Story Time With Terry: Finding the Groove

Welcome back to Story Time With Terry.

We'll take you guys back to the good season. The best season. 2010-11. So many great game stories that year and we'll get to plenty of them during the series.

But I figured I keep the spotlight on me and my dad's basketball relationship. See, I might have made it sound like it was horrible when in fact he just wanted the best for me and when I finally understood that everything was kosher.

And we can sit and talk or watch basketball for hours. In fact, he stayed up the entire UConn-Syracuse 6OT Big East Championship game in 2009. I'll forever remember that game not only because it was awesome, but because I was watching and just talking basketball with my dad.

And Dad always knew what was wrong with my game, specifically my shot. He could dissect it better than anyone and would always tell me exactly what is wrong.

So this story comes from our Wisconsin Lutheran matchup my senior year that started the second half of our season. I was in one of the worst shooting slumps of my entire life. Like, I just couldn't figure it out.

I had three such slumps in my life. First, was my sophomore year of high school. Second, was my freshman year of college.

This was the third. And it probably cost me a starting spot after five games my senior season. I just couldn't find my shot no matter what I did.

And it really affected my whole game. Just wasn't the same player I was my junior year to this point.

Part of it was because I probably put too much pressure on myself to perform at a high level instead of just letting the game come to me.

But part of it was because I didn't have my dad at games on a consistent basis. My parents were unbelievable in that they traveled five hours from Cadott to Lisle and to most of the away games during the weekends my junior and senior seasons. And Dad and I would always talk about my game and what was wrong with it before, during and after those games.

But for a good portion of the 2010 part of our season, my parents couldn't make the games because Dad broke his ankle while climbing a tree for deer hunting season, thus rendering him unable to drive the five hours.

My game suffered because of it. I had no one to truly dissect my shot, talk about it and fix what was wrong.

So needless to say when January 8, 2011 hit, I couldn't have been more excited. My parents as well as some of my extended family on my mom's side was going to be there watching. Obviously, I was most excited for my dad because he could finally figure out what was wrong.

So we chatted while the girls game before us was finishing up. The conversation finally turned to my shot.

He already knew what was wrong with it. He told me to make sure to finish the shot up, not out and not to be too quick at the top.

So during our warmups I was shooting some 3-pointers and such and making more than I was missing. I was always looking up to my dad in the stands as we made last minute adjustments to my shot through hand gestures when I would return to the end of the warm up line.

Finally it was game time and I got in around the 14 minute mark. Just the second time down the court I got in position to shoot. It just came off the back of the rim. I looked at him and he said everything looked just fine.

A few minutes later the same type of shot came up for me. This time, nothing but the bottom of the cup.

The real fun was just beginning, though. After our normal subbing rotations, I was back in for the last three minutes of the half. Came down on the offensive side of the court. BANG. I tossed in near-flawless 3.

Next time down the court, I trailed Nate to right on the right wing. He kicked it back. BANG! Nothing but the bottom of the twine.

Next time down, just to see how hot I was, we ran my favorite play in the Benedictine playbook -- Fist Double Fade (let's just say this play will be coming up a lot in my senior year stories). I think the BU coaches would have my hide if I divulged exactly what the play is, even though they don't have anyone on their team who could run it like I could (humble brag). 

Let's just say, I came off a great screen and from about five feet beyond the line cashed in my fourth 3 of the half.

21 points and five 3-pointers later (I hit one more in the second half) I was back in my groove. I never shot terrible from the arc the rest of the season and shot 50 percent from deep during conference play.

And I can attribute most of that to that day and having my dad back in my corner again.

***

Thanks for joining me for another Story Time With Terry. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @turkdigg40 and we'll see you next week.

Story Time With Terry: The Marker Incident

Welcome back to Story Time With Terry.

Going to go back into the way back files with this one. This story comes from my eighth grade year of basketball. Hell, I'm surprised I remember back that far. But it's just one of those stories you don't easily forget.

Let me start it off by saying my dad has been my coach for a good portion of my life. He was my coach in fifth, sixth and eighth grade as well as an assistant coach my sophomore and junior years and head coach my senior year of high school.

To say that me and my dad had a rocky coach/player relationship to start out my childhood might be understated just a bit. My dad is an old school guy (62 going on 63 at the time of this blog post). As a high school coach when I was growing up in the early 90s, my dad was a yeller. He would get techs from time to time and got into his players a little bit.

And me growing up around the team, was also subject to that when it came to basketball. During my fifth and sixth grade years, timeout huddles would often turn into screaming matches between me and my dad. I felt he was always talking to me personally in those huddles (even though he was mad at the whole team) and I took offense to that at times.

