The 8th graders played their worst game of the year by far in the first game, but rebounded and played very well in the third place game to win.&nbsp; They finished the year at 9-2.<br /><br />The 7th graders won both of their games to win the consolation bracket.&nbsp; They finished the year at 5-5.<br /><br />This 8th grade group has a ton of potential.&nbsp; We have a 6&#039;1, 185 athlete who is strong, coordinated, and can run.&nbsp; He is a stud at QB, and may have a shot for the Friday night lights next year at safety.&nbsp; Here is where he is different from other kids like him...he works his butt off all the time.&nbsp; And he LIKES to work out and practice.&nbsp; He is a star at the 400 in track,and he loves it, and that is an event middle schoolers typically hate.<br /><br />He isn&#039;t even the best player on that team. We have twins with good size, lean and fast.&nbsp; One of them can just flat out play basketball.&nbsp; In the third place game, we were up by 2 with under a minute.&nbsp; He scores a basket, we are up by 4, I call the full court press, he steals the inbounds, and in one motion swishes a turnaround 3 over a defender.&nbsp; Before you chalk this up to luck, it was his 5th 3 of the tourney, and he finished that game with 25 points.&nbsp; He can just play ball.<br /><br />The 7th grade has a pure athlete.&nbsp; He is a man amongst boys.&nbsp; He is very strong, very quick, very fast, and big.&nbsp; There were games in football this year where he did not get tackled.&nbsp; He is still in the early stages of developing basketball skills, he didn&#039;t play until last year, but just because of his natural talents, he can be as good as he wants.

I can remember our head girls BBall coach at Alvord telling a story of why he wanted to stay as a girls basketball coach.&nbsp; His reply was that you would have to see his Junior High team to truly understand.&nbsp; That team was ridiculously good and went on the the State Finals their Sr. year.&nbsp; <br /><br />My point is that it is always good to have a talented upcoming group.&nbsp; Dean Smith would have failed if he didn&#039;t have players who could ball.&nbsp;