Willem's Winter Basketball

It's hard to know when to post about Willem's basketball because, like soccer, it feels like it it never-ending! Willem starting practicing with his AAU/tournament team called Triple Threat which is comprised the five best St. Paul School 3rd grade boys and five top O'Hara boys in October. Triple Threat started playing in tournaments in December and continued through March. Willem also played on his class YMCA team in January and February. And, he just started playing with Triple Threat for the spring YMCA league (all the while he has been playing soccer with his club team as well). Willem's YMCA team (comprised of Willem plus 10 of his classmates) played in the 3rd grade league and went about 5-3. Willem was able to score quite a bit in this league, often more than 10 points a game and sometimes 20 points. He also got lots of rebounds and assists. On the AAU team, the boys played in tournaments against 4th and sometimes 5th grade club players which was a challenge. They played in four tournaments consisting of 3-4 games each and won just 2 or 3 games total. Willem was able to score baskets in most all of the tournament games with his game-high for the tournaments being 12 but often he scored just 2-4 points and the game score was often around 45-15 (with Will's team on the losing end) when they played the good 4th/5th grade club teams. But, we saw tons of improvement in the boys and in Willem too. Most importantly, Willem really enjoyed playing. Luckily, his coaches, Christy and Donnie Hakala, are our friends, are great coaches and they worked around Willem's soccer schedule without making Willem feel torn between the sports. 

The winter season concluded with the AAU state tournament in Cottage Grove in mid-March. Will's Triple Threat team was able to play in a 3rd grade division (much better than playing AAU 4th graders!). They went 2-2 in the tournament, beating a select Sheldon Irish team in a very exciting come-from-behind game for the 4th place finish (out of 8 teams). Earlier in the tourney they lost to the eventual champions and another top team, both from Washington (not sure how they are in the Oregon state tournament, but that's AAU basketball :). Despite having ten kids on the team, Willem played a lot of minutes in all the state games including almost all of the final game. He and his team were a lot of fun to watch. Here is a quick video of Willem making a lay-in in a YMCA game and then lots of pictures from throughout the winter season from both teams...

Dribbling around a player to the basket

Going in for a lay-in

A fun sequence showing Willem drive to the hoop for a basket

Making a nice pass

Willem did a great job finding his teammates like in this bounce pass 

Focused and ready to drive to the hoop :)

No stopping him :)

Ryan and Willem

Coach Donnie talking to the Triple Threat team after a game

Some of the YMCA/class team before a game

AAU tournament

Love the middle picture in this sequence

And finally one of Genevieve shooting hoops. All our kids have spent a fair amount of time playing on our little basketball court this winter.