Needless to say that it happened a ton of times between those two years to the point where my mom had enough. Always the voice of reason, she finally forced us to sit down and talk these things out before he coached me my eighth grade year. And we reconciled and had a healthy player/coach relationship after that.

That still didn't stop him from being a yeller as a coach. He expected us to play the best and the hardest we could and when he didn't see that on the floor he would tear into us a little bit.

Well this is a story of one of those said times that was frightening and yet quite funny at the same time.

We were playing a Saturday morning league in Gilman, Wisconsin in the tiniest of tiny middle school gyms. It was one of those three team deals where you would play two games against the teams that were scheduled to be at the gym that day.

Gilman's eighth grade team was a pretty good one (most of those guys went on to play in a state tournament game their senior year of high school). Us on the other hand, we were plenty raw outside of me and not incredibly talented.

So we took the floor and I get the ball, being one of the only ones in my grade who could handle the ball, brought it up the court.

What do I see? The defense that I love to hate that I love. A 1-3-1 defense.

As a pure basketball guy, if I had the horses, I would run the crap out of a 1-3-1 defense. The concept of it, if done right is just awesome.

Me growing up though? Being one of maybe two guys on the team that could actually handle it? I HATED facing a 1-3-1. Hated in eighth grade, hated it even in high school.

Well that's what I see when I bring the ball up the court. Dad tells us from the sideline to try and get into a 2-1-2 offense to break it.

Doesn't work out so well. I toss a terrible pass and it gets picked off for a layup on the other end.

This happened few times down the court. We were so discombobulated that we couldn't get into a 2-1-2. Dad calls time out. He tells us where we need to be calmly and we think we have it down.

Nope.

The same things continue to happen. I keep taking the ball down the middle against the defense (like an idiot) instead of off to one side.

Three more steals and layups later. Here comes another timeout. And you could feel Dad was probably going to go off. But no one on our team expected what happened next.

We gathered around and he dropped his clipboard on to the ground from a high height. It let out a loud crack that sounded our impending doom.

Dad ripped the cap off of his marker and as loud as he could:

"WE HAVE TO HAVE A GUY HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE!!!!!!!!!!!"

With each "HERE" the marker was jammed into the spots on the board that indicated where we should be in the 2-1-2 with a stabbing motion, adding to the piercing sound of pop's voice.

I'm pretty sure if you walked out of that gym and down one of the hallways at Gilman, you still could have heard Dad.

My teammates and I all looked at each other like ghosts. I think we all crapped our pants when he said that.

If memory serves me correctly, nothing else was said during that time out. We just stood around as he looked at each one of us for about 15 seconds. Dad then picked up the clipboard and put it on the bench and we went out and started playing again.

The funniest part of the story was Dad breaking the marker, then calmly, as we head back out to play, looking back at my mom and asking for another marker. Mom just rolled her eyes and got out another one.

We ended up losing big but played better after that and actually broke the 1-3-1 a couple of times, thanks to being in those five spots of a 2-1-2.

I can now look back on that day and laugh about it, and me and my friends do quite often. It's just one of those memories that you can't delete. Thanks, Dad.

***

Thanks for joining me for another Story Time With Terry. You can always follow along on Twitter at @turkdigg40 and don't be shy about sending me your own stories. Be sure to tune in next week.

Story Time With Terry: My Hatred of A-town

Welcome back to our second Story Time with Terry.

This is another sophomore year story for me. But it also needs some background. See, those blue people from just a few towns over from Lisle still get me all riled up to this day.

That would be those people from Aurora University, our long and hated rivals.

The rivalry dates back plenty of years and always draws a lot of fans from both schools to watch the game.

And for me, the rivalry always felt better on the road at Thornton Gymnasium. The gym is an old school fieldhouse with wood bleachers to the ceilings and barely any room to breathe on the court thanks to the closeness of the spectators. 

And Aurora would fill the place up as well. Hundreds upon hundreds of fans between the two teams would pile into the gym. And they would always be whipped up into a frenzy.

Some examples, you might ask? Well I was told by Bridge that his freshman year, with our fans being right behind our bench, that during timeouts, our fans would act like they were in the huddle with the team, listening to Bunks.

Another example, comes from my freshman year. During halftime, some Aurora fans and Benedictine fans met at half court and the police had to intervene. It also required Bunks and coach Lancaster from Aurora to speak before the teams took the court again.

