D's Notebook

Category: Uncategorized (Page 8 of 361)

Friday Playlist

January 31, 2025 /

No sign that the current pace of new music will slacken any time soon, which means I will continue to have the pleasure of providing music to soundtrack a good chunk of your Fridays for the foreseeable future.

“People Of Substance” – Craig Finn
DAD ROCK ALERT!!!!! Craig Finn has new music out! And it is produced by Adam Granduciel! And the other members of The War On Drugs are playing on it! What a great day to be a middle aged white dude who still listens to cool music! There is no chance you can miss that TWOD presence on this track.

“Ankles” – Lucy Dacus
Less dad rocky, to be sure, but another literate artist I love with new music.

“Good Old Fashioned Fun” – WOOZE
“Hooked” – Franz Ferdinand
I heard the new WOOZE track and thought it had some serious Franz Ferdinand vibes. A couple days later I hear FF’s new song. Serendipitous!

“Together” – Blankenberge
Some tremendous Shoegaze from Russia, of all places. I’m going to assume that since these kids are cool enough to play music this good, they are anti-war, so I will not boycott their songs.

“It’s a Mirror” – Perfume Genius
Based on my inability to connect with his music before 2020, I figured my love of PG’s “On the Floor,” my #3 song of 2020, was a momentary blip. This, though, is a tremendous song as well. I am officially intrigued by what is to come.

“T&A” – Blondshell
Blondshell made my favorite tracks list last year (with some help from her friend Bully) with “Docket,” a song about the perils of hooking up while touring. Here is another powerhouse song about how sex can mess things up.

“Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles
With February about to arrive, we are in the dog days of winter. That said, we have two days approaching 60 in the forecast and the last of the piles of snow in our yard and driveway should be gone by Tuesday morning. So maybe not ideal conditions to play this, but my annual reminder this is one of the greatest covers ever recorded.

“No Excuses” – Alice in Chains
I read this article earlier in the week about the 31st anniversary of AiC’s Jar of Flies EP. Which is a weird year to mark. But, still, it made me go back and listen to the EP, and then some other AiC tracks. For those who were around at the time, remember how shocking this song was because of its beauty, especially when compared to the songs from the Dirt album, which was basically 100% about heroin? Still a great song.

Favorite Things

January 29, 2025 /

More basketball stupidity, at both the high school and college levels, yesterday that I prefer to avoid for now.

So, I’m launching a new series that promises to be randomly occasional: a few words about some of the favorite things in my life at the moment.

Olukai Kekaha Boots
It is a little weird that a Hawaiian company, famous for making casual shoes designed to be kicked off at a moment’s notice, has made some very nice cold weather boots. After several years of searching, and failing, to find a solid pair of boots to get me from October to March, I finally decided to splurge and give these a shot.

A wise choice!

Super comfortable, great looking, warm enough, and with the bonus of being water resistant. I thought the “natural distressing” was unnecessary and cheesy, but the effect is pretty minimal. And once you’ve worn them a couple weeks, those factory scuffs blend right into whatever wear and tear you’ve put on them yourself.

Where the cheaper options I tried the past couple winters failed because they were either poorly constructed or uncomfortable to the point I couldn’t wear them, these have been one of the best things I’ve purchased in the last six months. And they seem like they’ll hold up so I won’t have to worry about replacing them for at least a couple more years.

The Bridge
I included this Kansas City public radio station in a media post a year or so back, but drifted away from it. However, this past fall I made a major switch in how I listen to music when I’m in the house. Where my default in the kitchen used to be either iHeart Radio’s Classic American Top 40 station or a Spotify playlist, I’ve switched to exclusively streaming The Bridge. Now I leave it on our kitchen speaker most of the day, saving Spotify for other parts of the house and driving.

This is a near perfect radio station, at least for my tastes. The best internet radio option I’ve found since WOXY.com died nearly 15 years ago. If I owned a radio station, I bet my playlist would have around 90% similarity to what my KC homies spin. Here’s what they’ve played while I’ve been typing this post up:

Bluesky
I created a Bluesky account right after the platform publicly launched, but never used it for more than a few moments before this past fall. Then there was a flood of folks migrating from the service I had been using for 15+ years, led by several prominent NBA writers. Over about six weeks I split time between the two services. By January, I was only launching the Bird app during KU games or if someone sent me a link. I’ve now cut out the KU game connection, so rarely checking out what is going in that cesspool.

Bluesky isn’t perfect, and there are still a lot of accounts I followed at the old place for years that need to come over. But it sure is better than what the Tech Toddler turned the old place into.[1] The auto-muting of idiots is a wonderful feature. I’m sure the Nazis, wingnuts, and trolls will figure out a way to ruin it eventually, or some asshole billionaire will buy it to appease our Beloved Leader. For now, though, it’s where I spend most of my social media time. Which, to be honest, is way less time than I was spending four months ago. Another obvious bonus.

Hot Roast Beef with Onion Jam sandwiches
Holy shit, these are awesome! Simple to make with a tremendous depth of flavor. I was a little nervous about dropping them on the family, as the ladies don’t always enjoy beefy meals the way I do. But it was a hit with them all and I’ve added them to our rotation of dinner meals.

  1. Yes, I know, I lease one of the Tech Toddler’s vehicles. And I love the car. We all contain contradictions. But, man, somehow that guy gets worse and worse every single day. Which I guess shouldn’t be a surprise given who he is palling around with. Praying Rivian or someone else gets their shit figured out before my lease expires in 2027.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 27, 2025 /

A lot of hoops to get through. Not looking forward to some of it, though…

HS Hoops

Two games for CHS last week. Wednesday we traveled south to take on Center Grove, ranked #7 in 4A. After our city championship, we had snuck back into the media rankings at #11 in 3A.

Varsity lost by 17. We were down seven at halftime then scored the first seven points of the second half to tie. After that, CG went on an 18–2 run to put us out of our misery.

L didn’t play much in the JV game. Her foot continues to bother her, meaning she can’t practice 100%, meaning the coaches have been sitting her if they think she looks a step slow. Which is fair, but frustrates her. Also, this night she just generally didn’t feel very good. She played the first 90 seconds or so then sat the rest of the first quarter. Same for the second quarter, although she subbed in late in the quarter…and promptly took a shot to the nose and had to leave because she was bleeding everywhere. Fortunately she is simply prone to nosebleeds and the contact was right in the troublesome spot rather than suffering any real damage. Still, she bled all through halftime. But she started the second half so the CG trainer got her sorted out.

