Even the practices were great now.

Nobody talked about the record, or looked ahead to the Darby game. The only game they talked about was the next one, this coming Saturday, at home against Hewitt.

The Rams were working harder than ever before, but having fun doing it, the kind of fun you could have in sports without goofing around, everybody on the same page, all of the guys acting almost sad every night when they looked up at the clock and realized practice was over.

Even Sam felt like he was at least part of the action, Coach making sure there was some kind of free-throw shooting contest at the end of practice, Sam able to participate in that. Ben would still seem him grimace if he made too quick a move to pick up a ball, and the doctor said he was still a couple of weeks away from running, but he could stand there and shoot. And even beat everybody some nights.

When they were collecting the balls on Thursday, last practice before Hewitt, Coach came over to Ben and said, “As a coach, you always hope it will happen like this for your team, but you never know.”

“Hoping what happens?” Ben said, casually flipping one of the practice balls to Coach behind his back.

“Guys becoming a real team,” Coach Wright said. “And I know you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Believe me, I know,” Ben said. “I’m sorry the season is about to end.”

“That’s something that does happen every year,” Coach said. “All of a sudden you’re closer to the end than the beginning. Way closer.”

Ben said, “Don’t you just hate when that happens?”

“Yeah. But I love coaching my team right now.”

“I love playing on it.”

“Right now you just love playing period,” Coach said. “Wasn’t so sure about that earlier in the year.”

“Same.”

“So what changed?”

“Just remembered why I play,” Ben said. “And how important it is to me to be part of a team like this.”

“Hey,” Coach said. “Better late than never.”

“Coach,” Ben said, “you always say that your goal is for everybody on the team to be better at the end of the season than the start, right?”

“Totally.”

“Well, this year I want everybody we play at the end to know how much better we got,” Ben said. “And to think that even without Sam, we ended up the best team in the league.”

Coach smiled now. “Are you sure you’re just eleven?”

“Are you serious?” Ben said. “I spent the first half of the season acting like I was five.”

Then he said to Coach, “Can I get five more minutes?”

Coach nodded. Ben took a ball out of the rack and dribbled it over and challenged Sam to a free-throw shooting contest.

Sam Brown wasn’t back on the court the way Ben wanted him to be, the way Ben had held out hope that he would be from the time he hurt his ankle. But he was moving around so much better now, just a slight limp, down to an ACE bandage wrapping the ankle, carefully shooting around before and after every practice as long as he didn’t have to move around too much.

Ben told Sam what he’d just said to Coach, about wanting to finish up looking like the best team in the whole league.

“Dude,” Sam said, “trust me on something: I think we already are.”

“What about the undefeated Darby Bragging Bears?” Ben said.

Sam reached out, asking for the ball, barely looked as he turned and shot, both of them watching the ball go through the basket without coming close to touching iron.

“Just wait,” Sam said.

They went home after that and went to bed and woke up Friday morning finding out they still had a chance to prove they were the best team in the league for real.

That they still had an outside shot of playing themselves into the championship game.