The importance of a good pre game

[Terrapins Fan]

Last night I worked a game, about my 50th or so for the season, It was a match up of 2 top 5 boys varsity teams in our area.

In the locker room, R says, it's almost the end of the season, we've been doing this all year, let's let them play and keep it clean.

That was pre game.

This was the first time I worked with U2 this year, 2nd time with R ( first time was game 2 of the season.

The problem was switching. over 90% of crews I work with wait for the ball to drop below the FT line to switch. These guys didn't. They would switch long before the ball dropped below the line even if the ball never dropped below the line.

I missed 3 switches. 2 were important as there was a BC call and on the other, there was a foul, both of those times, partners picked it up, but they should have been my call if I had seen the switch sooner. nothing happened on the other switch I missed and I caught it soon enough.

But my point is, in a good pre game, they could have said, we are switching early and often.

As I said, well over 90% of my partners wait til the ball comes below the FT line and that's what I was expecting. Live and learn.

I had one partner that was the R and he said, if lead is on the right and ball is coming to front court on the left, switch before the ball crosses the half court line and we did, it worked well, but we knew that before we went on to the floor.