I am being tested right now
Basketball is pissing me off... the game that I know and understand is nothing like I am playing now. I feel lost, confused, there is no team chemistry and I am just out there running through the motions. I have lost all confidence in my ability.....
I am a type of player who can change a game, score 30 and pull down huge number boards. I like to move, run, have high energy, come off of screens....
Here I am none of that. I am pushed to the outside, playing around the arc, offense is motionless and there's so much movement without reason.....
I am trying to adjust, and learn, and adapt to a new system.. but I can't seem to figure out what type of system it is.
I miss practices when I was so exhausted that I would go in the locker room, sit at my locker wondering how in the hell I just survived. I was reading UCONNS Coach Geno Auriemmas take on the importance of practice...... " I've never met anyone that was a great game player who didn't have tremendous work ethic and practice habits. The challenge for everyone , is learning how to practice with such consistency that you know you are going to perform with consistency when you go into a game."
At Akron we practiced till it was perfect... and thats what I miss so much about college basketball. We did drills that meant something and made every aspect of every play consistent. We went over things 100x till we got it right. Sometimes I wondered " why are we doing drills on how to defend ball screens every week" but now I know why. When we got into a game we knew exactly what to do..... we practiced consistently and in return, played consistently...
Thats all I want right now. I want to play consistently and I want to WIN. I want my teammates to be able to rely on me down the stretch. I want to walk on the floor with a chip on my shoulder and know that no matter what happens I know that I will do everything in my power to help this team win....
Yesterday we were in the game until he 4th quarter. Defensively I struggled. I was slow on my feet and gave up easy points.... Offensively I just was absent. Shot 8 times in 34 min , 7 pts..... in 6 games I am averaging 10.3 pts, 4.3 reb.... That is not the numbers I came here to put up and our record isn't what I want either. If we were winning it would be different, but we aren't so something has to change.
I know I am not in college anymore, I am not at Akron and I am not in the United States.... but to me basketball is basketball wherever you go.
I am going to pick my head up and go from there. My peroneal tendonitits had flared back up so trying to control that for a few days, and back on the floor by Tuesday.....
Josh is here in 15 days and I can't wait to see him! ( in my last post it only posted half of what I wrote so thats why it ended abruptly and was poorly written)
Controlling what I can control and going to go from there,
Thanks for all the prayers, kind words and support through this journey.
Hanna