Day: April 17, 2023

A weekend of transition in various ways.

Kid Hoops

Back to tournament action for L and her travel teammates.

Her ankle is still recovering from the sprain she suffered over a month ago. In our games Saturday that showed. She seemed sluggish and a step slow.

We lost the first game by 18 to a very good team. They were long, athletic, took and hit 3’s, and were just a tough all-around matchup. We killed ourselves by missing at least 10 free throws and not stopping them in transition on several baskets. They were better than us, but those things were the difference between an easy win and a tight game late.

In the second game we played a flat-out bad team. We won by 41 and it wasn’t even that close. There was a running clock the entire second half so we only scored 10 points in those 13 minutes. It was one of those games where you wondered why these girls are still playing. I guess to give teams like ours someone to beat?

L had a single bucket in each game. In the second game I could tell she was getting frustrated. She made a sweet move on one drive, lost her defender, got to the hoop, and then short-armed the layup. A few possessions later she badly missed an open shot. I thought an invisible player fouled her because it looked like she got pushed from behind even though there was no one around her. Just terrible form, in other words.

On our walk to the car after she was pissed. “I am so bad!” She didn’t say anything else so I let her stew all the way home, figuring whatever I said would be the wrong thing.

We had an early departure Sunday as the bracket games were an hour from home. She still wasn’t saying much so I didn’t either.

We played a bad, but not as bad as game two Saturday bad, team in our opener. We crushed them by 40. And L was awesome. 10 points on 4–4 from the field, 2–2 from 3. A bunch of assists and rebounds. Solid D. And that was all after she got absolutely wiped out on an illegal screen and did a half flip that landed her on her shoulder. She popped right back up, though. I guess I need to start hitting her in the shoulder before every game.

We had a three-hour break so headed to lunch as a team. In the car we finally talked about Saturday. I told her I understood her frustration, but that she needed to focus on process not result. That missed layup? That stunk. But she needed to realize she made a really nice move that beat her defender, attacked hard, and did 80% of the shooting right. Do the same thing next time, just hit the shot. Four of her missed jumpers were fine: open shot, within the offense, good form, and got the ball to the rim. Don’t sweat those. Sweat the shot when she rushed things, ruined her form, and had no chance of making it because of her process.

She told me that she feels like if she only scores two points a game, she’s not contributing. I told her that’s not true; she can score zero points but if she gets a bunch of assists, plays good D and gets some steals or keeps her girl from scoring, she’s doing a ton to help win. And I reminded her that our best shooter has a lot of 1–10 games, but she keeps shooting.

She agreed and then whipped out a list of things she came up with that she can do everyday to get better.

That night I told S that was the best example of how L is our daughter. When she messes up she gets pissed and won’t talk for awhile, which is a very me thing to do. But then she sits down and makes a list of ways to change her path, the way S would react.

After lunch we played another team from our program. These girls were really tough on D, had a great rebounder, but didn’t have much going on offense. We pulled away late in the first half to lead by nine at the break. We stretched it out to as many as 20, which was the final margin.

L wasn’t as good scoring – just knocking in four on 2–5 shooting – but was really good in every other aspect of the game.

On to the championship game, against the team that beat us in our opener Saturday.

Unfortunately I had to leave for another event (see below), but got updates. We were up by one late in the first half but gave up a run to go down by nine. Our girls played their asses off in the second half, or so the texts I got said. We lost by one. Later in the evening our coach said there were three or four possessions where we played great D, got a stop, then couldn’t control the rebound and gave up a put-back. Rebounding will always be our Achilles heel for a lot of reasons, and sounds like it was the difference.[1]

Still I think everyone was pleased with how the girls played. They looked like they hadn’t played in three weeks in that first game Saturday. Over the next four games they shook off that rust.

By the time I got home Sunday evening L was in bed, nearly passed out. She was exhausted, sore, and her ankle pain was in pain. She claimed to have scored “six or eight” in the championship game, which wasn’t a bad finish to a pretty solid day. If I give her credit for eight, that means she averaged 7.3 points for the three games. Quite an improvement from Saturday.

NHS

I had to leave basketball because it was National Honor Society induction night at CHS, which meant the seniors who had earned enough points got the cords they will wear over their graduation gowns. M obviously got those points, otherwise I wouldn’t be skipping a championship game.

It was interesting seeing the number of seniors getting their cords compared to the juniors who were being inducted. It looked like a good third of the kids who got into NHS a year ago did not earn their cords.

How you earn your NHS points at CHS is kind of a bullshit process. No, strike that. It’s totally a bullshit process. The teacher who runs the program has been doing it since S was in school and plays all these BS, power trip, mind games with kids and forces them to jump through hoops to get the 10 points they need. I think some kids, once they’ve been accepted to the colleges they want to attend, decide to check out on all that nonsense.

One of M’s classmates is going to Notre Dame and is almost literally a perfect student: she earned a full ride to Cathedral, the first girl from St P’s to ever be awarded that scholarship. One of just three class of 2023 CHS kids to get into Notre Dame. But she didn’t get her cord. We joked that she was probably too busy applying for scholarships to worry about showing up at exactly the right time to get her name on a list of limited spots for whatever points the NHS sponsor was throwing out each week. Or, more likely, she figured, “Fuck that.” Although she would never say fuck.

But M got hers, and it will look very nice over her graduation gown in – checks calendar – one month. Holy shit! She has 20 days of high school left!

We also planned on taking some graduation invitation pics afterward. She and two of her friends are doing a party/open house together. The other two girls are going to Miami (OH) and brought red shirts. M was going to put on her black UC shirt. I was tasked with taking some super cute pics of them that S would turn into super cute invitations for the party.

Only problem is the weather changed Sunday and it was cold, windy, and rainy. Which made M pout. I told her she needed to knock it off, we can’t control the weather, and we could still find a way to take a nice pic. Then she told me she was tired because she only got four hours of sleep and I told her it wasn’t my fault she and her buddies stayed up until 4:00 AM when she had to be at work at 9:00.

Things were going swimmingly.

Then a miracle occurred: the rain stopped, the sun popped out, and the parents grabbed the girls and hustled outside. Of course it was like 40 degrees and windy, so there was much complaining. But I was able to snap a few pics and one of them turned into a perfect one for the invitation.

Two more pre-graduation jobs checked off.

Weather

It had to end. One of the very best weeks of weather I can recall in my nearly 20 years in Indy ended Sunday morning when a cold front blew threw. After over a week where the temps were in the 70s and 80s with almost no humidity or clouds, we got a nasty reminder that there’s still plenty of time for shitty weather in the Midwest. It felt more like mid-December with wind-whipped rain that soaked you even in the quickest run between car and building. We heard there was snow at the middle school track meet. As I type this Sunday night there is a chance of snow over the next few hours until daybreak.

Then it’s going to be back into the 70s Wednesday, 80s Thursday, then another cold blast for next weekend.

The girls were begging me to open the pool last weekend. I actually texted our guy Tuesday and he said there was a chance he could be here Thursday, but that feel through. I think he’s going to swing by sometime this week, so maybe the girls will be able to get in one of those warm days. Otherwise it might be a few weeks before they get a chance again. I probably should have stuck with our traditional second week of May open date.