When you are committed to a sport, you should take your preparation very seriously. During the week of tryouts or the week prior is not when you should start training. Consistency is key, meaning you should be training hard every day, including during the off-season, hitting the gym, and improving yourself and your game.
Improvement is always something that a player seeks. They dedicate their time to the sport they love, but sometimes players don’t realize that basketball is a team sport and team chemistry is very important. During the summer, varsity teams play in summer leagues. This is the time during the off-season when teams can improve together.
“Over the summer and the fall, we put in a lot of time and got better as a team,” senior Tyson Chun said. “My goals this year is to become better players as a team and become better men.”
When the season comes up, you should always walk in with confidence. Even though you may seem confident there will always be room to improve. Whether it is working on your handles or shooting form. These small crucial elements of basketball matter and can improve you as a player way more than you would think.
“Going into it I was confident so I didn’t do much to prepare. I kind of had a feeling already,” senior Jervaun Berberena said.
“My mindset for tryouts was just to compete and do all the right things,” senior Geordiell Luna Morales said. “Just focus on proving that I can do all the little things. Our goal this year is to be a team. There are a lot of ‘teams’ in the city but they are not really a team so they struggle. So basically we are just trying to find our identity as a team and I think we’re almost there.”
Basketball is a skillful game and requires lots of quick and critical decisions. Just because a player can dribble or can shoot open threes, does not mean that they are necessarily good. What happens if they aren’t in a position for an easy shot? A careful shot selection makes a great player stand out. This shows that they can read the defense and make a smart decision.
Players on the court always have a different role. Whether it is a point guard, a shooting guard, or any other position on the court. Although there are five different positions to play, there is always a select few players who stand out as leaders. Being leaders means having future varsity stars look up to you and be inspired by the work and effort you put in.
“I think our leadership on the court helps us stand out,” Berberena said. “Being the older guys, a lot of the younger dudes looking up to us. So I think we did a good job as leaders. “
“I feel like the team is pretty good,” senior Giordiell Luna Morales said. “We have each other’s back. I come from a place where everybody is just trying to be the men and run the show, so being on a team that is there for you is rare. I have to get used to knowing that they are not gonna let me down.
“We have high expectations this year so that means we have to leave everything on the court after every game,” Morales said. “We have a deep team so we are getting subbed out a lot, but that’s good because everybody gets to play.”
