http://youtu.be/p7rGrcdnwh0
“Jungle Love” – Morris Day and the HAIM
Jimmy Kimmel has been having #MashUpMondays, where he has two different artists cover songs together. Last week’s came a couple weeks too late for me. It would have been perfect while I was reading Let’s Go Crazy. And while it would have been nice for the Haim sisters to get more to sing, it still works pretty well. Morris Day and The Time + Haim = Morris Day and the HAIM.
It’s been a rather slow, uneventful winter sports season. Until the last week, that is. I’ve been working a little less, as the family schedule has been busier this year than in the past. And I’ve been lucky enough to cover our best girls basketball team more than any other squad. So a lot of solid games to write about, but not a ton of stories to share.
Things first got interesting last Wednesday, when I headed south for a boys basketball game on a snowy night. I knew the roads were slushy and slick in spots, but probably left about 5–10 minutes later than I should have. Still, as I traveled the clock kept showing me getting to the school just before 7:30, regular basketball tip time in Indiana.
And here’s the thing: unless there is not a JV game, varsity contests never begin at exactly 7:30. The JV game usually runs until 7:15 or so, then it takes a few minutes to clear the court and get the ok to start the 20-minute clock for varsity warm ups. Then there are introductions, the national anthem, and often some kind of presentation crammed in as well. Add it all together and, more often than not, the varsity game is tipping closer to 7:40, if not later.
Well, as I got closer to IHS, the roads got worse. I slipped and slid into the parking lot at exactly 7:30. When I ran inside, the lady running the ticket table said to me, “You guys always make it just in time.” I told her I was worried about being late, and she responded, “Don’t worry. You made it.” I signed in, thanked her, walked into the gym, and looked at the clock.
There were three minutes left in the first quarter.
WTF?
They didn’t just start on time, they started early.
Never, in eight seasons of covering high school sports, have I missed the beginning of a football or basketball game. And here I was, at a game that I expected to be both very good and very close, missing the first four minutes and change.
Fortunately it was a three-point game at the time so I had not missed a decisive run. I was able to get to the press table and begin taking notes before the quarter ended. Any chance at a full box score was gone, but I could rely on the official book for scoring totals.
I admit, though, I was completely flustered. I never really got a feel for the game. How many shots had the kid who hit four-straight taken and made/missed before I walked in? Did a key player pick up two fouls in the first four minutes and that changed the attack of his team? So many details I was missing.
Fortunately, it was a game between two county teams, so afterward I talked to both coaches, got some good quotes, and built most of my story around their words and some highlights by the game’s best player, who scored 22 points.
I got home safely after but did not feel good about the night.
Last night I went out to cover a girls first round sectional game. Long-time readers of the site will remember by friends down at EHS. Somehow I had missed them, in both girls and boys hoops, all season. As I waited for the night’s first game to wrap up, the boys coach walked over, said hello, and gave me grief about getting paid double to watch this game.
Anyway, EHS won four games in the regular season, and were playing a Baptist school that had 13 wins. The catch, though, was many of the Baptists’ wins came against home school teams and other non-state athletic association schools. The computer ratings said EHS was a one-point favorite.[1] Watching warm ups, that seemed accurate. EHS wasn’t great, but they were athletic and seemed to have a general plan. Their opponents looked terrible. My general rule is if a team looks bad in high school basketball warm ups, odds are they’ll suck when the game begins.
That held after tip off. The Baptists hit a quick 3-pointer and then EHS ripped off a 26–0 run over the next 11+ minutes. The Baptists missed 21-straight shots. EHS was drilling threes, getting steals, and converting transition layups. After all the painful games I had watched this school play over the years, I was finally getting to see them not only rout someone else, but do so in the state playoffs. I began mentally writing my story, lauding how they bounced back from a terrible start to the season against a very tough schedule to bring a two-game winning streak in sectionals and get a big first-round win. The lead was 25 at the half.
Then someone decided to switch teams at the break. Or something like that. The Baptists, who looked half-asleep in the first half, began trapping in the half court and pressing in full court. They got a steal and a score. Then another. Then another. They opened the third with an 8–0 run. By the end of the quarter, the lead was down to 12.
To start the fourth, the Baptists got a 9–0 run. The lead was down to three. EHS couldn’t get the ball inbounds, let alone find a good shot. They turned the ball over 20 times in the first 11 minutes of the half. And the Baptists’ best player [2] was knocking down 25-foot 3-pointers and drawing fouls each time she went into the lane. The far side of the gym was full of screaming fans, loving the come back. Behind me, the EHS parents were either yelling at the refs, or sitting in shock. I was sitting directly behind the EHS bench and during a time out, I could see that the girls had moved beyond anger and confusion. They were flat out scared. There wasn’t a sign of confidence in any of them. If someone asked me to lay money on who would win the game during that time out, I would have put serious cash on the Baptists.