We trailed by two at halftime and by the same amount after three. L hadn’t done much, rimming out a couple drives on her only shots. With about four minutes remaining we switched to full court pressure, got a couple steals and buckets, and led 38–30. Then CG broke our press on two straight possessions and turned 2-on–1 drives into wide open 3s. Modern basketball. 38–36 in like 25 seconds. Yeesh.

That’s when L decided she wanted to play some ball. She got fouled on a drive and made both free throws. She found a lane from the left side, drove hard, and converted the layup. CG started fouling to stop the clock and she went to the line two more times, hitting three of the four charities. Seven points and a steal in about 2:30 of game time. Hey, we ended up winning by seven! Our whole team played well late: another guard forced three turnovers, a couple other girls knocked down their free throws. Other than those seven points, L didn’t do much. To cap things off, as we walked out after the varsity game, she tripped on a floor mat and luckily caught herself before she went face first into the linoleum.

Saturday was S’s birthday. Just like for mine last June, we celebrated by watching some high school ball. Instead of staying in the city to watch two summer league games, though, we traveled 100 miles north to take on the school where our varsity head coach played.

JV opened their game with a 13–0 run, gave almost all of it back, leading 16–15 just before halftime, then figured things out and won by 19.

L did not have a good game. She missed a couple contested layups from the left side in the first half. It didn’t look like she had any speed or lift and was more worried about contact than finishing strong. She hit one of two free throws for her only point. She had a couple assists. But she had three turnovers, all of which were bad ones caused by her forcing things that weren’t there. She was very upset when the game ended and took a long time to come out of the locker room. It’s been a hard year for her, and I think it caught up with her in that moment. There’s more to this we’ll get to in a couple weeks.

On the varsity side, HNHS is a 4A school with the same record as us, against a much weaker schedule. In the computer rankings they were about six spots behind us in the all class list.

We didn’t have too much trouble with them. Got a decent margin early and kept stretching it out. We were up around 20 before we got sloppy late but held on for a comfortable 14-point win. And we did it mostly without our leading scorer, who had missed practice Friday and thus only played about 10 minutes. Not sure if she was sick or that was because of a punishment she earned. Good that the other girls saw they can win without her carrying them.

JV is now 15–3, varsity 13–8. Two more games this week to wrap up the regular season.

Brackets

Sunday was the draw for the Indiana state tournament. Remember, this is a blind draw. You get no credit for being the best, or one of the best, teams in your sectional. Nor are you punished for having a bad record. The six teams in our sectional are, in the computer rankings, slotted at numbers 9, 11, 36, 37, 59, and 81 in class 3A.[1] So, of course, the quarterfinal games are #9 (CHS) vs #11, and #59 vs #81, with the two middle ranked teams getting the byes.

Yep, that means CHS will open sectional play against our arch rivals BCHS, who we just beat two weeks ago in the City championship game.

Such a stupid, unserious way to run a tournament. The two best teams get no reward for playing the toughest schedules. Rather, their “reward” is that one of them will end their season before four teams with worse rankings play their first game. CHS has played the 26th toughest schedule in the state across all classes. BCHS the 34th hardest. The teams that get the byes? Their schedules are ranked #190 and #115.

Anyway, should be an interesting game at 6:00 next Tuesday night. I hate to jinx the winner, but they should be an almost certain lock to emerge as sectional champions the following Saturday.

Scorekeeper Weirdness

No, this has nothing to do with the teacher who is constantly messing up, I mean, runs the clock at our home games.

Back in mid-December two good southern Indiana teams (both top 10, one in 1A, the other in 2A) played a close game that went down to the final seconds. The road team led by five with a minute left, and when the final buzzer sounded, thought they had escaped with a one-point victory. However, as the official scorekeeper was tallying up their points, they discovered that the person running the scoreboard had given the home team credit for just two points on a 3-pointer they hit in the final minute. The game was actually tied. The game officials had already left the gym, so the game was officially over.

The schools reached out to the state athletic association asking for guidance, and were given a few options. The schools chose to play a four-minute overtime. They got together Saturday to finish that contest. The team that thought they won a month ago ended up winning 34–33. I’m hoping that there weren’t any scoring errors and this is indeed the final result.

KU Hoops

Nope, nothing here. I’m thankful we were sitting in a gym in northern Indiana and missed the Houston game. As we walked out, Rylan Griffen had just hit a 3-pointer to give KU a five-point lead with 30 seconds left in overtime. I’m just going to assume the Jayhawks held on to win and move on. I had over 70 text messages and a ton of Facebook messages when we got home. Since I was tired I didn’t read them and I’ll assumed they were celebrating a glorious KU win. Weirdest thing, when I tried to watch the game I hit Delete instead of Play and lost the game.

At least we’re not Indiana, I guess.

Pacers

Two games in Paris vs San Antonio. Thursday, the Spurs put the hammer down in the third quarter, mostly courtesy of sublime play by Victor Wembanyama, and crushed the Pacers by 30. Two days later the Pacers returned the favor, getting white hot and turning a one-point deficit midway through the third quarter into a 38-point win. Tyrese Haliburton scored 16 points in a little over 2:00 to key the rally. The NBA is wild! Or, la NBA est folle! Pacers have now won 15 of 20.

NFL

I didn’t watch much of the conference championship games. I’ve been meaning to get to Oppenheimer, so maybe I’ll watch that instead of the Super Bowl, as I have little interest in either team that won yesterday.

Skiing

I used to really enjoy the old NBC Sports Network channel this time of year, as they aired various sports you normally only get to watch in Winter Olympics years. I’ve never skied in my life, but I love watching competitive skiing, especially the downhill. So I was thrilled that I came across this weekend’s downhill race being held in Austria on regular NBC Saturday afternoon.

