Black Club Newsletter 9/29/2023

Golden Gate League in the Home Stretch

We’re officially in the home stretch of the Golden Gate League as all of our teams are now six games into the eight-game regular season. It was another great weekend for the 3rd Grade Goers and 4th Grade Goers who now sit at 6-0 on the season!

There were plenty of exciting games and performances to recognize. We had a lot of excitement in both 6th grade divisions; for the 6th Grade Goers, Noah Feng drilled a game-winner in double-overtime against the Silicon Valley Soldiers and for the 6th Grade Hitters who went 1-1 on the weekend, Jackson Alvarez had two critical high scoring games. Saturday also saw two strong performances from Alexander Yamasaki for the 7th Grade Hitters.

We’re still early in the season but can already see major progress throughout the academy, especially with our team defense. Let’s keep working as we gear up for the postseason!

Black Club Testing Week

For the parents who were at practice Monday or Tuesday, you might have noticed our first Black Club testing of the season. At the start of these practices, we test a few metrics to gauge where our athletes stand in order to measure how they’ve progressed throughout the season.

We first track two separate shooting metrics with our 72 and Star shooting. In our 72 drill, athletes shoot two shots from seven different spots and see how many they can make out of 14. Our Star drill tests an athlete’s ability to shoot on the move, as the shooter will take 10 shots from 5 spots while running spot to spot. You can check out the Star Drill here. 3rd-5th grade shoot from the mid-range (~15 feet) while 6th-8th grade shoot three-pointers. The goal is to shoot 50% or higher in these drills, with 75-80% being an elite score.

Next we test an athlete’s ability to move in tight space with our NBA Box Drill. We mark out an NBA-sized key and require an athlete to slide across the key, sprint to the elbow, slide to the opposite elbow, then backpedal to the baseline. After touching the baseline, the athlete will sprint back to the elbow, slide to the other elbow, backpedal to the baseline, and slide back to where they started. It’s a box going both directions and tests the ability to change directions in short space.

Finally, we test our athlete’s cardio and endurance with our 17 drill. All this requires is an athlete to run sideline-to-sideline 17 times. Always easier said than done, but fairly simple to execute.

All of this data is collected and our top performers each month will be honored on the wall at SportsHouse. Be sure to be on the lookout next week!

Alumni Spotlight: Ben Kone

For this week’s alumni spotlight, we wanted to highlight a Team Esface first-born son Ben Kone!

Ben was part of the first-ever Team Esface AAU squads that featured a talented 2016 high school graduating class. After spending his middle school career playing in the Team Esface Black Club, Ben had an impressive high school career after transferring from Salesian High School in Richmond to Archbishop Mitty in San Jose.

While at Mitty, Ben was a dominant force in the West Catholic Athletic League, known as the most competitive high school league in the Bay Area. Ben achieved numerous accolades during his time, as he was named the WCAL Player of the Year, Prep2Prep CCS Player of the Year, and San Jose Mercury News Player of the Year. He led Mitty to a CIF Division II State Championship as a junior and was rated as a 3-star recruit by ESPN.

Ben went on to sign with Oregon State and was a strong contributor off the bench as a freshman, including a 10-point performance off the bench against USC. After suffering a knee injury as a sophomore, Ben transferred to Tennessee State where he averaged 4.1 points per game and started two games for the Tigers. Ben finished his career locally playing for Hall of Fame guard Gary Payton at Lincoln University in Oakland.

Following his graduation, Ben and his mother went on to co-found Athletes Launch, a networking resource that connects athletes with businesses following their playing careers. With the current model, it also allows athletes to find NIL opportunities while still playing. You can watch their interview on Live! in the Bay here.

We’re excited to see Ben’s next chapter and you’ll have a chance to watch him compete in the Coach’s Games at camp this summer!

Basketball 101: Increase Parent’s Hoop Understanding

For this week’s segment we want to talk about building an athlete’s confidence and ability to impact an overall game.

Too often athletes correlate their on-court success to making and missing shots. While this is a big part of basketball, we all also recognize that this is a game that requires far more than just scoring. With our coaching, we want our athletes to focus on all the other aspects that go into a game and to understand that makes and misses don’t define a performance. If an athlete is consistently working on their game outside of practice, we always encourage them to trust their work and let it fly on game-day. If their shot is feeling off, that just means to get back in the gym and continue to work. But whether the shots are falling or not, there’s always a other ways to impact the game: Rebounding, defense, passing, etc.

We encourage everyone to watch and show their athlete this quick clip below!

Coming Up…

We conclude the regular season of the Golden Gate League this weekend and will fight for top seeding in the playoffs that begin next weekend. Be sure to check TeamSnap for your schedule and please mark your availability on TeamSnap so we know our roster for the weekend. Let’s finish out the regular season strong!