Graceketball

28 Seconds in Brittney Griner throws down.

Grace had no games this weekend so Saturday we were able to go down to Princeton for a camper's reunion of sorts, watched the Tigers thump Lafayette. The Graces had fun talking to the girls afterward and getting complete sets of autographs. 2G, GraceAnne and Grace Stone, worked out with Carrie Moore for around 2 hrs after the game. Screen and roll, cheese steaks and frozen yogurt... just a really great day. On Sunday Blake, Grace and I went to the Maggie Dixon Classic at Madison Square Garden. Two games. First was Baylor v Boston College. Got to see Brittney Griner dunk! The second game was Rutgers v Tennessee, C Vivian Stringer and Pat Summit. Pretty cool! Good seats too. We had gone to see the Princeton v Rutgers game last weekend so we knew the Rutgers team a little bit, they're HUGE. Well, Tennessee makes them look pretty small. Last weekend Grace had her first St Pat's game, scored 13 in a 16-7 win. Shut her girl down on the defensive end.

Carrie came up and ran a clinic for GraceAnne's team last weekend. It was a really nice Saturday morning workout at the Webb Institute gym.

The Graces went down to check out the Princeton v Rutgers game. Princeton lost but played extremely well. Kids had a great time. GraceAnne also had an intramural CYO basketball game last night in which she played very well and won, a travel CYO game this morning against the only undefeated team in her league which they won by one point in the final seconds then a super league game at Island Garden this afternoon... which they won. Afterward we drove down to Princeton to catch the Tigers play Rutgers. She has one more Super League game tomorrow evening and that will be the end of a busy weekend.

Today GraceAnne unleashed the drop-step she's been working on with Carrie Moore. Thanks Blake for the dramatic video editing! Thanks Carrie for everything you do!

GraceAnne's Super League team, Lightning Hudson, starts its schedule this weekend. Their opening game will be Friday night at 8:30 at Island Garden. She then has a CYO League game with The Storm at St Mary's in Manhasset at 2:30 Saturday followed by her second game of the Super League season at Island Garden at 6:30 Saturday night. This crazy weekend wraps up on Sunday with a home game (thankfully) at St Hyacinth gym at 3:30. If the two teams don't get tired or lose focus they could very well come away with four wins. It doesn't look like there are any more 4 game weekends on the schedule this winter. This is very similar to an AAU tournament schedule which they'll have to get used to come spring. Lots of sleep and healthy meals.

Here is some video of the girls all having fun at the Stony Brook v Princeton game last Friday. Princeton won and a lot of the girls really fell in love with Niveen Rasheed (Venus) and Devona Allgood both of whom played extremely well and the girls got to meet after the game. Last night Grace and I watched Princeton beat American University on her laptop. Venus and Devona both played well again and Grace was excited to see them, Carrie and "her court" at Jadwin on the "TV". Grace got an invitation to a camper's reunion at Princeton yesterday. She's looking forward to it!

GraceAnne's CYO team is undefeated at 4-0, a really nice start. They have scored 40 and 50 points and are winning by an average of 14 points, pretty high powered offense. Hopefully they keep the momentum going. Super League at Island Garden is starting up and Grace will be playing for Lightning Hudson once again. First game is next Friday, the 20th. Her super league team consists of most of the players on The Storm adding Jenna Brown and a new girl named Zoey. Jenna's big sis Taylor is only a freshman but already there are a lot of eyes on her as a prospect. GraceAnne played AAU with Jenna last year and she's a super nice kid. Should be fun. The first Lightning practice will be this Sunday. The Storm is heading to Stony Brook this evening to see the season opener between the Princeton Tigers women's team and the Stony Brook Sea Wolves. Carrie Moore provided passes for about 30 people to see the game. How cool is that? Should be a good time! Tomorrow GraceAnne and I are ...