I don’t recall if they did this during the last Winter games but Saturday they were flying a drone behind/above the skiers, which was a truly incredible perspective. It’s always hard to represent the pitch of the mountain on TV, but the drone cam did the best job of conveying that I’ve ever seen. It was almost like being there. Good stuff. I hope this wasn’t a one-off and they show more Alpine events over the next month.

And NBC never should have killed the NBC Sports Network.

  1. Out of 98 3A schools. The numbers are worse when you look at the all class ratings. CHS is #39, BCHS #51, then the rest of the sectional are numbers 125, 130, 201, and 281.  ↩

Reader’s Notebook, 1/22/25

January 22, 2025 /

There’s Always This Year – Hanif Abdurraqib
I started the year with this wonderful book. It is a multi-layered examination of the places we call home and how we relate to them as we age, all set against a backdrop of basketball. For the most part, Abdurraqib’s tale follows the career of LeBron James, from high school phenom to his first run with the Cavaliers, to The Decision and move to Miami, and finally his return to Cleveland and winning the title the city sought for so long.

But only a fraction of the book is actually about LeBron. It’s as much about the neighborhood Adburraqib grew up in in Columbus, OH and what it was like to come of age in Ohio in parallel to LeBron. There’s also a nice diversion about former Kansas Jayhawk Kenny Gregory, who was a few years older than the author and lived a few doors down from him, and what it meant to the Columbus projects for a local kid to be a McDonald’s All American, winning both the dunk contest and game MVP award. KG is also used as a counter to LeBron, as the Can’t Miss Kid who, for various reasons, misses. At least compared to all the expectations on him before he went off to college.

There are also bits about music and culture and family and other stuff. Abdurraqib is more poet than social critic/commentator, so the book at times reads as such. There are even sections written in verse. The whole book was surely written over months, if not years. But it reads as though he spun it out over a single night, or maybe two, letting the thoughts flow from brain to pen/keyboard and following whatever diversions they took on the way to getting to his bigger points.

The Wide Wide Sea – Hampton Sides
Captain James Cook was one of the greatest seafarers of the age when men piled into ships and sailed off to parts unknown, hoping to “discover” new lands, peoples, and opportunities. This is an accounting of his final voyage, when his primary mission was to explore the western coast of North America for a potential connection to the theorized Northwest Passage. Along the way he became the first European to land on the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook was unlike most of the other most famous sea explorers whose names are litered across maps and history books. He wasn’t interested in spreading Christianity to “save” the heathens of the unexplored territories of the world. He generally treated the native peoples of the lands he arrived at with respect and intellectual interest, striving to learn about their cultures and societal structures. He took pains to avoid spreading Western diseases in lands where white men had yet to land, not always with success but at least with genuine intent to protect the locals.

But something was off about his final voyage. He seemed cranky and distant, and at times sloppy. There were a series of early setbacks to his journey that were unintentional but set a tone for the remainder of the mission. He was much more likely to punish his sailors with the lash than he ever had been in the past. Worst of all, the change in his mood and behavior led to a massive misunderstanding that ended up costing him his life on a Hawaiian beach in 1779.

This is a remarkable book. It came from a time (Cook left England in mid–1776) when there is a healthy historical record from people on the voyage to accurately recreate their travels. It is truly remarkable that large ships were sent to sea in this time (and had been for over 300 years!). Life on a ship seems like a truly awful experience. Sanitary conditions could be horrific. Boats were filled with rats and cockroaches. Food rotted quickly, supplies of fresh water were limited. The ships constantly leaked. Weather conditions were miserable and the sailors relied on 18th Century clothing to keep themselves dry and warm. Sailors would randomly fall into the sea because of unsettled conditions, often never to be rescued or seen again.

And then there was the matter of it being impossible to communicate with the rest of the world. Ships would set sail and travel for years at a time, family, friends, and benefactors not knowing if a crew was carrying out its mission or on the bottom of the sea until they crawled back into port years later. In severe storms or heavy fog, Cook and his companion ship would fire off their canon at regular intervals to avoid running into each other.

It just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun.

A fascinating story well constructed by Sides.

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music – Ted Templeman as told to Greg Renoff
Kind of an odd choice, but Alex Van Halen referenced this book a lot in his memoir, and then I’ve come across a couple other random references to it since I read AVH’s book, so I thought it would be an interesting read. Which it was, with some big flaws.

First off, I had no idea that Templeman was in the band Harpers Bizarre, which had a few hits in the Sixties, including “59th Street Song (Feelin’ Groovy).” He spends the better part of the first 100 pages of this book detailing his childhood and his Harper’s Bizarre days. Not the reason I picked it up.

Eventually he gets into his production career, beginning with Van Morrison, moving through The Doobie Brothers, and peaking with Van Halen’s glory days.[1] That last bit was obviously the most interesting.

Yet, the book landed a little flat. In musical terms, it felt a little over-produced, as if the rough sections had all been smoothed away. I wasn’t necessarily reading it for gossip, but controversial moments are relayed in an almost passing manner. He keeps hinting that Eddie Van Halen had “issues” but never really spells out that he had become an addict. It’s a weird avoidance of something that is on the public record. Templeman also glossed over many musical terms without explaining them. And, most strangely to me, he insists on calling artists by their shortened names. Eddie Van Halen is always Ed, never Eddie. Alex is alway Al. Michael McDonald is always Mike. He never, ever strays from this. Which drove me nuts. It’s such a Hollywood thing, like “Bob DeNiro is a pal of mine,” or whatever.

There were plenty of good parts. It was very interesting to read his take on how Van Halen fell apart. He had produced Sammy Hagar as well, and famously wanted Sammy to replace David Lee Roth when he signed the band in the late Seventies. In Alex’s book he said he had read this one, and while he respected Templeman, he disagreed with many of his characterizations of VH’s career. It was fun to try to pick out the parts where their views diverged.

Can’t say I highly recommend this book, but it wasn’t a total waste of time, either.

  1. He also produced Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Nicolette Larson, Aerosmith’s 1987 comeback album, Little Feat, Honneymon Suite, the Wayne’s World soundtrack, and many others.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 21, 2025 /

Hope you had a good Monday celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and all he stood for. Equal opportunity, justice, empathy, love. We’ve come a long way since he was murdered. Yesterday was a reminder that we still have a long way to go.

Let’s review some stuff that happened over the past few days.