I began dreading writing the story of how EHS blew a 25-point lead and having to ask their coach what happened.
Thank goodness, then, that they came out and got two straight scores at the rim, then hit free throws late to win by 11.
The cherry on top of the night was, between a later start,[3] lots of fouls and time outs, an injury, and a technical foul that involved a huddle by the officials to determine the shooting order of the free throws, I had about 45 minutes to write. Less, after knocking out the stats and putting the box together. Which bummed me out. I still think there was a good story in there, but I couldn’t find it in the limited time I had.
Some nights a story comes together on its own. Other nights, my brain runs through the key elements of the game and struggles to find that really good central thread that ties it all together. Last month I had a game that went to overtime and left me about 15 minutes to write a game story. It ended up being one of my best of the year. I think last night’s game deserved something of that quality.
Baring some surprises this week, that was likely my final girls game of the year. The boys are still a couple weeks from playoffs, and I have a swimming sectional on my calendar already.
A couple thoughts about the Jayhawks, both guaranteed to drop a deadly jinx onto the team before a key two-game stretch.
We’re upon mid-February, which is usually when we begin to get a real feel for what kind of team KU has for the year.
Well?
They’re better on defense than last year. Much better at the point guard spot. Terrible around the rim on both ends of the court.
And, man, can they shoot it from deep.
It’s been funny to watch Bill Self try to come to grips with the reality of this year’s team. He wants the ball to go inside on every possession. If, eventually, a shot comes from the perimeter, that’s fine. But not until a post player has a scoring opportunity first. As this team has shown for nearly three months now, that’s just not a realistic plan.[1]
After last night’s win against Texas Tech, in which 3-pointers kept KU ahead in an ugly first half and helped them blow the game open in the second half, he groused that hot shooting was “fool’s gold” and the Jayhawks needed to find a way to score at the rim.
In general, I agree. This team plays dumb and soft at the rim. They have to find a way to be smarter and tougher when attempting to score inside five feet.
But he needs to, if not embrace, at least recognize that this team’s best way of scoring is from its fleet of deep shooters. Stopping the other team is great. But you still need to score. And this team’s best way of scoring is from beyond the arc.
He’s right: you can’t expect to shoot 55% every night, especially on the road. But that does not mean you abandon the three when it’s your best option.
My favorite KU players have almost always been either the best player on the team, or the player who showed the most NBA potential.[2]
Jacque Vaughn was the best player on the ’94–95 team.
Then came Paul Pierce.
Drew Gooden.
Kirk Hinrich.
Brandon Rush.
Sherron Collins.
The Morrii.
Thomas Robinson.
Ben McLemore.
Joel Embiid.[3]
There are a few exceptions over the years there of guys who were not future pros, but the general rule is one of KU’s biggest stars will be my favorite.
This year has become one of those exceptions.
When Brannen Greene committed to play at KU during his junior year of high school, I was thrilled. A 6’7’’ guy who can shoot, is a top 30 player, and not a local kid committing to KU early does not happen very often. Oh, and there was his name. Which I obviously dug a lot.
He was kind of an enigma during his freshman year. You could tell he had an incredible shot, but he didn’t get very many chances to show it off. When he did get to play, he’d take shots at the wrong times. He’d miss free throws. He was terrible on defense and always seemed lost on offense. And then there was the knucklehead factor. He had a couple incidents that earned the ire of his coach and even cost him a one-game suspension.
Million dollar shot. Five-cent head.
Which reminded some of us, of a certain age, of Ron Kellogg. Who just happened to be my favorite player back in 1984–86.
Still, I was intrigued by the kid. He wore #14, which has been my favorite number since my first favorite Jayhawks, Darnell Valentine, wore it back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
According to a friend who played a lot of ball with me back in the day, Brannen reminded him of me on the court. I assume he meant looking a little goofy with puffy hair and getting fired up when he hits a shot. Lord knows I could never shoot it like Brannen, even on those rare days I got hot.
So lots of reasons to like Brannen Greene.
Even more now that he’s blossomed as a sophomore. He’s still a role player, as his defense it spotty at best and any time he has to actually handle the ball it can be an adventure. But he’s become a huge weapon, tossing in those perfect, beautiful bombs from behind the arc. He’s hit some clutch free throws late in games. He’s grabbed some big rebounds. He still gets crazy fired up when he hits a couple shots. He made me laugh out loud when he talked trash on a TCU player while shooting a free throw in a two-point game.
