Sanatura Escazu 92 Perez Zeledon 89 (OT)

The league is a lot tougher in general this year, so every game is a grind, but PZ might be one of the more improved teams in the league. I had been dreading this game for a few weeks. First, Perez Zeledon had fortified their squad by adding Jake McKenzie and Carlos Melendez, two of my former players that I have gone to war with in the past. Second, they reloaded with two new American players; last year they were very successful in bringing in dynamic talent in Cesar Chavez, deAndre Brown and Antonio Jones. This year they have the lightning quick Thomas Douglas and the athletic Semaj Inge as their two foreigners. Third, road games to Perez Zeledon are always a tough grind, particularly on a weeknight when traffic stretches out the trip to at least three hours each way.

Sanatura Escazu 70 Grecia 64

Grecia's colorful gym

Costa Rican basketball (and football for that matter) uses the European model of relegation where the last place team in First Division drops to Second Division, and the Second Division champ graduates up to First Division.  The town of Grecia, located about 45 minutes from San Jose, won the Second Division tournament last year in dramatic fashion, beating the University of Costa Rica in the final game of the championship series. After moving up, they reinforced their team with some First Division players including former Barva stalwart Amir Alvarado, one of the best players in the league.

Sanatura Escazu 68 Barva 83

The signs were there. I just ignored them. Five minutes before game time, I was informed by the referee Edgar Ibarra  that three of my players were wearing impermissible socks. I glanced over and see ankle length socks instead of calf length socks. Of course, there were other players that had socks that were very similar that were apparently okay (including all but one Barva player), but we had to scramble to find socks for three of our players minutes before tipoff. This was the first time all season that this was brought to my attention, and this happens five minutes before game time (and not twenty minutes before when the refs took the court?). And I'm looking through the FIBA playing rules for 2012 and I don't see anything about socks.

Coach Ali Ton profile

Nice write-up on Coach Ali Ton at UC Irvine. I've known Ali for over ten years, so it's been interesting to watch his coaching career unfold. Now we just need to supply him with some Costa Rican players.

Coach Ali Ton article

LCR 69 Sanatura Escazu 95

Liceo de Costa Rica, one of the league's traditional powers, has decided to play this year's tournament with its Juegos Nacionales team, players that are all younger than 21 years old. Escazu tried the same road last year. So right from the outset they have a talent gap when facing other teams in this league. I've long thought that one of the most dangerous thing in sports is to face a team that has nothing to lose.

So Friday night, coming off a big road win in San Ramon, we were facing this young Liceo team. The game was much tighter that I would have liked. While we had no problems scoring points from all over the court, our defense was very sloppy, allowing too many open looks for my liking. The first quarter ended with a four point margin, while the halftime lead expanded to six points. We turned up the defensive intensity in the third quarter which finally allowed us to break out to a twenty point lead that gave us a choke-hold on the game.

The large lead let us experiment with different lineups and defenses; some of our defensive calls still need work, but at this stage of the season that is expected.

Game Notes

• Reiner Little led our scoring with twenty points, while Jeff Dixon was the leading rebounder with 8.
• David Gourzong continued his strong play from Tuesday. He had a strong preseason last year before getting hurt in the season opener, an injury that affected his playing time and got lost in the shuffle. David has as much physical talent as anyone on our roster; if he can stay healthy he should have a big year for us.
• One of the changes from last year is the Sub 21 minutes. We are now forced to play our Sub 21 guys ten minutes per game, but it's a season total rather than a per game requirement like we had last year. Also, we now have to play sub 21 players 4 minutes per game in the psotseason. Our team has a very good set of sub 21 players (Armando Duran, Ronny Johnson, Jose Garcia, Adrain Echeverria and Ian Waugh to name a few), a result of Escazu's strong youth leagues, so I'm not too concerned about our ability to comply with the rule. I really hate the rule because it's such an artificial intrusion into the game and has all sorts of site effects that the Federation doesn't understand.
• Speaking of the Federation, our commissioner has decided that the Limon game cancellation was due to an issue outside their control (the gym was not available), and not to their faulty organization. Thus the game is being rescheduled for a later date. Such is life in Costa Rica, where lack of organization is not only tolerated but rewarded. This is exactly why we have such a mediocre league. 

Al Dia Preview: Sanatura Escazu at San Ramon

Nice preview of tonight's game at San Ramon. An early test for both teams.

Juego con Sabor a Final

Sanatura Escazu 20 Limon 0

A new season is upon us.

Our first game of the new season was at Limon. Two days before the game we get a call that there's a concert in the gymnasium scheduled for Saturday afternoon and that we have two options: move the game up to Friday afternoon or push the game back an hour to 9pm. Given the short notice, we didn't feel our players would be able to get their permission from their respective jobs to leave Friday afternoon, so we agreed to a late 9pm start. We offered to flip the game, play at Escazu on Saturday and then visit Limon on the return leg, but that offer was not accepted.

So off we went Saturday afternoon, eager to get our first game under our belts. After stopping for a bite to eat outside of Guapiles, we pulled into Limon just past 8pm. The concert/talent show had been scheduled to end at 8PM, but was still going full steam when we got there. Then we walked into the gymnasium and saw a rather elaborate stage sitting right in the middle of the gym.

So we waited; our team was itching to play against a tough Limon team. At around 8:35, I heard the words that the final contestants would go on stage and then the judges would pick the winner. Okay, we might be all right, I thought...but as soon as the final contestants finished they announced a new act while the judges deliberated. The concert wrapped up at around 9:00 and people started filing out of the gym. The court was still cluttered with the stage, the estimate was that it would be at least an hour before they would get it moved if they started right away (apparently the Cerveceria guys in charge of the stage had left). At 9:15 the refs called the game in our favor.

This is the first game I've won by forfeit and it really sucks. Not just because we spent most of the day driving over to Limon, but rather cause we really wanted to play. After five weeks of beating each other up in practice our guys were eager to see how things looked against a live opponent.

So it was back on the bus, a quick beer pit stop, and back to San Jose, pulling in at 2 AM.