I've been reading on and on through these points about the way "basketball is supposed to be played." In my, albiet, elementary understanding of basketball, I think the way you play is to try your best to score more points than the other team by doing two things. First, actually making shots and second, preventing the other team from doing it.
I've seen the MJ Freshmen ladies play and they made more shots than the other team. They ran an effective press during the first half in which they were actively preventing the other team from scoring. During the second half they fell back into a 2-3 zone defense which, from my observation, didn't prevent the other team from scoring. What kept the other team from scoring was the fact that they didn't make the high percentage shots they took and they kept passing the ball to the wrong team.
What we have here is a good team playing teams that aren't so good. It happens all the time in every level of sports. The good basketball teams play the way the game is supposed to be played, the bad teams don't. It's that simple. This year the Mt. Juliet freshman girls are a good team. They pass the ball. They play good individual and team defense. They rebound. They make a high percentage of their shots. They hit their free throws. Good teams do this and bad teams don't.
Next year Mt. Juliet might be a good team again, or maybe another team will step up and fill that void. An interesting experiment will be to see if that team is thrashed as MJ has been this year.
