First day of practice

I still have no idea if I'm going to be covering girls' basketball this season, but I'm just going to proceed as if I will be until I find out differently.

I did a story today, for Saturday's C-P edition, about the first day of winter practice and the reporting brought me to Camden Catholic, a real contender for a preseason No. 1 ranking. I don't know exactly what the Irish's starting five will look like, but there aren't many players better than Junaid, Crews and Matera. Actually, three bona fide stars is probably the limit, because there's usually not enough ball for four. When you have star players like that, simple, tenacious-minded athletes like Katie Gallagher and Steph Sharpe become even more valuable than another slick baller would be.

Ra is going to get her touches, and Crew is going to have to learn to be more of a distributor. But if she does, all she needs to do is wait for the D to collapse and wait for the kickout. The girl can hit an open jumper, no doubt. Matera already knows how to play with stars. She's always had either Ra or Killion there, but it will be interesting to see how she and Crew sort out the PG/SG division.

It seems like the first day of winter practice is more exciting than the others are. I think the fall practice starts before classes do, in the summer, so kids are bummed about summer being over. And by the time spring rolls around, everybody's already got the sports hangover that tends to last all the way through June. Winter is just an explosion. It seems like there's so little time to cut down to 12, learn the offense and defense and then find some chemistry before the season starts that there's an urgency right from the start.

It also gives the athletes in the state a whole other perception of Black Friday than other kids.

Hello SJ

This is the unofficial home of the C-P's coverage of SJ high school girls' basketball. This blog will feature all the rumor, opinion, speculation and analysis that would never make it past the newspaper's copy editors and into print even if there was all the space in the world. But this is also a home for you.

One of the most valuable aspects of the blogosphere is its easy ability for dialogue. No one reporter can cover a community as large as yours without help. I'm going to make plenty of mistakes, and I'm going to apologize right now for not being everywhere at once, but with some communication the season can be a tremendous one for everyone involved. This blog is my open-door policy on the comments, questions and suggestions of the SJ girls' basketball community, and I invite you to use it in any way you choose. In two full seasons blogging on boys' soccer, I've probably only deleted one or two particularly abusive comments out of thousands that ran the entire gamut.

For an example of the kind of thing that might show up in this space, I refer you to the link above, which directs the browser to cpsoccer.ebloggy.com, the unofficial home of SJ high school boys' soccer. Some of you may be familiar with it, most probably are not.

The only other thing I'd say at this point -- besides wishing everyone a healthy and successful season -- is that I tend to take players and coaches a lot more seriously than I do parents. I don't mean to diminish the roles of moms and dads in their kids' lives and I do welcome any and all participation, but a little goes a long way.

I feel like I've heard it all from parents before, but high school kids surprise me practically every day.

Anyway, that;s it for now. Check back here for more as the season goes on, and I'll see you at the gym.