South Shore coach Anwar Gladden has been more strict than ever with his girls this year. (Denis Gostev)
The two coaches who will be walking the sidelines at Madison Square Garden on Sunday morning are very different than the ones who met two years ago in the PSAL Class AA girls basketball championship game.
Both Murry Bergtraum’s Ed Grezinsky and South Shore’s Anwar Gladden have grown and adapted to their personnel this year specifically. They ask their players to made adjustments and they too made those adjustments in the beginning of the season.
It’s the reason why the Lady Blazers and Vikings are the last PSAL teams remaining.
With an inexperienced group, one would think Grezinsky would have tightened his grip, upped the intensity level. It has been just the opposite in Lower Manhattan. Grezinsky has played it cool, he’s been loose and his team has responded.
“He’s more patient and understanding,” Bergtraum senior guard Cori Coleman said. “He’s more laid back. He makes us feel more comfortable. He’s more compromising with us. We can agree to disagree.”
Gladden has been the opposite with his team. In previous years, you could call him a player’s coach. Not now. Gladden’s credo all year was “not budging.” He didn’t let the Vikings cut any corners in the classroom or on the court.
“He talks about school, school, school, schoolwork,” South Shore senior guard Jasmine Odom said. “Sometimes I’m getting drained, because I feel like going to the court and playing basketball more. But his priorities first is books.”
Gladden talked about wanting to form a program, not just a good team. That’s something Grezinsky already has. But this year’s group was vastly different than previous ones for the legendary head man. Bergtraum wasn’t 20 points better than every other team it played this year. It wasn’t a national championship contender. There was no Epiphanny Prince scoring 113 points in one game.
“He adapted a lot,” Coleman said. “Usually he was used to having all these good players coming. He really didn’t have to do much. Now this year, he still has talented players and all, but he has to work from the ground up. Chemistry, teaching plays. He’s had to have some patience. He has it.”
Grezinsky admitted to being different this year. He’s prepared as always – no one scouts more games than the 19th-year coach with 12 city titles to his name. The devil this year, though, has been in the details. Coleman was the lone returning starter and Bergtraum has just one current Division I signee in Ashley Gomez, though Coleman, Shaniqua Reese and Shequana Harris will all probably play at that level.
“Because we had so many close games, I think it sharpens you as a coach in terms of you have to make quick decisions in a hurry whereas previously maybe you didn’t have to make those decisions,” Grezinsky said. “One or two games were close in the fourth quarter and this year there were 11 or 12 games. Changing up a little wrinkle on defense, maybe a substitution here and there, is the difference between winning and losing.”
As always, Bergtraum did more of the former. South Shore has, too. Gladden didn’t want anything to get in the way of a potentially excellent season. He saw the talent on the court and feared off-the-court things getting in the way of a championship.
“I was a lot more disciplined on them this year,” Gladden said. “I was a lot more strict on them this year. They joke with me all the time, ‘I’m not budging.’ I was not budging this year with this group. I knew the future was bright. I wanted to get the old stuff out of the way. Minus the winning, but all the distractions. I was tired of dealing with distractions.”
There will be no distractions Sunday. Both coaches have done all the work this year, molding these two squads into the best in the PSAL. The players are the ones who will decide the game, but the two men on the sidelines put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Gladden knows that. Grezinsky is a coach he came up watching, learning from. This year has been a special one.
“I think he’s done a tremendous job,” Gladden said. “That’s what worries me about them. I don’t see the old Bergtraum team, but they’re still winning.”