And you just don't realize the scope of the rivalry until you hit the floor for warmups. With hundreds of students already in the gym rocking the place, it's pretty easy to get another couple of inches on your vertical. And it's always fun during the game to talk a little smack to the Aurora crowd.

So back to the sophomore year part of the story. We entered the game with a 4-4 record in conference and were coming of a demoralizing loss to Dominican just a few nights before. The game was critical for both teams. With a win, we would give ourselves momentum heading into the second half of the season and keep ourselves in touch with the top of the conference. For Aurora, it was a chance to put a stranglehold on the top of the conference.

The game was played on a Thirsty Thursday, which meant both sides packed the joint and their may have been some students there under the influence (always makes for a better atmosphere though). 

Everyone on our team was jacked and ready to go. We came out firing and take a seven point lead. But Aurora slowly whittled that down to nothing and took their first lead with about six minutes left to go in the half.

Cam is playing not up to par to this point in the game. And with Fahey out with an illness, our 2s and 3s were short one in the rotation.

Bunks looks down at me and says, "Terry, go in for Cam."

Now I get up and take off my shooting shirt and head to the scorers table. And it probably looked it as much as I was feeling it -- I was scared as shit. Sure I had gotten real game playing time that season. Wasn't exactly a stranger to playing actual minutes. But this was a different beast. Replacing one of our best players in a fairly critical time of critical rivalry game was a 100x scarier than those other times.

But I got into the game anyways.

One of the things that made it scarier was that I was playing a guard spot. I was playing the 3, which meant me having to guard the other teams 3, which at the time was Shane Roland, a very capable scorer and probably infinitely more athletic than I was.

And being used to guarding guys in the post, this was a interesting change of pace to say the least. I've never been good laterally or keeping guys in front of me. My length helps close on shooters but even then I'm a sitting duck to the drive.

But I did okay against Roland, giving up only one bucket. And I get one on him as well, thanks to a backdoor pass from Nate. But I also screwed up and jacked up an awful, early shot clock 18-foot pull-up J. But I didn't get pulled because Bunks was sending his message to Cam.

Bunks sent his message some more after we finished the half down by 6, focusing some of it on Cam and a lot of it to just our team in general.

But the message was a good one and Cam and the rest of the team came out on fire in the second half. Killa hit two big 3s during our comeback and Jared took us home with a killer jab step 3 that put us up six late in the half.

And the atmosphere during the comeback couldn't have been more electric from our side. Now I'm an emotional guy on the bench, always up and cheering for our team. But I was going insane, jumping up and down like a maniac. I probably got as much cardio from cheering in that second half as I did playing in the first half.

The win was so big and we didn't have a game until next week Wednesday that I may have participated in some after-game activities that may have included me holding my hands in the air during a party for 20 straight minutes. But it was worth it because of our win.

That win was easily one of the most fun experiences I have ever been a part of as a basketball player, made all the better because of the rivalry. And don't worry Spartans fans, we'll experience that rivalry just a few more times. GO EAGLES!!!

***

Thanks for joining me again. As always, follow me on Twitter at @turkdigg40 and be sure to come back next week.

Story Time With Terry: An Intro/The First Point

Got to give the people... (Jalen Rose)

But what do we give them, Jalen? (David Jacoby)

Give the people what they want (Jalen)

Well, it's been five months away from the blog. In other words, FAR TO EFFING LONG. 

And yes, it was my fault. I was burnt out from work (lame excuse) and didn't write a blog post after my final one on February 16th.

During these past five months, I've gone back and forth on whether to keep the blog alive during the dead time before season. And I haven't found a good enough reason to until today.

See, when I started this thing up, it was not only my intention to give you peeps the DIII analysis you want, but also what it was like for me as a DIII player -- the stories, the interactions, the times that formed me into who I am today.

Me in our 2010 Dunk Contest

But I got too caught up in the reporter part of it -- the analyzing, the break downs. I didn't give enough of the storytelling, the reason why DIII basketball was so good to me.

So as I was trying to find away to tell my stories in a book, I stumbled back upon my blog and figured, "Might as well give the people what they want."

So, I'm going to take Jalen Rose's grantland.com shtick (minus the bat, which terrifies me for some reason), and do a weekly Story Time with Terry. I'm going to give a basketball related story each week, mostly from my college playing days but also from my high school and younger days as well. All will be basketball-related, mostly on-the-court, but some off-the-court as well (although those will be far fewer because I'd like to keep it PG).

