 Loss: 8 - 10
Scores aside I think we did brilliantly in this game
Across the 2 games we can see there is still lots to learn.
For me, one key point is we need to learn how to compose ourselves under pressure....
Remember, the shot clock is 24 seconds. Which is actually a very long time..... Too often we are seeing girls just catch and shoot shots when they are being contested by a defender. I actually find this to be quite selfish, as inevitably this type of play results in a turnover and a basket to the opposition... A better option, if you are being guarded by a stronger defender, would be to pass and wait for a better, uncontested shot to present itself....
So word of the day would be COMPOSURE
We learn and we move forward
All in all though, girls can be very proud of themselves for their first games 😄🏀💪🏻