Alex played in a basketball tournament this past weekend. We had to leave our house at 6:30 AM to drive on the nasty, winter roads to be assured of a 8 AM arrival time at the facility.

I would love to say that they won all three of their games, but it pains me to say they lost all of them. Badly. However, the girls did actually play really good defense, except for the rebounding. They had a drastically high number of shots that whirled around inside the hoop before popping back out again. There was also a player on another team who was at least a foot taller than Alex (who, at 5′8″ is no shorty) and played her post position excellently and made every shot she tried.

It was also their first experience at a game with this team. That, and the fact that the high-speed, fast-paced game of AAU tournament basketball is MUCH different than the slower-paced school and rec league basketball. Much different. They have four more tournaments coming up. One this weekend (a two-day event), two the following weekend, and their last tournament two weeks after that.  All-in-all, they did well. They’ve gotten a taste and now they can sink their teeth into and take a big bite.

All that said, I took a gazillion photos. Some great, some good, some not so great. Here are a few….

Practicing upon arrival at the facility. This ended up my favorite of the day. I cannot say why, really, but I love it. I just wish the shot had the ball in it to (it was a layup after release).

Post defensive rebound:

I’m looking forward to watching them play again this weekend to see the improvements and less apprehension!