KU Hoops

I’m about done with this team. Not in terms of watching, I’ll always watch the games.[1] But in terms of thinking they are going to figure it out in time to make a deep run in March. I guess anything is possible when the tournament rolls around. But, as I believe I said last year, this year’s parts just do not fit and I think it’s too late to make adjustments to get them to work together better.

Saturday’s game against K-State was a perfect example. A roaring start, and it looked like another pounding of the Purples was about to be entered into the media guide. But a combination of scheme, talent, and depth issues resulted in a final result that was far too close, and got Jerome Tang clapping like a wind-up bathtub toy as the Wildcats cut the lead down to six late.[2]

Hunter Dickinson finally remembered he’s the biggest guy on the court, and played terrific ball for stretches. But losing KJ Adams to injury and inserting Flory Bidunga into his starting spot meant Dickinson was completely gassed for the last 10 minutes or so of the game. Which made the defensive problems be presents even more pronounced since he could barely move. I get the logic of starting Flory, but with him being a foul-prone freshman, it opens the team up to not being able to rest Hunter because Flory has four fouls late.

KJ has been one of the most frustrating elements of this year’s team. Saturday showed his value, though. He would have guarded Coleman Hawkins better than any of his teammates. Dickinson is too big and slow. Bidunga too young and inexperienced. AJ Storr too small and not smart enough. K-State had a fine strategy of getting KU’s defense to move around, knowing at some point Dickinson would be out of place and/or Hawkins would have a mismatch. It didn’t help that Bidunga kept doubling way too late and no one would rotate to his spot, allowing easy dunks and layups for the Wildcats.

The game reminded me a little of the Missouri game a year ago. KU won, but it was not super satisfying because their rival exposed some weaknesses and it wasn’t the ass-kicking Jayhawks fans wanted.

Fortunately for KU, Iowa State and Arizona lost (and Houston should have lost). They are just a game back of second place. But there aren’t very many gimmes on the schedule and this year’s team does not inspire confidence they are going to show up focused every night. It’s tough to see them stealing a big win or two AND not blowing an equal number of winnable games. Hopefully we win more than we lose, but, to be honest, I’m more excited about/interested in Darryn Peterson and the other freshmen coming in next fall, if Flory will return, and if Bill Self can avoid picking the wrong role players in the portal to play around them.

NFL Playoffs

What a weird weekend. Each game had some serious drama, but other than the Baltimore-Buffalo game, they also didn’t feel as close as they actually were. The best part of the weekend, of course, was Sunday’s two snow games. We just needed a little more snow in Buffalo to make it perfect.

I heard a few prognosticators suggesting Washington had a good chance to beat Detroit. I thought that was crazy talk. Then the Commanders went wild on the Lions, pulling off one of the biggest shocks in recent memory. I felt so bad for Detroit fans. This was the best team they’ve had in the Super Bowl era. And they couldn’t even win a single playoff game at home. In retrospect, it’s amazing they got the #1 seed despite all their injuries. They’ve already lost their OC; their DC seems close behind him. I hope they can keep the core of their team around another year for another run. Detroit fans deserve it.

Both the Sunday games had really weird vibes. In the early one, the Rams seemed totally dead. Then they had the ball and were driving late with a chance to win until a sack blew that up. Philly does not inspire much confidence…until Saquan Barkley rips off another ridiculous run.

Baltimore out-played Buffalo in almost every aspect, expect for holding on to the ball. A brutal set of drops and fumbles killed their chances. Strap yourself in for six months of Lamar Jackson discourse, because he dropped a slippery football in the cold and made one terrible throw. In tight games like this, especially in bad weather, sometimes it comes down to luck. The Ravens had terrible luck Sunday night.

Nothing about the Chiefs impressed me. They aren’t awe-inspiring on offense the way they used to be. Their defensive line is very good, but it feels like if you attack them the right way, they are vulnerable. Yet every other team has huge flaws that make me reluctant to say any of them can beat KC. The Chiefs are just a super competent, if boring, team with a coach-QB tandem that can always find a way to pull things out when they get hairy.

CFP

Not sure that went exactly as expected, thanks to the opening drive by Notre Dame and then their late rally. I don’t think anyone outside the biggest Irish boosters were surprised that Ohio State was clearly the better team and played like it most of the night, though.

I figured OSU would have to work to crack the ND defense, but they had that problem completely solved. I was not surprised the Irish struggled to move the ball. Really it’s kind of incredible they made it this far with such a one-dimensional offense. For every impressive pass he threw, Riley Leonard threw at least three bad ones.

L had a doctor appointment this morning. The physician is an ND fan so I asked him if there were OSU fans in the office to harass him today. “Thank goodness, no. Those are the worst people in the world.” This was a first visit with this doc, but in that moment I knew we had the right guy!

College Visit

C and her buddy E, who grew up in Bloomington, went down to IU on Saturday for a casual visit. They met up with a couple of E’s middle school friends who showed them around town. I’m not certain they’re 100% locked in yet, but C and one of those B-town girls will likely live together next year. I know C was working on her housing stuff yesterday, so call it 98% with the paperwork pending.

They had fun exploring the area, then the Bloomington girls followed C and E back to Indy, went out with them for the night, and slept at our house after. Both Bloomington girls seemed nice, and the potential roommate told us we had a beautiful house, so naturally we liked her!

Polar Vortex

I think most of my readers are experiencing the same winter blast we are having. We can all agree this weather is terrible, right? As I type this at almost noon Tuesday, the windchill is –14. It has been so cold this is the longest stretch in a decade we’ve had snow on the ground in Indy. Which seems wild, but I guess every moderate-heavy snow we’ve had over that span has been followed by a warm-up that melted everything within a week.

  1. Well, not tomorrow when I’m an hour south watching L and her teammates play.  ↩
  2. Good to see Tang has continued the tradition of KSU coaches doing the fly-by handshake after losing to KU. Did Bruce Weber start that, or does it go back further?  ↩

HS Hoops: Double Champs

January 20, 2025 /

With one more big football game scheduled for tonight, I’ll hold off on the weekend summary until tomorrow. That also allows me to devote more space to writing about high school hoops.

