Y-Basketball: Bulls 28, Spurs 10

The Bulls completed another fine Y-Basketball league season with a solid 28-10 victory from the Spurs last Saturday morning at the Champaign County YMCA.

Balanced scoring was the rule for the Bulls in this contest: Henry, George and Joe set the pace with 6 points each, while Tobin added 4 and Michael, Jarron and Luke each added a bucket. Rory and Nathan also played, but did not score.

Solid defense again keyed numerous fast-break opportunities for the Bulls. And the Bulls enjoyed another strong performance from their backcourt: good ball-handling, good passing and few turnovers resulted in another outstanding ballgame.

Congrats to the Spurs' Max and Johnny, who played great games on Saturday as well. Max led all scorers in the game with 8 points and Johnny added the other 2 for the Spurs. It's always difficult playing (and coaching) against your friends.

And so the Bulls finish the Winter 2008 league with a 6-1 record and high hopes for more success in the future. The nucleus of this team - including George, Joe, Michael, Tobin, Luke and Nathan - has posted the following (unofficial) won/loss Y-league records over the past twelve months:

Winter 2008:  6-1   0.857
Fall 2007:    7-0   1.000
Winter 2007:  7-0   1.000
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Total:       20-1   0.952

When you consider that the only loss this team has taken in the last twelve months was by just two points (and that game could have easily ended in a tie), you might agree that there are good reasons for optimism going forward. Winning consistently is difficult to achieve, especially when you're talking about 6- and 7-year-old kids who are still learning the fundamentals of the game. Certainly, this group of St. Matthew first graders will be a force to be reckoned with when they grow to be fifth graders and wear the green unis for the St. Matthew Raiders. Meanwhile we're enjoying our journey into the future with this team.

I should mention that the Champaign County YMCA does not condone keeping score or declaring winners or losers in our basketball games at this level. But a year ago, when we started to come together as a team, we coaches noticed that this group of kids was special. Our team seemed to gravitate to success rather quickly. It was this success that prompted me - and several other team parents - to start unofficially tracking game scores. Most parents seem to want to know if we're winning or losing anyway. It sure is nice when you can inform them that we're winning.