I will also encourage other DIII players, coaches, spectators, announcers, whoever, who would like to share their interesting, funny, uplifting or awesome basketball story from their time in the sport. You can DM me at my Twitter @turkdigg40 or email me it at terrylicht40@yahoo.com. 

The series will run every Tuesday (including this Tuesday, see the story below) from here until basketball season, into basketball season and beyond.

It's time we share those wonderful stories we have and show to others what DIII basketball can truly offer.

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Everyone remembers their first significant playing time at any level. Not those garbage minutes where the coach looks down at the end of the bench and just throws in any available body. I'm taking about when the game is still in the balance.

Me, I don't really remember those times as a fifth-grader or even in high school really, because I started and never had to work for the playing time I got.

That changed when I got to Benedictine University. I found myself on the bench for my freshman year as a reserve, playing just a couple of minutes here or there at the end of games.

I vowed for that to be different my sophomore year in 2008. Problem was we were a deep team. We had 9 guys returning who got pretty significant playing time the year before, plus a freshman (Nate), who was for sure going to play. I was number 11/12 on the depth chart, but was improving and playing like a rotation guy in practice.

But it just so happened that Genslinger went down after A.J. (accidentally) caved in the left side of his face with an elbow on a layup during 3-on-3 get back drill in the first weeks of practice that left him out the first month or so of games.

The spot opened up a bit for me. We were a guy short on our normally 10-man rotation. That tenth spot got filled for the time being by Kas, who was a senior and a guy that could fill that spot.

So I was still stuck in a gray-area for the first three games of the season. I was close but didn't really get the opportunity I was looking for. I had scored my first career points in the first game of the season against Lake Forest, but it wasn't that cool to me because it was a blowout.

After our first two games, we headed down to Illinois College's Bill Merris tournament. Our first game we beat Eureka by finally going on a second-half run after letting an inferior team hang around. 

That set us up in the championship game of the tournament against the host Blueboys. I have no doubt in my mind if we would've played them at the end of this season, we would've blown them out by 20. But we weren't the same team then and we were on the road.

The game was back and forth from the get go. And our 4s and 5s are collecting fouls by the boat load. A.J. was the first, getting his merely four minutes into the game. But as the half wore on Cam, Bridge and Klec each had two fouls. When Bridge got his second, Kas was next up to get in. But when Klec got his with just over a minute left in the half, it was my turn.

I knew that I was likely to go in and it was only for a minute, but that still didn't stop me from getting a shot of adrenaline as Bunks called my name.

I took off our shooting shirt and went to the scorers table, getting the requisite "Let's go, Terry" and "Come on," from those on the bench.

I finally got on the court for Klecan, which was during a free throw. My heart was just a racing on the line. You could probably feel it 15 rows up on both sides of the gym.

Anyway, the guy made the free throw. Since I was the bigger of the two posts on the floor, I went down to the other end, while Kas tossed the ball in to Noonan. 

Noonan brought the ball up and initiated one of our secondary break plays that we ran every day in practice during the first four weeks. It was the high ball screen action.

Noonan brought it down the left side, then started dribbling towards the right. Kas set the screen right on the three-point line then rolled to the right block.

My action is to fill Kas spot on the left elbow above the three-point line, which I did. Kas' screen was a solid one, enough to where Noonan was able to turn the corner a bit and draw some defense to him.

It drew my guy, who was way down in the middle of the lane, a lot. Way too much. I'm pretty sure if I did that, Bunks would've had my hide.

Noonan stopped his drive and I drifted towards the top of the key to give him a shorter pass and make myself more available. 

Noonan put a picture-perfect pass right into my shooting pocket. Couldn't have placed it any better. And being a shooter, I did what any shooter does when given a mile to release the shot with no contest and a perfect, in-rhythm pass. I shot it.

The shot was probably one of the top-5 most pure shots I've ever released (we'll talk about my top one in a later STWT). There was no thinking involved, no pressure. It was straight up and down and nothing but the bottom of the net.

I can still picture the ball in slow motion to this day. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. I was coming in cold for the last minute of the half, the shot came early as hell in the shot clock and I really wasn't in there to do anything but not screw up completely.

But it was almost like a weight came off my shoulders out there. I finally felt like I belonged on the college court, as compared to where I felt almost unworthy my entire freshman year. That shot was my baby step into bigger and better things.

Even though my shot was good, we ended up losing by 4 to Illinois College. But I scored my first real college points and my parents, bless them, traveled seven hours to Jacksonville, Ill., and actually got to see it.

***

Thanks for joining me for the first edition of Story Time with Terry. Be sure to check it out next week and you can always follow me on Twitter at @turkdigg40.