City Tournament

The semifinals of the Indy City tournament were Thursday. On the JV side, L and her pals crushed HCHS by 28, opening the game on a 17–0 run. They beat the same girls by 17 a month ago. Unlike in the quarterfinals, where L played limited minutes, Thursday she played a ton and did ok. She made three shots, all at the rim, had a couple rebounds, an assist, and five steals. But you could tell she was out of shape and her shooting form was kind of trash: she went to the free throw line six times and missed all six shots. She’s never been a great free throw shooter, but this was wild stuff, here. After the game she said she was tired and everything about shooting felt weird.

We also played without two other girls due to injury. One is a freshman reserve who doesn’t play a ton, but had been getting more minutes recently. The other is our starting center, our best and most consistent player this year. She had rolled her ankle in practice Wednesday. That was concerning for the championship game the next day.

On the varsity side, our girls took care of a scrappy squad from the technical high school affiliated with Purdue. We got off to a slow start but eventually pulled away for an easy 23 point win.

That set up rematches of last year’s finals, both against our sisters from BCHS. A year ago the Irish busted open a close JV game in the second half to win by double digits, while the varsity lost in overtime by one when the Trojans hit a 3 at the buzzer.

Guess what? This year’s games were really good, too.

L and the JV girls started off terribly. They let a freshman, who went to St. P’s, just destroy them early. This girl is a freakish athlete and was pure havoc at the top of their trapping press, and then sliced through our defense when she had the ball. The game was tied at 8 before we gave up 13 straight points, most off turnovers havoc girl caused in the backcourt. It was reminiscent of our opening game this season, when we just could not handle pressure. I guess we haven’t practiced against a trapping press since then, because we handled the BC pressure nearly as poorly as that night in November. At least early. We got the margin down to five at halftime, and then took a lead late in the third quarter. The dad I sit by and I looked at each other and shook our heads. We did not understand how we were up one going into the 4th.

The final period was back-and-forth. So much bad offense by both teams. We trailed by one with time running out when a girl who doesn’t look to score very often kind of stumbled into the lane and threw the ball off the glass and in with about 10 seconds left. The Trojans raced up the court and got fouled on a shot attempt with just a couple seconds left. They missed the first, then the second, we grabbed the rebound, and the Irish had repeated as JV City champs! Not the prettiest process, but it still counts as a dub. Our girls have struggled all year making free throws, but I think we shot over 90% for the game, which was obviously huge. Especially important was our center playing, at probably 80%, and not missing a single free throw. She’s one of those kids that normally makes two, then misses two, makes one, misses one, and so on. Maybe the pain in her ankle fixed a flaw in her motion because she was money Friday.

L played ok. She had two tough, driving layups. A couple rebounds, a couple turnovers. But otherwise was more of a director on offense and a steadying force on D. She had to come out of the game once each quarter because of pain in her foot. That kept her from having as big of a steadying impact on offense as she would have a year ago. She was really hobbled after the game. Taking two months off clearly didn’t solve the issue so we are likely heading towards a visit with an orthopedic surgeon to get an evaluation.

On to varsity. This game was close all night. I think both teams had five point leads at various times. We were down one with two minutes left when our best player, who has struggled shooting all season, hit a 3. After BC tied it she hit another, longer 3 to put us up by three. She ended up with 20 points and five made 3’s, by far her best game of the year.

We got just about every break in the final 90 seconds. BC kept missing shots, and we kept getting the rebound. They fouled to put us on the line. A couple loose balls bounced a little more our way than theirs. The BC girl that won the game last year had an open look from the same spot that would have given them the lead in the final 30 seconds, but this one rimmed out and the miss caromed out of bounds. However, all that free throw luck the JV had earlier did not carry over. We missed at least eight freebies in the fourth quarter. A senior who shoots over 80% went 3–6 in the fourth quarter. The same girl who missed a free throw with four seconds left in overtime last year missed two of four in the final 10 seconds. We missed three consecutive free throws in the final five seconds.

Fortunately, we hit just enough of them to have a three-point lead before BCHS tried a desperation shot that was both a 2 and after the horn.

48–45, Irish. Varsity City champs for the first time in three years!

Unlike last year, L did not dress for the varsity game, so she didn’t get to help cut the net or receive a medal. She did get to be in the trophy picture, which was cool. We told the JV girls they should cut down the other net, but they didn’t seem super interested in that.

Some night of hoops! As a bonus, since we are now in the same sectional as BC, the varsity teams may get to do this again in three weeks. We will host that tournament as well. Last year our varsity girls beat BC in a regular season game before the Trojans flipped the result two weeks later in the City tournament. I’m already nervous about the possible rematch. In the updated computer rankings, CHS is #9 in 3A, BCHS #10.

Hopefully we’ll have a better crowd if we do play them again. BC had nearly as many fans as us in our own gym Friday. Which isn’t unusual for girls basketball. BC is more of a neighborhood school – I bet two-thirds of their families live within 15 minutes of their campus – plus there is a home parish next door. It seems like their fans really turn out for every event and make it a community thing. On the other hand, CHS draws kids from all over the Indianapolis area – our girls have friends who drive nearly an hour to get to school each day – and is independent from any parish. CHS folks will show up in big numbers for football and boys basketball, which have strong, traditional ties to the city of Indianapolis, but otherwise I think our population is spread so wide that it’s tough to get families without kids on the court/field to show up for the less glamorous sports. Maybe the lure of a sectional matchup with our biggest rivals will draw a better crowd if we play in the tournament.

A funny note about the crowd. As there were so many BC fans, they spilled into the area where a lot of us CHS parents sit, which is adjacent to the visiting section.[1] Two of their parents who are huge dickheads were seated near our biggest dickhead dad for the varsity game. We were a few rows behind them, so I pointed this out to the people around us, who were mostly either JV or non-basketball parents, and told them to watch for something fun to happen with this group. Sure enough, in the first half, one of the BC dads got into a yapping match with our loud dad. Our dad is no small guy – he’s bigger than me – but the BCHS dad is this super-hulked up dude. Their yapping continued to the point where the BC dad stood up and challenged the CHS dad to go outside. Fortunately someone got them to settle down and stop acting like idiots. A CHS parent near me leaned over and said, “You know, I think P (CHS dad) can handle himself in a fight, but if that kept going he was going to get his ass kicked.” True that.