There are still some knucklehead moments on the court,[4] but in general he’s become a pretty solid player. And with his size and shot, he might have the brightest NBA future of anyone on this team.
Still, it’s hard to say he’s the focal point of this year’s team. Frank Mason is the most important player. Kelly Oubre the most physically gifted and will be drafted the highest. Perry Ellis is the most complete player.
But this year, my favorite player is the kid who comes off the bench, wears #14, looks goofy when getting fired up, and kills teams with his 3-pointers.
Divorce is never easy. In addition to the pain that is focused on the immediate family at the center of a split, there is often collateral damage. Anyone seen as an instigator or taking sides will often be the target of long-term bad feelings even after the direct participants have moved on.
That somewhat tortured example sums up how a lot of Kansans felt about Dean Smith, the former North Carolina coach who died late Saturday night. Sure, he was a Topeka native, a KU alum who won a National Championship in 1952 and played for another title in 1953, a friend of the program who sent two of his proteges – Larry Brown and Roy Williams – back to coach the Jayhawks. But when it came time for Roy to go home, Dean was seen by many as a manipulative, meddling old man who forgot where he came from and was more concerned with his legacy at Carolina than the health of his alma mater.
It didn’t matter that KU did just fine after Roy left. Even if we, eventually, forgave Roy, there was still a lot of venom for Dean.
That anger faded as word spread in recent years that Smith’s health was rapidly failing. Alzheimer’s is a terrible thing and I think most people in Kansas who were originally pissed at Dean for pulling Roy back to Chapel Hill finally let go of their animus for him.
Which is a good thing. You can’t go through your life hating. And Dean Smith, despite any of his perceived failings, was a man who should be admired.
He is one of the most influential basketball coaches in the history of the game, between both his innovative coaching techniques and the massive coaching tree that he leaves behind. He was also a man who was willing to risk his job to bring about social change. Whether it was integrating the ACC and Chapel Hill area businesses, marching for peace and against nuclear weapons, or finding ways to give former players with personal issues second chances at success, his focus was always on making the world a better place. Compare him to coaches today, who are generally for things that aren’t terribly controversial – God, America, the troops – but won’t take truly bold stances, lest they risk endorsement opportunities, scare off recruits, or give their AD an excuse to fire them if they miss the tournament.
I did not like Dean Smith when I was a kid. Part of that was not knowing that he was a Kansan and a Jayhawk.[1] But I also picked up on what people around me said. “Oh that Dean Smith. He has all that talent every year and he always finds a way to not win it all.” “Dean Smith can suck the life out of a perfectly good basketball game.” “You know who the only person who can hold Michael Jordan under 20 points a game? Dean Smith!”
In 1982, when Carolina played Georgetown for the national title, I was pulling hard for Patrick Ewing and the rest of the Hoyas. Part of it was my affinity for everything that the much cooler Hoyas represented over the sterile, corporate-ness of the Tar Heels. But a decent chunk of it was rooting against Dean Smith, who nobody around me seemed to like much.
Looking back, I would not change my rooting interests that night. Didn’t matter than Jordan became my favorite player once he got to the NBA, or that I learned to appreciate the many Carolina-Kansas connections when I got to college.
But if I could go back, I would change the way I looked at Dean Smith. He was a truly great basketball coach, one who changed the game for the (mostly) better. He expected his players to do more than just stay eligible on the academic side of their lives. And he took bold stances for what he believed in, even when those views were not shared by the majority of people around him.
The ugliness of the divorce of 2003 is long gone. Rest in peace, Dean.
Friday morning I took a look at my Instapaper queue and didn’t see much to share. A bunch of new stuff popped up Friday afternoon and over the weekend, so now we have some things to read together.
I’ve had enough weird hobbies in my life to have spent some time in Radio Shack. So it’s been a little sad to read about the company sliding into oblivion in recent years. They finally hit rock bottom last week, declaring bankruptcy. Three links related to that news.
First, sports writer Patrick Reusse with an ode to his TRS–80 Model 100 portable, which changed the way he did his job. It’s amazing how easy it is to file my stories when I’m covering a game. It was not that long ago when it was a huge chore to get text back to the copy desk.
A sportswriter weeps for old friend Radio Shack
This goes back a couple months, but Jon Bois wrote about what it was like to work at Radio Shack. Spoiler alert: it was not a great place to start a career.
A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire
Finally, this site will let you (virtually) flip through decades’ worth of Radio Shack catalogs. I randomly picked one from 1979. Just reading through the lengthy section about stereos is worth the time.
