Ex-UM v 1st College Friendly Match

Results : Ex-UM won 77-44

After a single practice the night before where we introduced for the first time, the new "Read & React" offensive system which I purchased online from Coach Rick Torbert's Better Basketball website, Ex-UM ran the new offense against 1st College with a surprising degree of success.

However, 1st College was basically using the friendly match as their tune-up and preparation towards the UM inter-college (SUKMUM) games scheduled to be played in January 2009. Consequently, 1st College's best player,Amirul (Varsity Team Assistant Captain) who had to play the role of "Player-Coach" focused more on the "coaching" side, didn't start the game and played limited minutes.

Also, we had Ken playing for us in the friendly. Having played in Agong's Cup previously, Ken is almost always "disqualified" from participating in competitions Ex-UM take part in. So normally we won't have the luxury of having such a big, strong and effective low post presence as Ken.

Despite these "caveats", the "Read & React" offense showed great promise and potential. With just 1 single practice, Ex-UM players were able to execute it, creating a lot of spacing whilst using the offense' flexibility to be creative as well. The offense (as advertised) also did not seem to require each and every player to have the same level of understanding of the offense system and had enough flexibility to enable the players with better understanding to play alongside those with less.

Tonight, Ex-UM will be having a 2nd friendly match this time against 5th College. Although one of their key players, Chee Ching (Center) is out with a finger injury, 5th College will pose a much bigger test for Ex-UM and the "Read & React" offense as 5th College still boasts 3 (healthy) current varsity player and 1 former player. Of the 3 current varsity players, 1 is arguably our fastest varsity player, another is virtually un-guardable one-on-one and a third is the most disciplined and hardworking player.

It will be interesting to see how the "Read & React" offense does against such better players. However, the key to Ex-UM's chances of winning, I believe, will lie more in whether we able to prevent 5th College from getting easy fast break points and whether we can defend them.