I have just completed the pre-season basketball activity. Overall I really enjoyed the activity, especially since the coaching staff has made some changes in order to maximise our learning ability this year.
In my previous reflection for the activity, I said I wanted to be more assertive on the court and communicate better with my team, alongside technical basketball skills. Overall, I believe that I have improved in both areas. Firstly, by playing the game with the same set of people over roughly 2 months, I started to feel far more comfortable than I did at first. This allowed me to not overthink what I say and simply just say it, which is especially beneficial in the quick-paced game of basketball. I think the proof of this was during the tryouts for the team because even when the coaches explicitly said they were looking for assertiveness and good teamwork, I felt that it came more naturally for not only myself but my teammates too, who not understood each other’s games. Secondly, I wanted to improve my stamina level and some specific aspects of the game. I think I achieved this goal, as this is more evidently seen over the course of the activity. One example is a specific drill that coaches made us do throughout the training. After scrimmaging, the coaches used to do a drill called “Seventeen” wherein we had to touch each baseline of the court as fast as we could. At the start of the year, I was quite honestly exhausted after I did this drill, and I remember it taking me roughly 1 minute 13 seconds to complete. However, at the end of the year (after frequent practices) I found myself able to control my breathing and saw my timing drop down 5 seconds. This transferred to the court too, I believe, since I began to notice more stamina and energy during games.
I don’t think I had to try as hard to overcome these challenges, which a beauty of the sport and of practices. During sports, since the fake layers of people are stripped to the bare minimum, people are more susceptible to understanding the personality of one another and can, therefore, communicate more freely. Similarly, practices allow sportspersons to develop a rhythm of the game before the season starts, so in a way, Pre-Season Basketball too accepts your initial shortcomings and makes you evolve into the player that you can be during game time, which is why I always do the activity before the start of the basketball season.
