Day: January 8, 2024

It was odd walking downstairs this morning. We put all the holiday decorations away Sunday, so this was the first time since Thanksgiving I was greeted by a dark main floor. C said our family room looked “emo” without the decorations yesterday. I’m not sure if emo is the term I would pick, but it does always take a few days to get used to the tree, etc being packed away for another 11 months.

It was also a strange morning because S is back in the office on Mondays for the first time in years. I’ll share more about that in a future post.

We had a very busy Saturday followed by a pretty lazy Sunday. Some notes…

Back to School

L had games Saturday starting at noon. After her JV contest, S and M left the gym and headed to Cincinnati to drop M off for her second semester. Sunday was the normal move-in day, but she had a greek leadership meeting that began at 9:00 Sunday and needed to go back early. I forget if I mentioned last fall that she was elected as social chair for her house, thus her presence was required at this meeting. She’s already working on planning their formal this spring. UC lovingly added $40 to our bill for her moving in 24 hours early.

I guess move-in went well. Someone working in her dorm told S that Sunday was going to be crazy, so it might have been worth the $40 to avoid that rush.

M ended up getting straight A’s first semester, which was a terrific start. Right before she came home she added Marketing as a major. She figured that’s a better path to a job right after graduation than psychology, which would likely require graduate work. She’s debating whether to do a double major or shift psych to a minor.

While she starts classes today, her sisters got to sleep in one last day. They begin their two-week J term tomorrow.

Snow

We got our first real snow of the year Friday night/Saturday morning. Probably 2” of heavy, wet stuff at our house. I got up and pushed it aside just to make sure the driveway didn’t turn into a sheet of ice. Our forecast this week looks miserable. Rain and/or snow almost every day, and potentially a major storm next weekend.

As a weather geek I love watching how the forecast changes this time of year. Last night one forecast predicted between 15–20” of snow from Thursday night to Saturday morning. This morning it had switched to mostly rain and just 2–3” of snow. I imagine it will change multiple times before the storm finally gets here.

Jayhawk Talk

You’re not going to believe this but I missed the first half of the KU-TCU game watching L play. It’s uncanny how often that has happened this year. Fortunately I got home in time to see most of the second half.

I guess that was fortunate? I might be getting too old to handle games like this, and I’m afraid the entire Big 12 schedule this year is going to play out similar to Saturday’s game. Almost every team plays really good defense. There don’t seem to be many pushovers. The next two months are going to be brutal.

It doesn’t help that this KU team seems to be missing something. Not just the shooters that would open so much up for the offense. There’s another mysterious “something” that isn’t there. It’s far too hard for them to score, even with two first team All American caliber players and one of the best distributing point guards in the county. It’s like the parts almost fit perfectly, but grind against each other just enough to keep them from reaching their potential.

I mean, it would be cool if someone on this team could hit a few 3s every night. Even then I think something would be off, though.

Let’s get this over with: the intentional foul called against Ernest Udeh when he elbowed Hunter Dickinson was 100% the right call. I wasn’t sure in real time but watching replays it’s clear Udeh threw his elbow with intent rather than as a function of trying to grab Kevin McCullar’s truly horrific pass. That said, I’m shocked it was called. There seemed just enough wiggle room for the refs to decide it was a play-on rather than foul since it hadn’t been whistled immediately.

I have no issue with TCU people being pissed about it. I would be, no matter what the replay showed. But I’m already done with Fran Fraschilla’s interpretation of the play, knowing he is going to mention it 8000 times between now and the end of the season.[1] God forbid KU wins the Big 12 by a game because he is going to talk about that single play incessantly. Props to Seth Davis, Seth Greenberg, and Jay Wright for countering Fraschilla’s nonsense.

Fraschilla and the other haters didn’t mention the awful foul called on KJ Adams with about 2:00 left that gave Emanuel Miller two free throws and TCU a two-point lead. I think the Hoops Gods made the call against Udeh to balance that shitty foul on KJ.