Unlike the past couple years, I will not be covering the girls state swimming and diving championships next week. Volleyball takes precedence over the chance to sit in a steamy natatorium for four hours.
But I wish I could be there. Our local school, Carmel, will be swimming for their national-record tying 29th straight state title. They will get that, and easily. At Saturday’s sectional meet, they won every point that was up for grabs.
The Indianapolis Star took a deep look at the team, which features as many as 20 girls who could swim in Division 1, and three girls who may become Olympians. Their best swimmer has already won three junior national championships and then a gold medal in the relays at the world short-course championships last fall. All that talent has some national experts saying that they are the best team in the history of American high school swimming. Amazing stuff.
Best in U.S. history? Carmel girls swim team making a case
Danny Manning is on my Mount Rushmore of boyhood athletic heroes.[1] When he left KU to become the head coach at Tulsa, I was not sure if he was cut out for running a program. He always seemed so reserved when he spoke to the media. His voice is not one that rises above the din of a crowded arena. And while he did wonderful things coaching KU’s big men during his run as an assistant, he didn’t seem to burn to run his own program.
I was pleased at his success at Tulsa and then surprised that Wake Forest hired him last summer. That’s a tough job, with the ACC getting bigger, deeper, and tougher in recent years. But I’d love it if he has much success there.
Danny Manning Relishing New Life, Challenge of Resurrecting Wake Forest
There are going to be a lot of “SNL at 40” articles in the next few weeks. Here’s a good one by TV writer Bill Carter, walking through his history with the show.
Bill Carter on Covering ‘SNL’ and Lorne Michaels: “Many Lost Their Minds in Pursuit” of His Approval
A warning that our final link is blasphemous, offensive, and wildly inappropriate. But if you can overlook all that, it’s fantastic.
“Clampdown” – The Clash
Joe
Mick
Paul
Topper
The Only Band That Matters
Seattle radio station KEXP has declared today International Clash Day. Something I can obviously get on-board with.
“Shake It Off (The Perfect Drug)” – Taylor Swift vs. Nine Inch Nails
The mash-up is not as common as it was 7–8 years ago. But the format still exists, and while the novelty factor has worn off, sometimes they can still be a lot of fun. This one is especially good with the videos of the originals cut together.
The Martian – Andy Weir
As I mentioned in my December wrap up, this is the book I began in 2014 but finished on Jan. 1, 2015. I destroyed this book. Once I started it, it was hard to put down. In fact, I started it after midnight on Dec. 30 when I could not sleep. I went downstairs, flipped on the Kindle, and thought I would read 20 minutes or so and then try to sleep again. Two hours later I had to force myself to go back to bed.
This is just an awesome book. It’s sci-fi, and written by a sci-fi geek, but completely accessible for folks who don’t usually dig on sci-fi. It tells the story of Mark Watney, an American astronaut who, through a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, is left for dead on the surface of Mars. Only he’s not dead. But he has no way of communicating with his crew mates, who have fled for home, or with NASA back on Earth. And while he has the food that was stocked for a several week mission for a large crew, he also knows that the next manned landing on Mars isn’t scheduled for another four years.
In other words, he’s fucked.
But Watney is not your average astronaut. He’s sarcastic and witty. He’s ingenious, in the vein of McGyver. And he is really good at math.
Yes, there’s a lot of math in this book. I heard many complaints about that before I read the book. And I freaking hate math. But I love the way Weir presents the math. I approached it as a humorous element that moved the story forward, rather than something you have to dig into and understand. I think if you take that approach, there’s no need to fear the numbers.
Through a series of miraculous events, Watney makes contact with earth, then his old crew, comes up with a crazy way to make enough food to get him almost through four years, and generally kicks Mars’ ass. There are some pleasant twists and turns, and a thoroughly satisfying ending.
It’s not high literature, but this is a great book.
The Twelve – Justin Cronin
Book two of The Passage trilogy. Book one I liked a lot. It was spooky, scary, and played up the apocalyptic angle nicely.
In The Twelve, we’re (mostly) over 90 years after the US has been overrun by the vampire-like creatures created during research on a virus in a secret lab in Colorado. There are pockets of normal life, but for the most part the US is an empty wasteland. Cronin bounces us back-and-forth between the days immediately after the 12 test subjects escaped and nearly a century later as the new master race and its helpers are preparing for the next step in their evolution.
There are a few epic quests. New wrinkles in the overall story. Some familiar characters. Some new ones.
