Holiday Break Notes

Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part.

Holiday Stuff

It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas Day plus baked beans to take to our Christmas Eve gathering. That evening event was boisterous and packed, as it always is. Luckily it was just warm enough to either be in the garage or near the fire pit.

On Christmas Day we hosted the annual family brunch, although with a couple of S’s siblings away and one family not yet in town, it was only 16 or so people. Our guests from Denver flew in late afternoon and we had a small dinner for them, assisted by my sister-in-law the chef.

As far as I was aware, everyone was well behaved.

Friday was our nephew from Denver’s 16th birthday. He requested dinner at our favorite hibachi place, where we’ve taken him and his family a couple times over the years. We taught him well! A bunch of folks went to see the new Avatar movie after, although L and I skipped that since she had to be up early the next day and I didn’t have much interest in watching a 3+ hour movie in a theater.[1]

Saturday after L’s game we met a bunch of cousins at a local park where they played and everyone ate pizza. It was in the 50s, but there was a nasty breeze that made it feel much cooler. Many of us made poor choices with our jackets.

Monday morning a good chunk of the family came to watch L’s game, then we gathered for the last big get-together of the week for lunch.

On New Year’s Eve, M went back to Cincinnati, C was out with friends, and L had a group over at our house. Everyone was safe and had good nights. S and I had a quiet night chaperoning L’s group from our bedroom. We watched the Miami-OSU game, she napped, I read, and we made sure everything downstairs was in order. L’s friends called it a night around 2 AM.

Since New Year’s C and L have had friends over several times, and M brought her boyfriend back from Cincinnati for the weekend but it’s been quiet otherwise.

S was a little under the weather over the weekend plus we had our guest, so we decided to leave the Christmas decorations up until next weekend. Which is fair, given this was a short Thanksgiving-to-Christmas year.

We also knocked out a home project over the break that I’ll share more about later this week.

L starts J-Term today while M and C enjoy their last week off before the spring semester begins.

HS Hoops

CHS played three games over the holidays.

The Saturday after Christmas they made up the game that was snowed out two weeks earlier, traveling about 45 minutes east of Indy to take on Eastern Hancock. EH was 9–2 coming in and feature one of the best juniors in the state, a Ball State commit who averages over 30 points per game. That said, beyond her they don’t have much. But last year she tore us up, we played kind of dumb, and we lost by 13.

No such worries this year. We jumped on them early, they couldn’t handle our press, and we led by 12 after one. That snowball kept rolling down the hill. We were up 34 at halftime and our first bucket of the third quarter invoked a running clock, which remained in effect the entire half. We never got sloppy, even with the starters barely playing in the fourth quarter, and cruised to a 65–29 win. Our defense was fantastic, holding the top scorer to just 10 points.

L played basically half the game, the entire second and nearly all the fourth quarters with a few minutes in the first and third. She only took one shot, ripping a rebound and going full-court, throwing a hesi at a defender, and finishing past the D1 recruit. She grabbed a couple other rebounds to give her a varsity career high of three. A couple turnovers, but one on a bad call and the other when a teammate didn’t focus and let a pass go through her hands. She was excited that one of her uncles and cousins watched with me, and that one of her closest friends on last year’s team, who is now playing at an NAIA school, surprised the team by showing up. Her face lit up when she saw T sneak in just before tip.

Monday we played across the street against a west-side Indy school. We led by double figures almost the whole game, just letting a sloppy stretch in the third quarter make it closer than it should have been, holding on to win by 10. This is a 20+ point win if we don’t miss a bunch of easy shots and not have a couple girls play kind of dumb. L played about five first half minutes, hitting one of two free throws but committing two fouls. She didn’t get back in as another bench player had the best game of her career and deserved the minutes. L was bummed she didn’t play better with so many cousins, aunts, and uncles in attendance.

Tuesday we were back across the street playing the host school. They had a sub-.500 record but are working in a new coach and we knew they would be very physical. We built a nice 11 point lead just before halftime, hitting 6 of 13 3’s, and then spent the second half slowly pissing down our legs. We gave up the lead, then scored eight straight. Gave it up again and pushed it back up to six before escaping with a two-point win. There were multiple times when players shoved each other and lots of shit talking. One of our parents was ejected from the gym. There were some terrible calls, almost everyone going against us. Eventful! And stressful.

L played about 11 minutes, checking in with just under 4:00 left in the first quarter and remaining in until halftime. She grabbed a couple rebounds and had an assist, but did not take a shot. We leaned hard on our starters in the second half and she did not get back in.

Those three wins made it eight-straight for the Irish, who are now 10–4. The girls earned a mini-break, getting five days off before getting back to practice today. There is a tough week ahead, one game against a 4A school that is usually pretty good but has had terrible injury luck lately, then on the road against another 3A school that begins the week 10–4.

UConn-Butler

One of L’s Christmas presents was front-row seats to see the UConn women on their annual trip to Butler the Sunday after Christmas. The seats were almost too good; we were directly behind the TNT announcing team and our view of mid-court was partially obscured. We could see ourselves in their monitors so were careful to not do anything dumb when the camera were on them. Officially we were just in the front row of the permanent seats, as there were two rows of temporary floor seats in front of us. But, still, pretty good seats!

