This weekend I got the chance to drive down state a little ways to watch my youngest nephews play basketball through the youth program at their school district. At this level, they still don't really run actual plays and there is still quite a bit of "clustering" around where ever the ball is, but it is a bit more organized than the lower levels.
You can actually see them playing some defense and organizing their offense in a more cohesive way. The games are pretty short, which makes it kind of nice. They only last about 20 minutes per half and they don't ever stop the clock.
They actually had two games a piece on Saturday, but we decided to just go to one of each. The High School where they play is pretty nice. The photos above are from the old gym, but then they also have a field house where some games are held. We watched my youngest nephew play first, then we made the short walk down the hall to the field house and watch his older brother play.
My youngest nephew is actually on a really good team. He is talented in his own right, but there are a couple of players on his team that are probably going to be stars of their high school team when they get old enough. Who knows, my nephew could be right there with them.
There was actually a point where I was worried they were going to get in trouble for running up the score. It was a quite lopsided win for them.
As you can see, the final score was something like 46 to 16. It wasn't even close! My nephew had a fair number of points, but I didn't really keep track of just how many. He is naturally athletic and it is going to be interesting to see what sports he settles on (if any) as he gets older.
He has already tried football, basketball, soccer, and baseball. Like I said, he has show talent and proficiency at each of them, so I would be interested to see where he ends up.
As I said, with that game solidly in the bag, we made our way down to the field house. It's a really beautiful facility. You can see the fitness center in the upper center of this photo and they have a walking track that goes around the upper perimeter of the area. It's just a really beautiful area.
The large windows allows them to bring in a lot of natural light and the size of the building leaves enough room for multiple games to be happening at one time. This game was a bit closer than the first one we went to. My other nephews team was behind for most of the game, but they came back at the last second and they won 24 to 20. It was pretty impressive.
We found out later that day that both of them won their second games as well. It was a sweep for them! As you can see from the photo above, there is still a lot of what I call clustering, but you have to compliment them for going after the rebound!
The one thing I don't like about the field house is how they have the scoreboard set up. Instead of tying into the actual scoreboard, they have a table in the middle of the gym with a digital display on it that is usually surrounded by people. It makes it impossible to see how much time is left or what the score is unless you walk to the perimeter of the gym where the benches are.
My youngest niece (their sister) spent the majority of her time with her little friends running around the track that I mentioned before. Moving to this community isn't something that my brother in sister in law had planned on, but it became necessary for his job. It is nice to see how much they have become part of the school family down there and how everyone seems to know who they are and who their kids are.
It's going to make it difficult for those kids to get away with anything as they get older!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or 