I don’t know if it was by plan or purely coincidental, but some other dads who seemed much calmer sat between those two for the second half and I never saw any additional static.

Good times!

The other psycho BC dad, who coached L years ago in soccer, doesn’t have a daughter on the team. Yet he shows up to their games and acts like a complete fool. When L played for him, there were complaints about his behavior after every game from the opposing team’s parents. He used to verbally abuse the poor high schoolers who were officiating grade school soccer games if they missed a call. Just a complete loon. When L and I went to a BC game last month to watch her middle school buddy play, this dude lost it on the refs for some random reason. He ranted and raved as the BC parents we were sitting with tried to figure out what had set him off.

In Thursday’s semifinal, the teacher who runs our scoreboard and is always making mistakes with the clock or possession arrow, had the BC score wrong. This joker nearly lost his mind. Well, Friday, Mr. N had the possession arrow wrong for the 1000th time in his career. Crazy dad’s head looked like it was going to explode it got so red. He was standing up, screaming and pointing at Mr. N. It didn’t matter that the referees and the official scorekeepers from both teams had caught the error and were correcting it. Again, HE DOES NOT HAVE A KID ON THE TEAM. S told me if he stroked out she was not going to go down and help him, which made me laugh. Another CHS dad, who is a Notre Dame fan, noted psycho guy’s Buckeyes attire and said, “Of course he’s an Ohio State fan!” Sometimes the stereotypes match reality.

Good clean fun since we weren’t directly involved.

Four games left in the regular season, all against 4A teams. One is in the top 10 and has lost just twice, two are decent and ranked near us in the all-class computer rankings, the final one has a single win this season. The sectional draw is this coming Sunday.

  1. Our normal, preferred home seats are in the upper row of this section, next to a large, steel beam that kind of blocks to noise from the visiting fans to our right.  ↩

High School Hoops

January 15, 2025 /

Exactly two months since her last game, L finally returned to the court last night. So a quick update is in order.

We knew going in that she probably would not play much. This was our opening game in the Indianapolis City tournament, so with (likely) games on Thursday and Friday and Tuesday’s opponent not being very good, there was no need for her to go all out.

She checked in for the first time with just over a minute to play in the first quarter, to loud cheers from all her teammates. She immediately forced a turnover. And then another. She got the ball in the corner with about 10 seconds left and there was no doubt she was shooting. She took the 3…and left it about two feet short. At first I thought a defender got a hand on the ball but after the game she admitted it was a pure airball.

She played about four minutes of the second quarter, the last 3:00 of the third quarter, then almost all of the fourth quarter. There was a running clock in the second half so those minutes passed pretty quickly. In total she played about 15 minutes. Her stats? 2–5 from the field, 1–2 from the line for five points. She was fouled as time ran out in the third quarter and shot her free throws as the only player on the court. She airballed the first, making S and I laugh out loud. Fortunately she swished the second. She grabbed a rebound, had one assist, three steals, and forced three other turnovers. Not a bad line for a kid who looked rusty and winded. The best news is her foot felt “normal” this morning, according to her. We’ll see how that holds up.

As for the game? Well, we started it on something like a 40–0 run before CRHS banked in a shot late in the third quarter. We won 45–2, and that was with our girls missing at least 10 free throws and us not doing much other than pass the ball around in the fourth quarter. I think the win made JV 10–3 on the year, although I might be missing a game somewhere. They will play HCHS, who they beat by 17 last month, in the semis Thursday.

Varsity also had an easy, 40 point, running clock win. The #5 team upset the #4 team in double overtime, so we will get an unexpected opponent in the semis there. Same thing happened last year and a crappy team nearly beat us, so hopefully the varsity girls are focused.

In other news around the city, Crispus Attucks beat Washington 115–5 over the weekend. This, obviously, has had some folks fired up. Attucks pressed and shot 3’s nearly the entire game. They let their best player, who is one of the highest rated juniors in the state, take pretty much every shot in the first half. L told me she heard the girl didn’t even get back on defense and got a lot of uncontested buckets by cherry picking. I guess part of the goal was for her to break Oscar Robertson’s single game scoring record at Attucks, which she did when she hit a 3 for her 63rd point. Before halftime. The only credit their coach, who happens to be that girl’s dad, gets is that he sat her for the entire second half. But most of the other starters stayed in.

I get that sometimes there are really bad matchups. Look at our games last night. Part of coaching is showing respect for a totally out-matched opponent. I don’t care if you are “working on stuff.” No team should ever press when their lead is over 30 points, even if you’ve put in your entire JV roster. And you slow the tempo down when you have the ball, not look to run on every miss and steal.

Attucks lost in the City quarterfinals by 11 last night. To a team I guarantee they have more talent than, but who actually play as a unit and don’t set everything up so that the coach’s daughter can break records. The Hoops Gods are always watching.

Pacers + Health Update

January 14, 2025 /

Two weeks into the New Year and there are a couple posts I’ve been putting off for far too long.

Before I get to a quick health update on your beloved blogger, I can’t believe I forgot to include a blurb about the Pacers yesterday. So…

Pacers

Hey, my Indiana Pacers have won six in a row! Including a comprehensive win Sunday over the Cavaliers, which broke Cleveland’s 12-game winning streak. The Pacers got that dub coming from 13 down and playing the entire second half without Tyrese Haliburton, who tweaked his hamstring for the 800th time. Somehow their defense was the difference. The Indiana Pacers playing defense??? Crazy stuff! They have now won seven of eight, and 13 of 17. Pretty solid run after a slow start.

Now we’ll see how much time Hali has to miss to mend his hammy. The Cavs get a rematch tonight so I would imagine the Pacers’ streak comes to an end.

Ticker Talk

Now for the first of the items I’ve been putting off sharing. For no good reason.

Over the fall I had a couple more episodes where my heart got out of rhythm for lengthy stretches. After some back-and-forth with my cardiologist she had me wear an event monitor for a week and then sent me to an electrophysiologist in her office. The hope was the event monitor would catch something the specialist could use to determine if there was something up with my heart beyond genetics and develop a course of action.

