NIKE MIDNIGHT MADNESS 2007
THE LA TRIP

After an intense summer of basketball - including 15 roadshows, two regional qualifers and an almighty great grand final - the elite Nike Midnight Madness team flew out to L.A. to take on some of the best in the West. Here, Midnight Madness boss Nhamo Shire gives us an overview of what went down in Hollywood...

The trip to LA was a great one. Winning aside, probably even better (if that’s possible?) than Chicago.

We got to visit the LA Lakers facility and take pictures with the real NBA World Championship Trophies, sit in Phil Jackson’s chair, hold his coach of the year award, sit in Kobe’s locker, see where the Lakers train and had a long Q&A session with one of the coaches where we got to ask absolutely anything we wanted about how to train, get better, how Kobe and Jordan trained etc. You just can’t beat stuff like that.

LA itself was an experience I’m sure will stay with the players forever. Nike treated us so well out there and we got to play in a big time tournament call "Time To Shine" on Venice Beach on the Saturday. Palm trees, sun, sea, sand and a beautiful outdoor basketball court with glass backboards, big crowd, music...it felt like we were in an actual movie.

The way things were set up, we played in 3 warm up/practise games on the run up to the weekend, then the big games were to be in the actual tournament on Saturday.

We played our practise games at the incredible Nike facility "The Point" and also over in Long Beach.

All 3 games were very competitive with the score being tied or close to being tied in every one at some stage late in the games. However what became apparent to me was our lack of having a true point guard amongst our winners.

A point guard handles the ball and sets up everyone else, and though we had some great talent on our team, we didn’t really have a "set up" man or someone who could get the ball down the floor safely. As such, all the teams jumped on us from the start to the finish, pressing us full court and causing us to give up way too many turnovers. We averaged around 30 turnovers a game, which in basketball circles is an absolute no-no if you plan on winning ball games.

We played against some legitimate talent as well, including 7' 4" former LA Clippers Centre Keith Closs and a bunch of LA athletes who currently play in the NBA development league. Overall, it was the turnovers that killed us though and we ended up losing all 3 of the warm up games, the first one against "The Point All-Stars" by 6, then Long Beach by 14 and LA Legends (aka Sanyo Alumni) by 8.

The big game was on Saturday, and we were matched up again against "The Point All-Stars".

We started well and were all tied up at the half, in front of a big crowd on the most beautiful outdoor court I’ve ever seen in my life.

However, once again, the lack of point guard came back to haunt us and we just couldn’t get it done in the second half against their pressure defense. We had some great performances from the UK guys, but I think they were ultimately put at a disadvantage as the stats system failed to produce any PG's this year, for the first time ever. We ended up losing the semi-final by 9.

Next year we’ll adjust the BWB system in the UK so we qualify players by position, rather than any random 10 to ensure we get a balanced team representing the UK this time next year.

We're committed to doing all we can to help the UK players and elevate their experiences, so ensuring they have a balanced team and are given the best opportunity to succeed like they did in Chicago, is something we’ll definitely do.

For more indepth coverage on the games and what happened off the court in LA, make sure you check the official Midnight Madness blog at: www.myspace.com/midnightmadnessuk