Weekend Notes

I was thinking about putting off the Weekend Notes until tomorrow, given that today is a holiday. Since tonight is kind of a big night for the state of Indiana, I figured it’s better to clear everything out so I can focus on another topic tomorrow.

HS Hoops

City champs again!

For the third straight year we faced arch rivals BCHS in the City tournament championship game. Once again it was a tense, tight affair.

The Irish got an early lead and held it the entire game. Somehow we were up 12 midway through the second quarter. I say somehow because our best player picked up three fouls in the first quarter and spent the rest of the half on the bench.[1] With two other starters sitting because of their own foul troubles, we gave up an 8–2 run to end the half. Given who we had available, we were thrilled to be up six.

The second half began with some BS. As BC was inbounding, one of their players jumped in front of our best player then flopped. Yep, they set up a play to try to get her fourth foul before a second ran off the clock. Luckily the BC player oversold the contact and the refs ignored it. It’s one thing to go at her, but I hate coaches who pull crap like this. Funny how I used to really like the BC coach before L got to high school and now I do not care for him at all.

Seconds later our best player scored to put us up eight. On the next possession she got called for another garbage foul. There was 100% a foul on the play but it was clearly on another Irish player who swiped at the ball and got a lot of arm while our best player was retreating from contact. So she went to the bench with seven minutes left in the quarter. Things did not look good.

But our girls were tough and hung on. They answered every BC run. The Trojans made it a one-point game twice but each time we would extend it back to 3–4. With a minute left it was a single possession game. BC didn’t score again. After a BC miss we got a run out and they committed an intentional foul which turned into three made free throws for us, we added a few more and walked off the court winners by seven points. It was the biggest margin of victory in the rivalry in four years, but obviously deceptive given the score with 60 seconds remaining.[2] We will take it, given all our foul issues. While our best player was able to come in and hit some huge baskets and free throws late, our top inside player fouled out with four minutes left and we had another player finish with four fouls. BC had one player foul out and another end the game with four. Refs were not letting much go.[3]

Not sure my heart rate got back to normal until several hours after the game. The crowd was big and loud. We had our best student section turnout of the year. As always BC brought a million people. If you didn’t have a kid in the game, it would have been a lot of fun to watch. For those of us invested, it was way too stressful.

L played in four different stints, maybe seven minutes all together. Drove and missed a shot in the lane. Had a nice assist against their zone. One turnover when she got trapped and passed to a teammate who had already cut away. She had maybe the best (and only?) box out of her life and drew a foul when the BC player shoved her to get a rebound.

Most importantly for her, despite winning a City championship every year of her career, she finally got to cut down the nets. Her freshman year she was on the JV team that won, but they didn’t get to cut nets because varsity lost at the buzzer in overtime. Last year she had just come back and was still on JV. Although both JV and varsity won, the JV girls weren’t invited to climb the ladder. Friday night she was able to snip a piece of net she actually helped earn. After varsity was done, somehow, the JV girls got to cut their share even though they lost their semifinal game. A few of us junior dads jokingly raised our eyebrows about that.

Thanks to the joys of when the Indy City tournament falls in the calendar, we will likely play BC again in three weeks in sectionals. For the first time since L has been in school, that game will be at a neutral site. I’m sure it will be wild no matter where these girls play. I’m already stressing about it.

15–4, 13 wins in a row. Just four more games remain in the regular season. Tuesday is a big test, undefeated 4A #3 Center Grove. They’ve averaged beating us by 16 points the last three years and this is the best team they’ve had in that stretch. But it’s also the best team we’ve had.

Jayhawk Talk

Now that’s more like it! Two straight big wins. Of course, both were at home but a week ago this team was floundering and I’m not going to dismiss the progress.

Darryn Peterson was incredible Friday night.[4] Simply unstoppable, one of the most efficient performances ever by a KU player, 26 points in 23 minutes. Of course he barely played in the last 10 minutes, but we don’t know if that’s because he couldn’t play or just because KU didn’t need him.