I wasn’t able to get in to see the specialist until right before Christmas. As always happens when I go in, my EKG was fine. And my event monitor didn’t catch anything. So he started from scratch, reviewing my full health history and then the times when I’ve had Afib for 12 hours or more.

The good news is that he still thinks my heart is in fine shape and my stroke score is effectively zero. It’s not actually zero since I have Afib, but as all my other factors are super low he doesn’t think we need to worry about any stroke prevention medications at this time.

He did say that the thinking on how to manage Afib has changed in recent years. Where once physicians began with meds, they now like to put those off as the side effects are so significant. Instead, a surgical option that used to be used after meds is now the first choice. Thus, at some point I will need a heart ablation if my Afib episodes start recurring more often.

He was pretty excited to explain how that would work. After knocking me out, he would run a line into my right femoral artery that would eventually end up in my heart. Over the course of a couple hours he would shock some of the tissue in the back, left of my heart, where the faulty signals that trigger Afib tend to come from. This process causes scar tissue which blocks those electrical impulses. It will not make Afib go away completely, but it does minimize how often it presents.

That seemed kind of wild to me, especially since I don’t have these episodes very often. But he told me he would do it right away if I wanted to, although that was not necessary. Also wild!

I figure I’ll kick that can down the road as long as I can. Unless my Afib starts occurring regularly instead of randomly, that doesn’t seem like something I need to jump into just yet.

Any time I’ve written about my heart issues I’ve noted that most of my Afib spells have occurred when I’ve been drinking. The crazy thing is most of them have started when I have only drank one beer, or in a couple cases, not even finished that beer. Because of that I’ve scaled my drinking back quite a bit. Since my most recent episodes, I’ve pulled back even further. I’m guessing I’ve had less than a dozen beers in the last three months, with a few glasses of wine and mixed drinks sprinkled in there. And when I do drink beer, I’ve mostly switched to Michelob Ultra. I didn’t love that at first, but when I found their Amber Max it turned out to be pretty decent for a watered down beer. And the Amber Max is gluten free, which I guess is a bonus.

Still, I’m not drinking very often or much. It’s become one of those mental blocks like when you eat something and get sick later and you aren’t interested in having that meal again even if it wasn’t what caused your illness. Drinking a beer just doesn’t sound very good most of the time, and I worry that the next one will be the drink that causes my heart to act up.

Those reactions are cranked up even more with liquor, so I have some very nice bourbon sitting in my cabinet I have no interest in drinking at all.

I’m not totally dry or anything, and it isn’t a huge switch since I had scaled back my drinking over the past couple years already. I will still get a nice, mixed drink when we go out to dinner, although I’ve found a second one can truly be a motherfucker. Instead of having a beer every night, though, I’m at maybe a beer a week. Or one every 10 days. It kind of sucks but if it helps keep my heart in rhythm and avoids a trip to the ED or increasing my stroke odds, I suppose it is worth it. Getting old sucks, but I could have worse issues, and I’m happy to do things like this so I keep getting older.

Weekend Notes

January 13, 2025 /

A quieter weekend, although there were still enough activities over the past 5–6 days to justify an overly-long blog post.

Weather

A little over three new inches of snow Friday, on top of the 9+ we received last Sunday/Monday. Our street is one of the few side streets in our area that gets attention; the neighborhood behind us pays a private contractor to pass through and we enjoy the benefits of that. However, there was enough slush left over from the weekend that our street is a sheet of crusty ice today.

The joy of Friday’s storm was that it hit right in the middle of the day. Despite that, CHS did not dismiss early so C had a somewhat tricky drive home. She said she saw at least six accidents on her commute, but she made it safely. She said the four new tires I had to put on her car after her incident a week ago really helped with traction. No shit…

Then three hours later I had to head back to pick up L from practice. Getting to school wasn’t that bad, but the return was awful. We made it home without incident, although it took about 10–15 minutes longer than usual. And we saw lots of slide offs and small accidents.

While battery performance goes in the shitter, the Tesla gets around pretty well in the snow. Its heavy weight, low center of gravity, and dual motor setup makes for a pretty secure ride, as long as you don’t drive like a lunatic. I’m perfectly happy to slow down to keep things under control.

The forecast for this week is dry but super cold. Windchills as low as –20 midweek. Yay! I did have to break down and drive next door to the gym two days last week because the snow drifts in the parking lot were so high. If the windchill is as low as forecast Wednesday I’ll likely be driving again this week.

J Term

Last week was CHS’ annual J-term, a week of electives to ease back into the academic life. This year they shortened it to just one week instead of the two weeks it had been the last four years. That was smart, although the groups that traveled overseas (there were trips to Paris, Kenya, and the Galapagos) all had to leave early to squeeze everything in.

C took a Gilmore Girls session. They wore comfy clothes, read books, went to libraries, watched shows and movies, and went out for lunch or breakfast every day. Very intense stuff.

L’s was more serious. She took a careers in sports course. Tuesday they visited an Indy Car team to learn about their entire operation, including watching the crew practice doing pitstops in the garage. She’s not really into cars but thought that was cool. Wednesday they bussed up to Purdue and got to tour the basketball facilities and watch the men’s team practice. Matt Painter talked to them, as well. She LOVED this, even though she’s not a Purdue fan. Thursday they had a guest from the Horizon League who talked about what she does as a graduate assistant and how she is plotting out her career. This was extra cool because the speaker was L’s eighth grade buddy when she was in kindergarten at St. P’s. L was very interested in this path as well.

This morning they were back to normal classes at the normal time.

M went back to Cincinnati Friday before the snow hit 1) so she could hang out with the dude she’s been dating and 2) because she had a sorority meeting that started at 9 AM Sunday. She’s back in classes today as well.

KU Hoops

Whew! It was one thing to lose to Cincinnati last year in the Big 12 tournament, when Kevin McCullar and Hunter Dickinson were both injured and not playing. To have repeated that results at full strength Saturday would have been a disaster. UC seemed kind of stinky to me. I was worried that was where we headed that direction again. M even texted me during the first half to let me know my Jayhawks were losing to her Bearcats.

