By Jason Pike
St John’s, NL – The Mobile Monarchs senior boys took on the St Kevin’s Mavericks senior B team on Monday night. And it was apparent right from the start that the monarchs are in for a very long season.
Only 2 years ago the monarchs were AA senior Varsity Boys provincial champions but this team is a mere shadow of that squad. I’m trying to give them benefit of the doubt, being that it was the first game of the season, but what I witnessed was a severe lack of grassroots and fundamental basketball training.
Kale Pittman and Carson Power are both 6 ft 3 or taller, and weighing in about 260 lb, both are absolute units, but failed to be effective at all, these two guys should be playing in the post position but Power seem to be playing point guard and shot about 15 missed attempts from outside. When he used the size to his advantage he was the force to be reckoned with on the boards, so I I can only chalk up his playing point guard and shooting to bad coaching decisions.
Kale Pittman for a man of his size was not as effective as he can be. It was a series of bad shooting, bad passing and just general chaos, although it was ultimately only a 10-point game in difference in favour of the St Kevin’s squad. The Saint Kevin’s team, who are the B Squad, consists mostly of hockey players who couldn’t commit to the A team, even if they had been selected due to multisport conflicts, but they’re passing, ball handling and shooting were far superior and I think once they get a few games under their belt they will have no issues finishing and correcting all the little hiccups that they encountered in this game. As for the Monarchs though, the coaching staff will definitely need to tighten the reins if there’s any chance of returning this team to the Championship form that they were just 2 years ago.
As someone who is familiar with the Mobile Monarchs basketball players myself, I noticed that there were many missing faces who by inquiring I found out didn’t even come out to try out for the Varsity Squad, so it begs the question, why weren’t they there and what’s going on in Mobile with senior boys basketball that kept this team from putting out the best product that they possibly could? This game is available for viewing on YouTube @jasonpikemedia
