Weekend Notes

Winter is kind of horseshit. Talk about that and other things that happened over the past few days below.

Winter Weather

The biggest event of the weekend was our latest winter storm Saturday. We didn’t quite hit the predicted snowfall of 6–7 inches, but we were easily over 5” at our house. It started snowing late morning and continued all day long. Fortunately L’s game was cancelled, and we didn’t have any reason to leave the house. A good, all-day snow is a beautiful thing to watch from the comfort of your heated home.

Luckily it was light, fluffy snow so S and I made easy work of clearing the driveway just before the arctic blast hit.[1] This is now the second snowiest December in Indianapolis history. A nice warmup is coming later this week, so we will get a temporary break.

HS Hoops

As I noted, L’s game Saturday was snowed out. Not sure if it will be made up or not.

Thursday we played our Catholic sisters from up in Hamilton County. GCHS starts four freshmen. They aren’t very good but they know exactly what their coach wants them to do, are in the right positions, and are scrappy as hell. We led by just three after one quarter but then got it going and pounded them by 31. L played about 10 minutes, spread across the entire game, and had three points, two rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

The Irish snuck into the 3A media rankings last week at #16. Interestingly the computer puts as at #5 in 3A, #28 overall. That’s more a function of our schedule, the 19th toughest out of 399 total teams, than our play.

This is finals week at CHS so the team has a nice breather, not playing until Saturday and then nine more days off until their next game.

Homecomings

M wrapped up her finals on Wednesday and came home that evening. She starts her spring co-op on January 12 so will be home for about a month, with some travel mixed in while she’s here.

Finals begin at IU today. However, C was home over the weekend. She had been sick all week and it seemed to be getting worse, so we wanted to give her three days at home to rest and study in peace. I picked her up Friday morning. We were worried it was mono but two tests came back negative, so not really sure what the deal is.

I drove her back early this morning for her 8AM final. We left the house at 6:30, which should have put us there with 10–15 minutes to spare. I was not factoring in black ice on the highways. We made it about 20 minutes from home normally and then ran into sections that had re-frozen overnight. Naturally a bunch of idiots were still driving 60+ MPH. Even controlling my speed I nearly spun out three different times. We lost count of how many cars were into the median or off the side of the road. Once we got out of Indy the roads were fine. I dropped her off at the psychology building at 7:59.

I went to one of my favorite Bloomington breakfast spots to let the roads clear a bit. She texted that she had completed the final before I had finished my meal.

The way home was nearly as dicey. I–465 east bound was completely shut down because of an accident. I sat in stop-and-go traffic on 465 north for over 30 minutes because of multiple accidents. As soon as we passed the wrecks people took off like maniacs even though you could see ice in all lanes. I made it home in just under two hours, 45 minutes longer than normal.

C has another exam Tuesday morning followed by a paper defense and then is done. Hopefully my drive tomorrow is less exciting/harrowing.

KU Hoops

Well, that game Saturday evening against North Carolina State sure was something. Exciting. Maddening. Exhilarating. Confounding. Tense. Cathartic.

I’ll focus on another adjective: outrageous. And that is reserved for Melvin Council Jr. The Wolfpack was daring him to shoot. Smart strategy, as he came in hitting 17% of this 3’s on the year. He seemed to embrace the challenge and hit two of his first five. He also missed a couple shorties in there and I was screaming at the TV for him to stop shooting.

Fortunately he didn’t listen to me.

Two hours later he had made a total of nine 3’s, more than twice his previous career high of four. It was the second-most 3’s in a game for a KU player, trailing only Terry Brown who hit 11 in game against…North Carolina State in 1991.[2]

Council ended the night with 36 points. Having an overtime period helped him pad his numbers, although he missed two massive free throws in the closing seconds that could have rendered his performance worthless. His outburst mirrored another famous Go Off game by a KU player, Elijah Johnson’s ridiculous 39-point explosion in an overtime win at Iowa State in 2013.

KU was lucky Council decided to turn into Steph Curry for the night. Most of the team sucked on offense. Darryn Peterson was very good…until he left the game with about 3:00 left with some kind of leg tightness. Crap. I’m assuming he won’t play Tuesday, who knows the following Monday. Then we start the process of trying to integrate him into the lineup again.

KU’s offense was ass the first 10 minutes, and it felt like no one was sure what to do with Peterson on the court. That’s to be expected as the defense focuses on him. But with him missing so many games, there hasn’t been time for the coaches to scheme around that and the players to figure it out. Instead of having a better idea of what they want to do and being comfortable executing it when conference play begins, KU will go into the Big 12 schedule still working through issues that should have been resolved a month earlier.

Sigh.

The kid is sooooo good even in limited minutes and with this mystery leg ailment. I hope we get to see him at full strength sometime this season.

Colts

Well the whole Phillip Rivers thing went way better than I expected. If not for a short kickoff after taking the lead with under a minute to play, the Colts might have pulled off the massive upset.

I am shocked that Rivers was able to hang in there all day. Seattle has a wicked defense, he is basically immobile, and his arm strength is crap. This seemed like it would be an embarrassing blowout and another sign this franchise has lost its way.

Remaining competitive means bringing in a 44-year-old grandfather who hadn’t played in five years was a reasonable risk. Hopefully just for one week. I imagine that with a game of film to study teams will have a game plan for exploiting his limitations. If Riley Leonard is healthy next week, he really needs to play. I don’t care that the Rivers kept Sunday’s game close or that he and coach Shane Steichen are pals.

Sports Injuries

First Peterson was again limited by whatever weirdness is going on in his lower body.

Then Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons both tore their ACLs within a couple hours Sunday.

Finally Sunday night I was wrapping up the latest season of Netflix’s Starting 5 and had to sit through Tyrese Haliburton blowing out his achilles in game seven of the NBA Finals again.

Yet another reason why sports are dumb and I’m an idiot for letting them control my life so much. And I don’t even like Mahomes or Parsons, but it sucked that two more of the best players in a sport are out.