I would rather have been a little higher for a better angle but it was cool to be just a few feet from the ladies on inbounds plays. L and I were both struck with how big, meaning muscular, almost all the players were. You don’t necessarily pick that up on TV.

The game went as expected. Butler hit consecutive 3’s and was up 10–6 midway through the first quarter and then UConn decided to stop messing around and ripped off a 39–2 run. They are so talented. We paid a lot of attention to their offense. It isn’t all that complex, but it doesn’t have to be when you have the talent they have. Still, the players do have to run it correctly to be efficient, and they were locked in Sunday. It was also impressive to watch how hard they play, especially on defense. Their guards just abused Butler’s. At halftime the Bulldogs had 19 turnovers, 12 of them UConn steals. And that didn’t count tipped passes or times when UConn nearly got a steal but the ball went out-of-bounds.

As you would expect the crowd was almost entirely pulling for UConn. That included L. To be fair, Butler only has one more Indiana native (3) than UConn (2), so there was lots of local support for a couple Huskies. The AAU program L played for was started by parents of a UConn player, so we saw tons of middle school girls from there in their travel gear.

CFP

Wow, what a quarterfinal round! I thought Miami had no shot against Ohio State. A rough third quarter aside, they beat that Buckeye ass.

I thought Oregon – Texas Tech would be a high scoring game that went down to the end. The Ducks beat that Red Raider ass.

Despite Alabama’s illustrious history I didn’t think they had a chance against IU. The Hoosiers proved me right, beating that Crimson Tide ass.

Then the game of the round, Mississippi’s amazing comeback win over Georgia. I figured the game was over at halftime, and muted it so I could give my latest book some attention. I glanced up and saw things were happening and locked back in right as the game went crazy and Ole Miss took over. What a collapse for Georgia, what a moment for the Rebels who were abandoned by their coach a couple weeks earlier.

I hate to jinx them, but no one looked close to as good as IU last week. The tournament is theirs to lose. I think any of the three remaining teams could beat them, but I don’t think it is likely. One of the greatest stories in college sports history is two weeks away from being completed.

Colts

An appropriately stupid way to end a stupid season. The Colts had no real incentive to do anything yesterday against Houston. With no first round pick there was no upside to resting all the starters. The difference between eight and nine wins would make the most marginal of differences in their later picks. Jonathan Taylor had a shot at the rushing title. It was a chance to see if Riley Leonard was a viable NFL quarterback. Not losing seven straight to close the season might motivate some of the players.

The Colts fought pretty hard and had the lead until the closing seconds. Then they decided to run a multiple-lateral play as time ran out, the ball ended up on the turf, and a massive Houston lineman ran it in for a Big Man Touchdown that padded the final margin.

Like I said, perfect way to end this dumb season.

The Colts have already announced GM Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen will be back next year. I honestly don’t know if that’s good or bad at this point. Firing them would likely mean a total reset of the roster, which I don’t think anyone is in the mood for. But keeping them and hoping that Daniel Jones can be close to as effective next year as he was this year before he got hurt seems to doom them to another 7–8–9 win year. There are a lot of big personnel decisions to be made. I’m not convinced Ballard should be making them, and a new GM would likely want to ditch Steichen and bring in his own guy.

Perhaps the franchise should change its mascot to Sisyphus.

As an added bonus, the Pacers have lost a franchise record tying 12 straight.

Jayhawk Talk

We’ll save the latest basketball drama until after tomorrow night’s game.

Good news for the football team, though, as Andy Kotelnicki the architect of KU’s offense in the first three years of the Lance Leipold era, is returning after two years at Penn State. Kotelnicki can certainly fall into the “Too Cute” camp of OCs, but there’s no doubt that the KU offense under him was the most dynamic it had been since the Todd Reesing days. While KU lost one quarterback to the portal, Isaiah Marshall announced he is returning. I think Marshall should have gotten many more snaps this past season, and has the potential to be very good. He was recruited specifically to play in Kotelnicki’s system and it’s kind of incredible he stuck around for two years while K was at State College, PA.

Hopefully Kotelnicki’s presence means the Jayhawks can grab some solid offensive talent from the portal.

Weather

We could not have asked for better weather right around Christmas. It was in the 50s for several days, although since this is Indiana, the sun was reluctant to come out and it seemed cooler than it actually was. A couple days I bundled up to go grab the mail and was surprised at how balmy it was.

Last Sunday it was nearly 70° and muggy, only the second time since 1948 it has been that warm, that late in the calendar year here. Shortly after L and I got back from the Butler game, severe storms roared through. There was even a confirmed tornado in southern Indiana.

When I got up the next day the windchill was –1°. Midwest weather, baby! It literally snowed all day Monday, never heavily but still unceasing, yet we just got a dusting since the ground was so warm.

The week ahead looks warmer than normal, but the weather folks are already warning us that things will crash again as we get deeper into January. Fun.