Great workout for Stone and Woody at Jadwin yesterday. Shows a lot of dedication to miss out on all that candy to get better at bball. They actually got a chance to get their trick-or-treat on when they got back home in the evening. They both really respond to Carrie's training and you can see the intensity, they both want to do well and push themselves to get better. She gets them to work on the skills that need improvement without any complaint on their part.... how does she do it? Sounds like Carrie is willing to drive up and run a training session for The St Hyacinth Storm CYO team. It would be a great thing for all the girls to experience. Hopefully we can find the gym time. Princeton will be opening their season against Stony Brook here on LI Nov 13th. A bunch of the girls from GraceAnne's team will be going. Should be fun!

The girl's will be going down to Princeton again this Saturday to work with Carrie. Pretty dedicated to head down on Halloween and miss out on all that great trick or treating! It's good that they will get some time in the gym. There haven't been many CYO practices because gym time has been scarce and all the families/kids are involved in so many other activities. Maybe they can all dress as Tigers?

GGT and A had a tough night. GraceAnne played in a 3 on 3 with her friends and teammates Tristan, Grace Stone and Amara. They were up against a 6th grade girl's team and the rest of the teams were boys. They played well but not well enough to win any games. Seemed to get intimidated by playing boys. Grace was tough and fought for rebounds and loose balls against bigger stronger players, Stone was determined and got better throughout the evening but tonight it just wasn't enough. I know Tris and Stone are mad and Gracey is too. I'm hoping it was a good experience for all four of them and that they will use it as motivation to keep getting better. All are good kids and good players. The four also played and won 2 games for their CYO team the St Hyacinth Storm. Grace scored rebounded and blocked shots against St Rose on Friday night and grabbed a bunch of rebounds against Our Lady of Peace on Saturday in a surprising blowout against a good team. The OLP point guard has some fu...

Grace, Grace and Tristan went to work with Carrie Moore at Princeton this evening. They got 2 hours of Carrie and Jadwin Gym all to themselves. This is the kind of stuff that makes good players want to be great. Carrie sets high standards and makes them work very hard... and they love it!

Here is GraceAnne's CYO team in their second practice.

First practice of the regular CYO season for Hudson Storm (St Hyacinth Storm) will be this coming Saturday. YAY! 'bout time! Grace has been playing a lot of soccer in the local league and we've been going up to the middle school to shoot hoops and work on her game. I'm sure she will be ready for the upcoming season. This is the longest stretch, about a month, she has gone without playing any organized ball in the past year. She'll be hungry! Considering whether or not to put her in the local St. Pat's intramural CYO league. She will probably want to play there because she has the past three years. Seems like a lot so we'll have to see. She loves doing it and it would be cool if she always does so don't want her to overload herself. I'll try to get a video clip of the girl's first practice.

Canceled due to lack of interest. Bummer! The guy running it, Ralph Napolitano, told me they were stuck with 220 shirts and 72 trophies. Guess we have to find something else to do this weekend.

GraceAnne is getting ready to play in a 3 on 3 tournament at North Shore High School in Glen Head this weekend. Her Storm/Lightning teammates Tristan Hudson and Grace Stone will be playing with her and, after much deliberation, their name is going to be GGT. It's a one day tournament with four 15 minute games guaranteed plus playoffs and a trophy for the first place team. It's also for a good cause, Jay's World Childhood Cancer Foundation . Top Gun Tournament The girls should have a fun time and hopefully it will be a good experience for them.

This is a highlight video Blake made of GraceAnne's spring Long Island Lightning AAU team.

Blake put together a nice highlight film for GraceAnne's Summer CYO team. They had a lot of fun playing ball this summer.

