Watching a basketball scrimmage

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Three of my four nieces play basketball. The fourth one might, but she is a bit too young yet to really care about sports in general. In fact, when asked what she wants to be when she grow up, she exclaimed that she wants to be a dump truck.

Both of her brothers play sports, so I have no doubt she will eventually find her way to some sort of field or court.

@mrsbozz's brother has dabbled off and on with coaching his step daughters team. After taking a year off, he has picked up the reigns again and is coaching the travel team that she is on.

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Typically, with the travel team you at least have a couple of games close to home. They often play in school gym's or recreation centers, basically anywhere they can find court time. That isn't the case with this league. For some reason all of their games are about an hour away in a field house owned by the school district.

It is a pretty impressive facility allowing four games to be played simultaneously as well as having a lounge area and snack bar. You can tell the school district has quite a bit of money just from seeing the outside of the complex.

With so many games going on at once, it does get hard to know which official is blowing the whistle, but the players seem to manage the confusion better than the spectators.

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In this league the girls play two twenty minute halves and then the game is finished. They try to keep each game right around an hour because they have a constant rotation of teams moving in and out.

My niece's team did fairly well on this occasion losing the first game but winning the second game by a decent margin. It has been exciting to see how much the players on her team have improved over the years.

They are no longer turning over the ball as frequently as they used to and they are getting better at rebounding and bounce passes. These girls are fierce and the level of aggression when fighting for a loose ball is even a little scary.

It has been a real joy watching her grow and expand her skills. I think in the second game she was able to score about six points and she was a key defensive force on the team. She really has the potential to be a star player just like her aunt, @mrsbozz.