Albany Legends 5-0

You can put three more regular season games in the books for the Albany Legends as my first year of playing for the semi-professional basketball team has yet to experience a loss. Over this past weekend (April 13-15, 2012) we ran our record to a league best 5-0 by beating the Lansing Capitals on 3 consecutive nights. The undefeated start has us perched at the top of the IBA (Independent Basketball Association) standings with eight other teams around the country looking up. Not that I'm getting ahead of myself, but 5-0 feels pretty good. Our team has shown even through the first few weeks of the season that it can fight through adversity and step up to a challenge. The first challenge of the season being the setup of the schedule. Because the teams in the IBA are so spread out in states such as Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Massachusetts, we play any particular team two and three nights in a row to cut down on unnecessary travel costs. It's really not that much different from other sports' playoff series in a sense that you're seeing the same opponent continuously and after awhile you understand key players, tendencies, and what makes one another tick. They say it's tough to beat a team three times...well try three times in three days! I give a ton of credit to my teammates for showing consistency both mentally and physically on back-to-back-to-back nights against a solid Lansing team that came into the weekend with a winning record. Another challenge our team has had to face is an early season coaching change. The Legends management decided to move in a different direction than originally thought by hiring John Coffino to lead the team for the rest of the season. Coffino has a stellar resume with head coaching experience in the NBA's developmental league, overseas, as well as D-1 college experience as a MAAC assistant at Iona, St. Peters, and Niagara. We meet the new coach this week, but in the meantime our General Manager Nick Dean lead us as an interim head coach to our three wins this past weekend. When he does get here, Coffino will be our 3rd coach this season. The coaching game of 'musical chairs' would be an easy excuse to let our guard down, but to our organizations credit we've got through it. On a personal level I happen to be playing good, consistent basketball. My best game over this past weekend probably came on Saturday night when in 19 minutes I scored 18 points (7-9 shooting) and grabbed 4 rebounds in our 140-132 win. I have to keep reminding myself not to get too caught up in the numbers, but per minute I'm one of the most efficient players on the Legends. For example, through five games I have 40 rebounds (8rpg), just 2 rebounds away from our team leader with 42...but I only average about 19 minutes per game, so my rebounding average PER 48 minutes would be 20-plus boards a game, by far the highest production on our club. That's really what I need to stay focused on is not the season averages, but rather what I do for my team with the minutes I've been given, and then hopefully the minutes will grow. Regardless of the minutes and stats though, it feels good to be a legitimate contributor on a winning team. Reading my name in the paper or a watching a highlight on the news for on court performance at 25 years old is something that I really didn't think about until it happened, but now that it has it makes me a little more hungry for continued success. I feel like I owe both Legends owner Steve Miller and our GM Nick Dean my best effort for believing in me on the pro level, and that's exactly what I plan on continuing to deliver.