After finishing the book, I read that it generally received positive reviews. I don’t know if I was distracted while reading it or what the deal was, but I found the book a lot less interesting and engaging than the first. I kept thinking “What’s going on?” and not in a good way. To me, the book seems a lot less focused than the first. The final third is solid, but all the lead-up to that finale was rather tedious to get through. And where the first book paid homage to Stephen King and The Stand, this one felt, at parts, like a straight rip off of The Stand.
Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
I read an excerpt of this before the hardback version came out in 2010. It immediately went on my To Read list. And for some reason – perhaps the brutality of that excerpt and the understanding that the book was even more intense – I never got around to it.
Until my wife asked me to get it for her from the library and then I dove in once she was done.
It’s an amazing book. If you haven’t read it, or seen the movie, it centers on Louis Zamperini, a track star in the 1936 Olympics who became a bombardier on a B–24 in the Pacific in World War II. After his plane goes down in the ocean, well, things kind of go to hell. I’ll leave it at that. It’s an insane story. It’s a classic “If you wrote this as fiction no one would believe it” story. There is unimaginable brutality, amazing acts of kindness, and a will to survive that I can not fathom.
Let’s Go Crazy – Alan Light
Wrote about this one already.
I love Pete Carroll.
If, through some miracle, I could suddenly play football (and be 20 years younger), there is no coach who I would more want to play for.
I LOVED his call to go for a touchdown rather than just kick the field goal at the end of the first half last night. I wouldn’t have done the same thing, but I loved it.
But, man, his call to throw on second down with the ball at the one-yard line with 26 seconds to play last night was atrocious. Unforgivable. Never-get-over-able. You get the idea.
It was terrible not just because he had Marshawn Lynch in the backfield, the same dude who had nearly run the ball in on the previous play. But it was also terrible because he had Russell Wilson, who runs the read-option as well as any quarterback in the game, under center. He has two incredible running options, three downs, one time out, and 26 seconds to play with.
And he calls a freaking inside pass into traffic that has an incredibly high risk factor.
I can entertain, for a moment, Carroll’s argument that he wanted to pass against the New England goal-line D to set up the run on third and fourth downs. But if you insist on throwing, throw the ball outside. Throw a corner fade where it’s either a touchdown or an incompletion (baring a terrible throw). DO NOT throw the ball where there are a bunch of bodies and crazy things are more likely to happen.
But still, you run the damn ball. Then you run it again. And then again if the first two tries do not work. New England is going to have their goal-line D in on every play. You have to beat them at some point.
That’s arguably the biggest play in the history of the game. And since I was rooting against the Patriots, it’s a travesty of a play.
As I step back, though, it’s obvious this was the best Super Bowl ever. Well, at least that I can remember. This thing beat any last-second field goal win, the back-and-forth that Pittsburgh and Arizona had, or that St. Louis-Tennesse game. Wild swings of momentum, key injuries, a couple huge missed calls by the refs, Tom Brady making mistakes and then making history, Chris Matthews coming out of nowhere to make three huge catches, Jermaine Kearse making a catch for the ages and (momentarily) assuring a statue will go up of him in downtown Seattle, three dramatic fourth-quarter drives. And then Malcolm Butler, who epitomizes the mythological Patriots way, stepping up to make a massive interception.
It was a heck of a game. The wrong team won, though. And it was Pete Carroll’s fault.
I haven’t read much analysis today but based on my Twitter readings last night, I’m with the consensus that the commercials mostly sucked. Nothing dazzling that I’ll remember years from now. Well, other than that awful Nationwide ad about preventable child deaths. That was pretty terrible.
A few decent ones, but they’ve already slipped my mind. Plenty of bad ones I erased from my memory immediately. The ad wizards need to step up their game.
My girls loved Katy Perry’s halftime show. Her entrance on the gigantic lion, the costume changes, the wacky graphics on the floor, the dancing sharks and beach balls and then singing “Firework” while zooming around the stadium on a strange star contraption. They thought it was all awesome.
I thought it was ok. Visually dazzling, for sure. Perry is not the strongest singer in the world and that was apparent for most of her performance. I was impressed, though, by how well she sang “Firework.” If you had me hovering 20–40 feet above a football field supported by a series of cables, I’m pretty sure my voice would be all jittery. She pulled that song off nicely, even with real fireworks exploding all around her.
I have a hard time understanding Perry. Her songs are all just kind of ok. She certainly can’t compare to contemporaries like Rihanna or Adele, to go in two different directions. Her songs and visuals often seem aimed at kids because of their sheer silliness, yet she sells sex as hard as anyone in the business. It’s an odd combination.
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