GraceAnne's Summer League CYO team, the St Hyacinth Storm, won their final game last night to go undefeated for the summer season. Congratulations to all the girls and parents for working so hard and achieving such an outstanding result! The team won last night's game in a 30-9 blowout. The opposing team wasn't all that bad but they seemed to get intimidated quickly by the smothering defense and the fact that Storm jumped out to an early lead. The Storm had beaten them the last two times they played in pretty competitive games so maybe they became disheartened. Grace played well with only six points but fourteen rebounds, two blocks and three steals. In this clip (about 5 minutes in) Grace gets fouled after beating her girl in a clear-out and taking it to the hole. She is also enjoying the Pro-Hoops camp... though sometimes you wouldn't know it. This in spite of being on a team with only one former AAU teammate and a pointguard she describes as an unapologeti...

Although it seems to have started off a little strangely I have heard lots of good things about Pro-Hoops. No early dropoff, no aftercare and the location changed kind of last minutey all of which left me with very hectic, pre-work, shuttle-bus duties. Inconvenient. Not happy. It will all work itself out. Today is GraceAnne's first day at Pro-Hoops camp. Pro-Hoops founder is Jay Hernandez who played with Speedy Claxton at Hofstra. Wally Szerbiak who played for Cold Spring Harbor Highschool and is a current NBA player trains with him. Bethany LeSueur is running this camp and Grace has at least 4 Hudson Storm teammates attending with her. That should be fun. Bethany LeSueur played at Georgetown after graduating from Garden City Highschool where she led them to THREE Long Island championships. She remains Long Island's all time leading scorer with 3,167 points. Which all means she's crazy good. Hope GraceAnne has fun and that the camp itself is as good as folk...

Grace and Grace Stone had a good time working with Carrie Moore yesterday. Grace's other teammate Tristan didn't get a chance to go but hopefully we will do it again in the future.

Tomorrow Grace is going back to Princeton with two of her teammates for a workout with Carrie Moore. Carrie Moore is director of women's basketball operations for Princeton University.... she was also the nation's NCAA leading scorer in 2007 averaging 25.4 ppg as a senior at Western Michigan U and then played a season for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA. Pretty cool. Grace should get a great workout.

Grace dropped 12 on Our Lady of Hope last night on six for twelve shooting, 9 rebounds, three steals and an assist. She drove coast to coast a couple times and scored once from the left side doing it. Storm won 47 to 18. Girls all looked like they were having fun.

Hudson Storm Grace is having fun playing CYO Summer Season with the St Hyacinth Storm. She is playing well and so far they are undefeated 5-0 and clobbering their opponents. This team is a monster. They were undefeated last regular season and will be a lot of fun to watch during this regular season CYO.

Grace is attending the Krista Kilburn Stevesky basketball camp at Hofstra University. She likes it and has made some new friends. She likes the Hofstra players who are coaching her best. One coach GraceAnne likes is named Iso and she's from Brentwood LI. We'll probably go see some of the Hofstra games this season so it would be cool/fun for her if they remember her.

GraceAnne's team went to the NY Liberty game and got to meet and talk to many of the players. They sat on the bench during warmups and got to do some rebounding for the Liberty.

GraceAnne had a good time, seemed to be well coached and definitely met some very nice kids. LuHi camp was two weeks of playing on the asphalt getting beat up by the hot sun though. Not sure we'll be doing that again.

Brittney Griner.... GraceAnne Woods? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Blake visiting Grace at the Princeton camp.

GraceAnne hustling and playing D at the Princeton camp. Grace had a blast! We will definitely be doing this again.

Ok. Princeton's Jadwin center is a pretty big gym.

GraceAnne won a big trophy for Most Improved Player for her St Pat's intramural team. She was quite pleased.

GraceAnne sleeping in the car after playing a lot of minutes in a tournament at Pace University in Westchester. Only six of our girls showed up. This was the third tournament we did in her first year in AAU basketball. Grace is 10 yrs old and will be going into the 5th grade this September. She is already 5'5" and has been playing basketball since the first grade. St Rocco's in Glen Cove was her first experience in an organized league, I guess she was 6 yrs old? She loves basketball and we are having a lot of fun watching her pursue it. If she keeps enjoying it and continues to work as hard as she does now I wonder where it might take her?