Even better was Flory Bidunga absolutely dominating. That was some old school, Bill Self vs Scott Drew stuff, throwing Flory lob after lob and him finishing. The big bonus was Gus Johnson being on the mic and coining the phrase “BIDUNGA DUNK!” on national TV. Good times.

A couple road games this week. We’ll see if that momentum built at home travels.

NFL Playoffs

Wow, what a weekend! Three games that people will be talking about for a long time, for various reasons. Two overtime games. Two snow games! And one stupid blowout that was basically over after the opening kickoff was run back for a touchdown.

Buffalo – Denver was incredible. Full of swings, wild plays, huge mistakes, and then a Broncos victory in overtime that was quickly undercut by news that Bo Nix broke his ankle and is out for the remainder of the playoffs. I’m starting to think Josh Allen is never going to win a Super Bowl. I don’t think it’s fair to put all that on his shoulders. He came along at the wrong time, right when Patrick Mahomes was in his peak. This year’s Bills team was very good in some areas, but pretty mid in others. Just because the Chiefs and Ravens didn’t make the playoffs didn’t mean this was a clear path to Santa Clara for the Bills. But Allen did make an absolute mess of the game Saturday. His needless fumble before halftime was a massive blunder and gave the Broncos three points. He missed a wide open receiver who could have won the game in regulation. He missed another open receiver in overtime that would have put the Bills in field goal range before the unbelievable interception that flipped the game. He didn’t have the worst quarterback game of the weekend – we’ll get to that in a moment – but he made too many errors for a player of his stature.

Guess who benefits most? The freaking Patriots, that’s who. Good Lord, are we going to have to deal with them for another decade? And ahead of schedule?

The real story from the game in Foxborough was the historically terrible performance of Houston QB CJ Stroud. That was an embarrassment to all football. It’s going to take him a long time to get over that performance, at least in terms of how others see him. I don’t care if the Texans go 15–2 next year and he plays MVP-level ball. Until he doesn’t shit the bed in the playoffs I don’t want to hear any more Stroud hype.

Finally – because the Niners Seahawks game doesn’t deserve any words – that outrageous game in Chicago that wrapped up the weekend. You had a frenzied Chicago crowd, you had snow and cold, you had the Bears and Rams staying even the entire night.[5] Just when it looked dire Caleb Williams made one of the greatest plays in NFL history to send the game to overtime. I screamed at my TV. I bet a lot of you did, too. My social feeds exploded.

The Bears defense did their job on the first possession of overtime and the offense was two first downs away from being in position to win it. Then Williams threw a bad interception. Cris Collinsworth tried to put the pick on the Bears receiver who cut off his route. I think there’s some validity there but the throw also felt off as soon as Williams released it. Maybe it was just the full Caleb Williams experience. In some ways it was the perfect end to the weekend, capping the poor play of Allen and Stroud with a true stinker of a QB moment.

Seriously, that interception ruined one of the great moments in NFL history. Imagine if the 49ers had let the Cowboys drive and steal the NFC title game in 1982 after The Catch. Or, for me, if KU had shit the bed in overtime after Mario Chalmers tied the national championship game in 2008? What a bummer. Good thing it’s a holiday because I don’t think anyone would have shown up for work in Chicago today anyway.

We are left with New England traveling to Denver to face a quarterback who hasn’t started a game in over two years and Los Angeles going to Seattle to face a team they should have beaten twice and have their own quarterback injuries to deal with.[6] Every team has some glaring weakness. Oddly, the defenses are better than the offenses on three of these teams. That’s not supposed to happen in this era.

Feel like New England is an easy pick, the NFC game a more difficult one. I think Matthew Stafford’s experience gets him past the Seattle D. The Rams looked shaky on offense last night, though, and the Seahawks are way better than Chicago on defense, so I’m not super confident in that take.