North Stars talking about (no) practice
Maybe Allen Iverson was onto something after all.
His classic press conference that ranks with Jim Mora's PLAYOFFS! among the all-time most hilarious, Iverson's "We're talking about prac-tice" fits perfectly with the week St. Charles North just had.
Here's just a bit of Iverson's rant, in case you forgot, but mere words don't do this justice. Watch it yourself on youtube.
"We're talking about practice. I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're sitting here talking about practice. Not a game, not a game, not a game. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. How silly is that? We're not talking about the actual game, when it matters, we're talking about practice."
In the interest of space, I left out at least a dozen other references to practice.
Iverson would have been right at home at St. Charles North this week, who couldn't practice the last three days before its game Saturday night against Geneva.
So what? Just like Iverson said, the North Stars made it count when it counted, beating Geneva 45-37. Who needs practice?
While the end result turned out just as he hoped, there's no chance North Stars coach Tom Poulin wants another situation like this. Because school was canceled Thursday and Friday, the North Stars not only couldn't play East Aurora as scheduled Friday night, they couldn't even get in their own gym to practice either day.
"I've been communicating with these guys over the phone and e-mails," Poulin said.
"I was really worried, honestly. I was telling our coaches, 'Who is going to show up?' We haven't touched a basketball. It makes you sweat a little."
So the next time a coach wants to get his team ready for a big game, like in this case taking on a Tri-City rival with a sparkling 15-2 record, who needs to practice, right?
Tell your team to take a couple days off, play some video games, lie on the couch and watch some movies. Then come out, hold Geneva to 30 percent shooting and win going away.
Except that's not how the North Stars used their down time.
Senior captains Nick Neari and Jonathan DeMoss got the team together Friday night to head to Geneva and scout the Vikings in their game against Rochelle.
"It was nice to see that," Poulin said.
Sophomore Josh Mikes said that first-hand look at Geneva helped.
"That was a bummer (not to play East Aurora) because it is always fun to play in their gym," Mikes said. "We were upset about that. We just changed our focus to Geneva. We knew what they ran. We were ready."
Senior Mike Kastel was among those getting the team together during the day to open gym. He said while the layoff wasn't ideal, the opponent Saturday night made it easy for the North Stars to play their best.
"It does affect us obviously but this game is so huge for us," Kastel said. "Any of the five teams up and down Randall Road are going to be insane for us. We want to be recognized as one of the best teams in the area."
With a 10-5 record and wins in six of their last seven games, that's just the recognition the North Stars will get.
Practice or no practice.