It’s often a scramble sometimes throughout the Virginia private-school state basketball tournaments because the opponents are so unfamiliar with one another.
Often the teams have rarely met, or certainly not during the regular season, and maybe not in recent campaigns.
So prior to the contest, coaches are often challenged to find whatever bits of information they can about the other team. They search social-media sites and scan the Internet for info, call other coaches and contacts they know to find any details.
When girls or boys teams from Northern Virginia play opponents from other parts of the state, there is not a lot of advanced information or scouting. So when games tip off, it’s kind of learning, coaching and playing on the fly, making adjustments as the competition continues.
Coaches aren’t comfortable being unprepared. But in the case of the annual state private-school tournaments, often that’s the case.
– Dave Facinoli
dfacinoli@sungazette.net