(OK, aside time. Fraschilla is truly a putz. For some reason about ten years ago he decided to become the voice for the anti-KU element of the Big 12. He holds onto borderline calls that go for KU like a psychopathic fan.[2] He often parrots lines that clearly come from other Big 12 coaches. Any time there’s a close call in Allen Fieldhouse, you can hear his energy level rise and the eagerness in his voice, like a Jan. Sixer talking about how the election was stolen.[3]

His comments Saturday were even more bizarre since he casually threw in his opinion that Dickinson traveled on his game-winning basket, as if that was another egregious miss by the officials that the entire world saw. It was such a strange observation that CBS’ Seth Davis tweeted back with a clip of the play, showing Dickinson clearly taking a dribble as he shuffled his feet before tossing the shot in.

I’m not sure if Fraschilla has cracked after years of being yelled at by KU fans, if Bill Self pissed him off/froze him out at some point, or just because he is famously close with a couple current/former Big 12 coaches, but it is clear his emotions affect his analysis. At least when KU is involved. Which is fine if you’re a middle-aged blogger. It’s not when you are the main color commentator for an entire conference.)

Anyway, KU is 13–1 but I don’t think many KU fans are feeling great about the team. We were extremely fortunate to beat TCU. There are about 18 tough-ass games ahead of us just to get through the conference season. To be clear, I don’t feel bad about the team. They just aren’t as good as we hoped and the path to reaching the pre-season goals of Final Four caliber team seems pretty daunting.

Colts

What a terrible ending to an unexpectedly inspiring season by our local football eleven. Actually that’s what our soccer team is called so I should not be cute and just say Colts.

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, a season in which rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson took his lumps and got acclimated to the NFL, with the idea of competing for a playoff spot again next year.

Richardson was surprisingly good, until he got hurt multiple times and ended up needing season-ending surgery. Gardner Minshew shook off some early rough games and often found ways to make just enough plays to win. After a lengthy hold-out and a brief injury absence, Jonathan Taylor returned to anchor the offense. The defense improved as the season progressed.

The Colts won a couple games they shouldn’t have. They lost a few they shouldn’t have. They benefited from playing in the thoroughly meh AFC South.

It was perfect their season came down to a de facto playoff game against Houston, at home, on Saturday night.

The result felt appropriate for the season, too. A couple dumb coaching decisions by Shane Streichen, who seems like a solid coach but like so many “innovative” coaches, occasionally tries too hard to be cute. A couple meltdowns by the defensive backfield. And then the inevitable Minshew mistake. This time is wasn’t a brutal interception on a potential scoring drive, but rather missing a wide-open back on fourth-and-one in the red zone with less than two minutes remaining.

There’s been a lot of debate about the play that did the Colts in, with a decent contingent of folks trying their hardest to say it wasn’t Minshew’s fault. I’m sorry: that was a TERRIBLE throw. He wasn’t pressured. Tyler Goodson was wide open with blockers ahead of him. At minimum it was an easy first down. The way it was set up there was a decent chance Goodson was going to tie the game and give the Colts the chance to take the lead on the PAT.

It was a perfect play call and 10 Colts did their job. It was Minshew who choked.

Now it’s on to 2024 with, hopefully, a healthy Richardson and Taylor behind him to start the season. The Colts weren’t a good team this year, so there are a lot of areas that need improvement if the want to be legitimate contenders next season. Regardless, the 2024 cycle begins with some genuine optimism about what is to come.

NFL

I’ve been saying all year how weird the NFL is. One week you think a team is dominant, the next they lose a stupid game against a weaker team.

So how do you pick the playoffs this year? The Niners and Ravens seem to have separated themselves in each conference. But do you trust Brock Purdy? Lamar Jackson’s shit hasn’t worked in the playoffs so far in his career, is this the year that changes? I think the Cowboys might actually be the favorite at this point. I’m going to need a few days to ponder on all of it, though.