Free Night Hoops by Carl Deuker Page A

he'd stick through tryouts, either."
    Practice was different from tryouts, and it wasn't just that there were twelve guys where there had been thirty. During tryouts, O'Leary had stood back and watched us play. At practice he had every minute orchestrated. The run-and-gun showtime stuff was over. We stretched; we ran; we did passing and fast-break drills. Then came a chalk talk.
    O'Leary knew the game in a way that no other coach I'd ever had knew it.
Double-downs, rotation to the ball, weakside help—he
explained all those things you hear about on television but don't really understand. And he explained not only what they were, but also how to do them.
    When the chalk talk ended, we walked through the plays we'd learned. Then we had a controlled scrimmage—which means he blew the whistle every time somebody made a mistake, which was about every ten seconds. After that we ran more fast-break drills, had another chalk talk, and ran some more. We hardly had time to breathe, let alone think, before O'Leary was saying: "All right, gentlemen, that's it for today. Remember, on time tomorrow and every day. No excuses."
    During practice Trent had had to do all the grunt work—the stretching, the running, the fast-break drills. When it came to the fun part, the actual scrimmaging, he was off to the side,
forgotten, used only when somebody needed a rest. It made sense. He wasn't eligible, so why waste precious practice time on him? Still, it had to be rough.

    And what happened after practice had to be rough, too. As soon as O'Leary blew the whistle, he led Trent into his office and sat him down at the desk in there. While the rest of us showered and shot the breeze, Trent was in that little room—still wearing his gym clothes—doing his schoolwork. When Luke and I walked out of the locker room and across the gym to go home, he was still there, sitting in his sweats with his head over a book.
    I went home, ate some dinner, did my homework. By nine-thirty I was beat, absolutely exhausted. I lay on my bed and turned on the radio, too tired to do anything else. And it was right about then that I heard a basketball being dribbled in the back yard, heard Steve Clay and Trent talking in their low voices.
    I was amazed. Where did Trent find the energy? I don't know how long they stayed that night, or on the other nights either. Not even the constant
thump, thump, thump
of a basketball on concrete could keep me awake.

Chapter 10
    Our opening game was on a Thursday in early December. By the end of practice on Tuesday my legs were totally dead. As we dressed in the locker room I moaned to Luke about all the running O'Leary was having us do. "You'd think we were on a track team."
    "It's a good sign for us," Luke said softly.

    "What do you mean?" I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.
    "Simple. Last year's team always walked the ball up the court and ran a set offense. They weren't a running team. Right?"
    "Yeah. That's true. But so what?"
    "Don't you get it? O'Leary's changing his style. Fabroa can't run like you can; Matt Markey can't keep up with me. If we play up-tempo ball, those guys are on the bench and we're on the court."
    My pulse quickened. "You really think so?"
    "I know so. If we show O'Leary we can handle the pressure, we'll be first string by the end of the week."
    I'd been figuring to play six or eight minutes a game. But Luke was talking about more. And why not? In my heart I knew I was better than Fabroa, that Luke was better than Markey. So what if they were seniors? Those guys had had their chance last year, and they'd done nothing with it. Ten wins, twelve losses. It was our turn.
    "You ready?" Luke said.
    I laced up my second shoe. "Yeah. Let's go."
    As we left the locker room, I looked over to the coaches' office. But instead of seeing Trent with his head over some book, I saw a policeman sitting at O'Leary's desk, his nightstick jutting out from his hip. Trent was talking, and as he talked he was