Independent Component

Literal

(a) I, Diego Delgado, affirm that I have completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) Coach Juan Hernandez, YMCA youth basketball coach

(c) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtPSdf9O4rJOdEF0SDdsU0tJVDNFbWUzRF9lSkRacFE&usp=docslist_api

(d) I completed a whole season of playing and practicing on a YMCA basketball team.

Interpretive

During my independent component, my coach didn't really have us work much on cardio. However, I believe cardio is very important because having endurance means you can continue to work hard while your opponents get tired. The picture above is a picture of me running in the fourth and final quarter. The fourth quarter is where fatigue is the highest. It is important to continue to play hard in the fourth quarter to not let the other team catch up, try your best for your team to catch up, or stay in the lead. At the time, I was in the cross country elective which helped me stay in shape and run fast. This was actually what I presented on for my ten minute presentation.

Free throws are easy points. Like the name says, they are free. Basically when a player gets fouled, they get to shoot with no one blocking them. That's why it is important to practice your free throw shooting. When I started my independent component, I was only making about fifty percent of my free throws.Which is pretty low. By the end of this component, I was making around seventy percent of my free throws. Free throws can determine weather you win or lose a game. That's why it is so important to make all of them. Making free throws might be my next answer to my essential question.

In this picture, you can see me playing offense in the low post. As you can see, there is much contact in the low post. That's why it is important to have good footwork. Good footwork means you are able to trick your opponent by being quick on your feet and making your move before they have a chance to realize what happened. Footwork is very important in basketball. Not just on offense but also on defense. I will actually be going over it's significance during my 30 minute presentation.

Here is a picture of me shooting. This picture is a great example of the importance of elevation during a shot. As you can see, I am at a much higher elevation than my opponent. That means nobody is blocking me and I have a clear shot to the basket. That means the chances of you making it are much higher. Which in turn means your chances of winning are much higher. Elevation could possibly be an answer to my essential question.

Here is just another photo of me shooting some free throws after I got fouled.

And here you can see me trying to get open. This is called moving without the ball and plays a big role in the game. The reason why it's so important is because when you move without the ball and try to get open, you have a much higher chance of getting into an open spot. That means you have created the potential to score without ever holding the ball in your hands. Which means your chances of winning go up. Moving without the ball is another potential answer to my essential question since it is so effective and really the only way to make yourself useful.

Applied

This component helped me understand the foundation of my topic better by creating a real world situation where I can learn from my mistakes and from other individuals to make myself a better player and gain experience and knowledge of my topic. For example, when I first started my independent component, I was really out of shape. This highly affected me because in basketball you can't slack off if you want to win. This helped me get a better understanding of the importance of physical fitness in this sport. Also, my coached focused on defense more than anything else during practice. I started doing research on defense for my research checks and I am now using defense for my first answer. Just actually playing the sport and learning first hand is a lot more helpful than reading alone, I think.