We did not manage to get much practice done during the 1st Semester of this season for several reasons.
- We were not able to book any indoor Gyms for practice. As a result the usual Wednesday night practice had to be done outdoor at Resident Colleges (RC). Whilst RC5 has been very supportive, the lighting at RC5 court is quite poor. A few practices were held at RC12 but had difficulty getting the flood lights turned on consistently. And many practices were rained out.
- Head Coach Loke Yew changed jobs and his new Co worked on Saturdays. As such the usual Saturday morning practices were changed to Friday nights ~ and suffered the same difficulties as Wednesday night practices.
- Many veteran players, for various reasons, missed many practices.
We managed to cover and teach some individual fundamental skills but there are still much to be covered and we hardly covered any team fundamentals and have not even properly covered 1 team set (offense or defense).
For the 2nd Semester, the Coaching Staff's plans to remedy the situation are:-
- Ensure we at least get to book the indoor Gym for Wednesday nights
- If we are unable to book the indoor Gym for Friday nights, to move the 2nd session to Sunday mornings (no lighting issue and less likely to be rained out)
However, the Coaching Staff still needs each and every current player to rededicate themselves and to recommit to attending practices regularly. Remember, we are MASUM DEFENDING CHAMPIONS. Every team will be looking to defeat us next year.
And the championship we won last year was a result of the veteran's 4 (or at least 3) years' continuous dedicated and committed effort. Last year's 1st year players (this year's 2nd year players) must NOT take the championship for granted or think that it is very easy to achieve.
Coach Loke Yew
