Final: Titans top Thunder

Final: Titans 43, Thunder 33. Good work today, Thunder. The Titans and Coach Greydon did a smart thing, doubling Kyle at halfcourt almost every time. That took the ball out of his hands and it took us awhile to get the 2 Out working properly. But after being down 12 in the first half and 14 in the second half (28-14) we got within 30-29 after Jared Elwin hit a 3 and Micah Visoria got hot from the left corner. He's fearless and his shot is pure.

We actually went ahead 33-31.

After that, though, we ran out of gas. Jimark gave us some huge plays defensively off the bench. Tanielu was everywhere, scoring, rebounding, hustling. Two of his hustle plays led to turnovers or missed shots by the Titans.

Our matchup zone did fairly well, though we let Tayler get three open looks. He hit one trey, and then he hit one from NBA range to put the Titans up 34-33.

They were tall, with a 6-4 guy trapping Kyle at halfcourt, but I think we learned how to move the ball better over the course of the game. They just made big plays in the final minutes and we missed too many open shots. That's all we can really expect — great hustle, good ball movement, and if the shots fall, we'll keep beating a lot of quality teams.

I'm content. That was a good team, an older team, and we hung in there. If we play them again late in the season, that''ll be fun again. Our bench is still fairly inexperienced, but they're learning quickly. Once we get more guys comfortable with our system, they'll be able to get more minutes and we can really push the tempo to a higher speed. We're not there yet, but we'll get there sooner rather than later, I believe.

MAHALO
Mahalos to Mark Berthold (Walter's dad) for helping pay for today's pizza and sodas after the game, and big mahalo to Claire, Micah Tong's mom, who fed everyone tacos while we waited for the pizza. Thanks you guys!

Next practice is Monday, 6:00 pm at Kalakaua Gym.

Note: Tanielu called and said some of the guys are at Kalakaua Gym right now (Jimark, Josh, Kyle on the way). They have open gym until 4:00 or 5:00 today. I'm going to drop off a couple of basketballs there.