Emporia High boys basketball coach Rick Bloomquist says his teams know that when they have to watch film, it’s never a very pleasant experience.
So when the Emporia High boys basketball team spent two hours Monday night watching film from Friday’s season-opening loss to Leavenworth, it was clear to the Spartan players that their coach saw quite a few things he didn’t like.
Bloomquist even broke down and bought a laser pointer to use during the film session, further illustrating his frustrations with how his team looked in its first game of the year.
“I usually watch tape for my own evaluations,” Bloomquist said, “so when we watch tape as a team, it’s not a good thing.”
It’s not that the Spartans played bad, Bloomquist said. The coach complimented his team’s defense at times — particularly when it ran a zone in the second half that allowed the Spartans to go on a scoring run to take the lead after being down by seven points at halftime.
But the one thing Bloomquist stressed most was what he called “slippage.”
Simply put, the team that took the floor Friday night against the Pioneers was not the same team Bloomquist had seen in the practices leading up to the first game. The Spartans, as Bloomquist called it, suffered from “slippage.”
“That’s probably the biggest nightmare for any coach, to see a different team come out on game night than the one you see in practice,” the coach said. “You don’t have any idea how to coach that team.”
The players seem to have heard their coach’s message.
“We’ve had team chemistry in practice, we just need to transfer that over into a game,” junior guard Taylor Euler said. “We watched film (Monday) and we noticed a lot of small things we did wrong that turned into big things.”
Those little things?
How about 19 turnovers? How about 3-of-17 shooting from three-point range? How about allowing Leavenworth’s Isaac Johnston to score 12 points in the fourth quarter?
“We’ve been working a lot on getting in sync with each other,” senior center Troy Pierce said. “We just need to keep working together.”
The Spartans better hope those things are corrected, as they are about to begin play in the Paul Terry Classic at White Auditorium on Thursday in what could be deemed the toughest field of teams in the tournament’s 11-year history.
The defending 5A State champion, Blue Valley West, appears to be the team to beat with first-team All-Stater Robert Lewandowski. Lewandowski, a 6-foot-10 center that has signed to play at Texas Tech next year, went for 21 points and nine rebounds against the Spartans in last year’s Paul Terry championship game.
“He’s living the dream right now,” Bloomquist said. “He has no stress. That guy’s going to play and have fun and carry his team. He’s such a great kid.”
Junction City, which scored 96 points in a win over Salina South last week, and Basehor-Linwood, one of the top teams in Class 4A, are also in the tournament, along with Bellevue (Neb.) East, Olathe East, Tulsa (Okla.) Memorial and Webb City (Mo.).
“It unbelievable,” Bloomquist said. “This may be the most balanced, talented tournament since it’s been in existence.”
The Spartans’ goal this week is obvious: They want to win the Paul Terry Classic for the first time since 2003.
But more than that, they’d like to make sure those laser pointer-led film sessions with their coach are a thing of the past.
“We’re working on everybody screening for everybody and better ball movement and making the first easiest pass,” Euler said, “and we’ll look for more balance. We have experience and we have enough players that we should be better.”