Black Club Newsletter 11/2/23

Esface Starts the Tournament Season Strong!

It was a great to be back on the tournament scene with some high-level competition and competitive games the last two weekends! This past weekend saw two tournament champions at the Halloween Havoc hosted by Bay City, NBBA, and NorCal Elite. Huge congratulations to the 6th Grade Goers winning the top division of the Halloween Havoc with three competitive wins against West Coast Elite, NorCal Elite, and the Silicon Valley Soldiers! It was also a great weekend for the 3rd Grade Goers winning their first tournament as a team! We also had runner-up performances from the 7th Grade Hitters and 6th Grade Hitters after winning their pools on Saturday. Exciting way to end the Fall season!

The previous weekend also had some great performances at the Bulldawgs Fall Classic. Some highlights were the 4th Grade Goers reaching the Gold Division finals before falling in a two-point loss in the championship game and the 7th Grade Goers pulling out an overtime and buzzer-beating win. Shoutout to Russell Davis for the steal, spin move, and game-winning layup to beat NorCal Rush!

Alumni Spotlight: N’Jai LeBlanc

For this week’s alumni spotlight we wanted to highlight 2017 Sequoia High School graduate N’Jai LeBlanc!

N’Jai trained and competed with Team Esface after moving to the area as an 8th grader. He was a regular in the Team Esface ReaLeague days and a four-year varsity player during his high school career. N’Jai was a member of one of the best teams to ever take the court at Sequoia High School, as he was a two-time conference champion and had a historic win over Serra High School in the CCS Open Division Playoffs. For his efforts, N’Jai was a three-time All-PAL Selection and named the San Mateo Daily Journal Men’s Basketball Player of the Year as a senior.

Following his high school career, N’Jai stayed local to play at Menlo College all four years. As a freshman, N’Jai made an immediate impact as a contributor off the bench, playing in all 31 games and averaging 8.1 points per game. He increased those averages to 12.1 points and 4.9 assists per game as a sophomore. During N’Jai’s junior season, Menlo had one of the best seasons in school history as the Oaks finished 19-9 on the year and were headed to play in the NAIA National Tournament. N’Jai was a big part of the success, averaging 11 points and four assists per game while shooting 46% from the field and 43% from three-point range. Unfortunately, their season was cut short due to COVID and they were unable to participate in the National Tournament.

As a senior, N’Jai continued the success as the team’s second-leading scorer at 13.1 points per game as the Oaks finished 17-11 on the year. N’Jai graduated top ten in school history in points, assists, three-pointers made, and the all-time leader in wins.

Following graduation, N’Jai has been gearing up for a professional career overseas while working for the Team Esface marketing team. You might be able to catch him coaching our camps this summer!

Basketball 101: Increase Parent’s Hoop Understanding

Team Esface has gone viral and we felt we should share this clip with all of the parents not on social media! This summer we were fortunate enough to have NBA champion Jeremy Lin speak at our camp and he talked about the importance of ball movement. As he states, “There’s two types of players: There’s one player who passes when their teammate has a great opportunity, and there’s another type of player that passes when they don’t have anything for themselves.” This video has received over 391,000 views and 18,000 likes on Instagram.

We always want to see the ball move on offense and believe better scoring opportnuities come when playing out of closeouts rather than isolating 1-on-1. This translates to higher levels as there are very few players who ever get the freedom to dribble the ball more than four times whenever they touch it. That’s why we encourage our teams to catch and shoot or attack rather than play with the ball on the perimeter. If Jeremy Lin believes it, so do we!

Coming Up…

We’re off-court this week as we prepare for the Winter season. We’re back on the court Monday, November 6th as we gear up for the West Coast Elite NorCal Fall Invite on the November 11-12 weekend. For the full list of the Black Club tournament schedule, you can view the tournament weekends here.

As a reminder to the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade teams, practice times will be moved back next week to account for the Synapse School teams that take place in the Winter. The updated Tuesday/Thursday schedule is below:

6th Grade Black: 5:00-6:30pm

7th Grade Black: 6:15-7:45pm

8th Grade Black: 7:30-9:00pm

We also wanted to encourage everyone to look into our Black Club Vitamins sessions that take place every Friday. It’s a great opportunity to get additional skill work and shots up on the Dr. Dish Shooting Machine before tournament weekends. 3rd-5th grade takes the court at SportsHouse from 6-7pm while 6th-8th grade takes the court from 7-8pm. You can check out what a session looks like here and can register on a week-to-week basis below.

We crave to learn and grow. The best way for us to grow is with your valued feedback. Please use the above link anytime to let us know how things are going (positives and negatives) for the Black Club. There’s an option to get in contact with an HQ member in the link as well. We look forward to hearing from you!