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Junior Dogs Club Team
Junior Dogs have successful 2002 summer
By Kirk Jones
This was the third season for club basketball in Saskatoon and the program continued to improve and grow. This year the team played 26 games, most of them on the Alberta circuit where we competed against older players. The experience served the team well as they finished their season in Las Vegas at the Big Time Tournament, considered by many observers to be the top high school age basketball event in the world.
Two years ago the first club team traveled to the same tournament and returned winless. This team opened with a resounding victory over the South Idaho All-Stars and lost a tough fought battle with the Kansas City ACT Running Rebels for first place in their pool and a chance to move into the top bracket. The young Dogs still advanced to the playoffs and accomplished the admirable goal of surviving the first day of elimination play by defeating the Connecticut Force before bowing out the next day to Villa Park from Los Angeles.
The team was able to compete with the top-level American players because they played enough games and improved enough over the course of the summer. A measure of the teams improvement is that in the first tournament in May they lost in double overtime to a team they would later defeat by over fifty points in July. It is a simple, though not easy, process for players to improve. Expose the players to lots of the best competition around and they will rise to the occasion.
The Alberta circuit and the Dogs own Prairie Dog Classic in Saskatoon are open to any teams in age groups from 14-19 years old. We hope in the future to have more teams and allow more players to experience this wonderful growing process. If you are interested in helping as a coach, assistant coach, volunteer or just want some information on summer basketball, talk to anyone involved with the Huskie Basketball Program.
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