Losing

I RESENT it when I lose.
I dread the feeling of succumbing to my worst fears.
I can't stomach being beaten and eat somebody's dust in a friendly competition.

I simply hate it.

Losing is part of anybody's game or life. It is a dismal word that describes a separation of two members, or an event that portrays suffering or defeat.

The rain kept on pouring since sunday until tuesday, but not yesterday. Instead, it was shots that poured in during Kickyo'ass first outing last night. I never took notice of the final score since it was a lopsided victory for the winning team. We are the losing team.

It was not a simple loss where you can bounce back and put together the pieces where we left. It's an opportunity to gauge how fragile the team is. A window that will let us see how determined we are in building our team.

So where did we do wrong?

Practice. In preparation for this once-a-year and during-rainy-days league, we manage to bring the team to practice only once. We played freely for one hour hoping to build the chemistry we hope we could establish. The rain came and took us out of the court right after everyone sweated like a pig. No wonder our dribble + shoot formula didn't work.

Defense. The enemy is a collection of tall and well built guys, so they guarded the score zone very well. We were unable to penetrate and drive into the hole, letting most of our guys shoot from the outside. It was lesson and points taken.

Alternately, we didn't guard well. The painted area was a loose and hollow ground for guys in red jerseys. We'd let slashers found their way on a rebound and followed up on a miss with less resistance. We didn't boxed them out, letting them take the game away.

Rotation. One thing I kept pointing out is rotate the ball and find the open man. We failed the test, thus earning us a 0-1 standing. We were in search for a point man on the court but I guess we're still in search mode.

Intensity. I tripped, fell and got bruised when somebody pushed me on a futile attempt to steal the ball. We finally found our rhythm during the last period when we outran the reds and scored in succession. The lead gradually decreased until it was too late to hustle. Time was no longer on our side and the referees called it a night as soon as the buzzer sounded.

I asked coach his assessment of the game. He remarked that it was the kind of game where we begin to feel each other and learn the individual capabilities. It was indeed a chemistry hunting stage.

Or maybe because we didn't have yet our uniforms!