Two Nights Of Hoops

An eventful first two nights of the week on the hardcourt. Let’s run through some notes from each.

Jayhawk Talk

The Jayhawks went to Lubbock, refused to take over a game that was there for the taking in the first half, let a couple of rotation players scorch them for about five minutes, and found themselves down by 10 with eight minutes left.

The home crowd was roaring, JT Toppin was finally getting loose, and KU had nothing going on offense. Game over, it felt like. Not a bad loss, as this was chalked up as a likely L from the moment the schedule came out. Still a frustrating one.

Then, suddenly, KU’s defense woke up. A string of stops combined with a Melvin Council 3 and then shots inside by Council, Flory Bidunga, and Tre White narrowed the margin to three points with 80 seconds left.

That’s when Darryn Peterson decided to do Darryn Peterson stuff. A 3 off a flare screen tied the game.[1] Thirty-five seconds later he drilled another 3, KU weathered a missed Tech 3, a terrible turnover by White, and then Tech’s final heave to escape with a massive road win.

The Jayhawks seemed dead with five minutes to play, yet they walked out with the W. Peterson played the entire game, even if clearly not 100%. Bryson Tiller got some huge rebounds. Bidunga showed, again, how much he’s improved from his freshman year.

I don’t want to get too excited given how the rest of the Big 12 schedule looks, but maybe this team officially Has Something? Hold serve against Utah this weekend and next week will be a big moment to figuring out if this is real or not, with Arizona coming to Lawrence Monday then the return trip to Ames, IA next Saturday.

HS Hoops

The 2026 Indiana State Tournament began last night. Our evening was eventful.

We knew the CHS opener would be ugly, facing the worst team in 3A. When we arrived at the gym and saw these poor girls warming up, struggling to dribble the ball, that was confirmed. On the state computer ranking site, the prediction was a 106–9 win, which did not account for running clock or substitution patterns.

We began the game on a 44–0 run before they hit a free throw. And that was with us missing a bunch of layups. And pulling our starters after three minutes. And basically just passing the ball around the perimeter until someone was wide open under the basket. These poor girls. Once on a free throw one of their girls didn’t know where to line up, and her teammate had to first point to a spot and then physically move her to where she needed to stand. After 18 games. 🤦‍♂️

It was 46–1 at halftime when the running clock kicked in. Herron banked in a shot midway through the third quarter for their only made basket of the game. Hell, they only took five or six shots, and this was the only one that hit either backboard or rim.

The final was 65–3. There were other games around the state with scores of 64–5, 61–5, and 81–5. That last result was in a 1A game. Based on the other three, you really have to wonder if there shouldn’t be some kind of relegation in high school sports. If teams can get moved up for winning too much, shouldn’t ones that go 0–19 and average 10 points a game get the opportunity to move down to where they might have a chance in win at least a couple games? I doubt any of those teams that got blasted last night are going to turn into juggernauts and win state titles if they move down a class.

Our game did neither team any good. Fortunately Herron was not one of those bad teams that is angry about it and spends the game hacking and shoving. They seemed almost embarrassed to even be on the court. Still, each time one of our players went up for a layup or tried to get a rebound in traffic, there was the fear something bad would happen in a game we led by 50.

Anyway, we took care of business, rested our starters, and advanced to Friday’s semifinal. We beat our next opponent by 30 in last year’s sectional, but they have improved a lot, going 17–4. They beat a team that beat us, and are just 10 spots below us in the computer rankings.

We hung around for the late game, where our arch rivals BC were playing the host school. This also seemed like a mismatch, with BC ranked 32 spots higher. And it started out that way, with BC leading by 10 midway through the second quarter.

Then disaster struck. One of BC’s seniors drove, got fouled, and crumpled to the floor. She couldn’t move for at least five minutes, clutching her leg and crying. Her mom came down and hugged her. Her dad eventually came down and carried her off the court. We are pretty sure she tore at least one ligament. On a play where there was no contact below the waist. This kid is a great athlete, a three sport letter winner. L says she’s a really nice person. The trainer’s table was in our line of sight so we watched her lie there inconsolable for the next half hour. Just a terrible, heart-breaking thing to watch, not something you wish on any kid, especially a senior playing in her final game.

This obviously messed with BC, both mentally and in how they ran their press, where she is the head of the snake. By halftime their lead was down to one. Our plan was to leave at the break but all our girls looked at us and said “We are staying!” Of course we were staying!

Things got worse for BC after that. SHS got hot, started getting every rebound and loose ball, and BC was playing out of control. By the end of the third period SHS led by 11. They hit a 3 to open the final quarter and we were all looking at each other in disbelief. We weren’t overtly rooting against our rivals. In fact one mom in our group was overtly rooting for them because they were the other Catholic school in the sectional.[2] But most of the dads were pretty entertained.

SHS got their lead by playing loose and borderline out of control. They didn’t change that just because they were on the verge of a huge upset. Their center, who cannot shoot, decided to take a 3 for no reason, air-balling it. Their best player kept dribbling into triple teams and losing the ball instead of simply passing it to a wide open teammate. They were jacking shots rather than burning clock. They kept pressing even though BC was breaking it and getting layups. We were silently screaming at the SHS coach for not calling a time out and telling her girls to slow the fuck down.

The margin was six with 1:30 left. Then two with 60 seconds remaining. With under 10 seconds left it was a three-point game and BC had an open look to tie. Their leading scorer, who will play D2 ball next year, lined it up and let it fly. The ball went three-quarters of the way in then, somehow, spun out. The upset was complete.

At the risk of bringing down some kind of vengeance on us, the girl that missed that potential tying shot? That’s the girl that cheap shotted L three weeks ago. L and her teammates may have had a comment or two about that as we walked out of the gym.

So our biggest rivals are out of the bracket. That doesn’t mean we are guaranteed to get through. Our semifinal opponent is right behind BC in the computer rankings. Beat them and we’ll play either a team with a D1 athlete or the host school that will be on a serious heater by that point. Lots of work to do.

Oh, the other big news is that L is officially in the Return To Play process. We’ll see how things go the next couple days, but she could be eligible to dress and play Friday night if the trainer is happy with her progress.