Bro. Neal’s Chat with Coach Biehl #2, 2023

January 19, 2023

Chat with Coach Biehl #2

by Brother Neal Golden, S.C. (CJ ’57)

"In the last week, the Crusaders have defeated Rummel 54-36, lost to Curtis 57-50 the next night, and fell to Jesuit 68-55 Tuesday. To show the unpredictability of Catholic League basketball this season, the night after Rummel lost by 18 to Brother Martin, the Raiders upended Jesuit 48-46. Then three nights later, the Blue Jays beat the Crusaders to complete the triangle in which each team won one and lost one.

Commenting on the last game, Coach Chris Biehl said, “We shot 23 more shots than Jesuit and still lost the game, which is unheard of. We’re not scoring at all three levels and not shooting free throws well. We’ve got to play even better defense. We force a lot of turnovers but don’t capitalize on enough of them. It’s frustrating.”

Unfortunately, the injury bug has bitten the Crusaders. “We’ve lost Jordan West for the season with a torn meniscus suffered in the first half of the Curtis game. That’s why he didn’t play the second half. We were down to nine guys. Curtis came after Pichon. We had to take him out because he was fatigued. He was on the bench 71 seconds, and our nine-point lead dwindled to one-point, and they overtook us.” 

To make matters worse, ballhawk senior Troy Santa Marina has a sprained ankle and is expected to miss at least a week. “Our bench is getting short. We’re dressing out eight or nine guys against Holy Cross Friday night. We also have illness in the locker room right now.” 6’3” sophomore Jake Klein, who’s been playing lots of minutes lately, is sick with a high fever. “He gives you everything he’s got. He’s a coach’s dream come true. He's a battler, my type of kid.”

“I told the boys it sounds ugly, but nobody cares if you have missing players. Sophomores will get plenty of varsity minutes. We may start at least one, maybe two of them. We’re back to where we were before the football players joined the team. We’ve got eight players in the gym and only seven are healthy. That’s the exact number we had when we won the Sophie B. Wright and HL Bourgeois tournaments in December.

“Today at practice we put in a brand new offense almost from scratch because we had to. We were running an offense where Jordan West was the point guard. The new offense fits the kids we’ve got and gives us a completely different look so we can get the ball in the hands of the right kid. That’s hard to do in mid-January. We’re supposed to be dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, but we’ve had to rip out the page and start over again. The players we thought we would have aren’t here now.”

The good news is that the Crusaders have no game for six days after Holy Cross this Friday. “Thank God. We all need it. I’m the coach, and I’m exhausted. We’ll give the kids off Saturday, and we never practice on Sunday. Today was the lightest Wednesday practice I’ve ever had in my 30 years of coaching. We did a lot of teaching and a lot of listening.”

The Crusaders travel the short distance to Holy Cross Friday night. The Tigers are 1-3 in district after being undefeated in pre-district play. “They’re the most improved team in the district. They’re not very big, but they come right at you and play exceptionally hard. They were young last year and have everybody back. They’re very aggressive defensively and will be a tough matchup for us. They play nine guys, subbing four at a time. They keep coming at you in waves. It’s gonna be a mental toughness game for us. We have a little bit of a height advantage.”

If ever the Conlin Crazies were needed to spur the Crusaders to victory, it’s Friday night!"

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