Fortunately KU decided to play some wicked defense in the second half and finally put together a little run late to win comfortably. UC’s 40 points were the fewest they had scored in 32 years. It was the fewest KU had given up in a conference game since 1963. I think the defense was very good, but, man, there was something going on in that gym. Both teams missed a million open shots. I’m not sure if it was the rims, if the arena was cold, or what. That was a despicable display of offense, though, and all the tapes should be burned.

I was very glad that I did not spent the several hundred dollars per seat the secondary market had tickets at the last time I checked. The week before Christmas there were tickets in the top of the upper level going for $600 each, which is insane. Some courtside seats were going for $2000 each. I know KU hadn’t played in Cincinnati since 1964, but jeez! I didn’t look to see if those dropped with UC coming into the game at 0–3 in the league, and KU 2–1. Regardless, for the quality of ball those teams played, anything would have been an overpay, so I was perfectly happy watching from my couch 102 miles away.

CFP

Ugh. After living in Indiana for over 20 years, I’ve come to really hate Ohio State. I’m not sure why; their success has never come at the expense of KU. We don’t recruit against them. I’m not a fan of another Big 10 school. Other than 2007, there’s never been a KU team that was in the discussion for the same level of bowl game as the Buckeyes. It’s just that as happens with programs that win all the time, I’ve come to dislike them and many of their fans. It doesn’t help that while most OSU fans I know are great, fun people, I know a few who are total dicks. Like people you never want to be around during games and talk the worst kind of shit after games. Just total nonsense. When you’re dealing with fanbases, the dicks always outweigh the normals.

And we all agree Ryan Day is a total psycho, right? Which is saying something in a sport where most of the coaches are psychos. For some reason his coloring of his hair and beard drives me nuts. Not sure why he’s not in a Just For Men commercial. Admit it, dude.

So, despite nearly 30 years of hating Texas for their political dominance of the Big 12, I was pulling for the Longhorns Friday. A lot of good that did me.

I also grew up hating Notre Dame, but my time in the Indianapolis Catholic community has softened my stance on the Irish. Plus, like a lot of folks, Marcus Freeman has won me over.

So there’s no doubt where my loyalties are next week. Sadly, I think Ohio State is going to overpower the Irish. And I’m now 100% against the 12-team CFP, because it lets clearly mediocre teams like the Buckeyes get hot for a month and win the damn thing.

I might watch a movie instead of the game.

NFL Playoffs

The opening round, so far, was kind of boring. The late game Sunday, with Washington bouncing in the winning field goal, was the only one with any true drama, and I barely watched that game because we had guests.

I guess there was drama in how many interceptions Justin Herbert would throw against Houston. And whether CJ Stroud would match him. I don’t watch the Chargers very often but it continues to baffle me, and many others, why The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz continues to rank Herbert well above Joe Burrow in his QB rankings. Maybe the Vikings and Rams will surprise us with a good one tonight.

HS Hoops

One game last week for CHS. L was able to warm up for the JV game, and count it as a rehab practice, but she was not eligible to return to play until this week.

The JV team started in a 13–2 hole but came back to win by 4. A really nice effort by them. I believe they are 10–3 for the season now.

Varsity was playing a top 10 4A team that has one of the best players in the state. Or, rather, one of the best athletes. This girl was the Gatorade Indiana soccer player of the year and won three state titles in her four years as a soccer player. She also won a state title in basketball as a freshman, and is one of the top 100 hoops recruits in the country. She’s going to Miami (FL) to play basketball. So, obviously, her genetic makeup and work ethic suck.

We held her to five below her season average of 27 points but that was the only high point of the night in a 24-point loss. Any positive momentum gained over the holidays seemed lost Wednesday. Varsity is 9–7.

This week is the Indianapolis City Tournament. The CHS varsity is seeded #1, based on the computer rankings, but our rivals Bishop Chatard are, arguably, the favorites.[1] They beat us last year in the championship game at the buzzer in OT, and I think they are better this season. Although we are the top seed, we have a tougher second-round game,[2] so hopefully our girls don’t slip up and we make it to the championship game Friday.

The JV tournament mirrors the varsity bracket, so your defending JV city champs are also the #1 seed. And they get their point guard back Tuesday! Other than the two top seeds, the other JV teams are trash, so a rematch is almost guaranteed in the title game. Last year Chatard played us close in the first half, then we ran away in the second half for a comfortable win. Their two best players from that team, and their best freshman this season, are all on varsity this year. L doesn’t think much of their JV squad but I’m not sure what she bases that on. I’m cautiously optimistic. And I’m more interested to see how her body holds up this week with three games in four days. She’s still only practicing about 50% of the reps so I doubt she has any of her cardio health built back up.

  1. In this week’s computer rankings we are #8 in 3A, they are #9. In the media poll, though, BCHS is #10 and we are not ranked. Our lofty computer ranking advantage is purely from playing a tougher schedule.  ↩
  2. The bracket is determined by the computer rankings two weeks before the tournament. The #3 and #4 seeds have actually swapped spots in the computer poll since the bracket came out. Last year CHS was the #1 seed but by the time the tournament started, Chatard was actually the highest ranked team in the bracket. Weird, but I guess you can’t roll out the pairings the day before games start.  ↩

Jayhawk Talk: Ups and Downs

January 9, 2025 /

KU basketball has become a roller coaster ride. Which is not the coolest thing when you are a fan.

A week ago they lost to an undermanned, sleep-deprived West Virginia team at home. It was the first time the Mountaineers had ever won at Allen Fieldhouse. In true WVU form, they tried their hardest to blow a big lead, but KU could only tie then have two awful possessions when they had the chance to take the lead. Shame Devonte Graham or Frank Mason weren’t available.

What was most maddening about this game was that KU never looked interested in competing hard. Zeke Mayo was the only starter who seemed engaged, Flory Bidunga the only bench player who made an impact. Those two fueled the big second-half run, but the rest of the team acted like WVU wasn’t worth their attention. Maybe they thought since WVU was missing their two best players it would be a glorified practice? It should have been obvious that wasn’t the case about two minutes into the game, but it still took them until well into the second half to finally flip the switch.

Where is Bruce Webber and his Try Hard chart when you need him?!?!

Then Sunday the total opposite, as the Jayhawks went to Orlando and annihilated UCF by 1000 points. Or 51, which might as well be 1000 in college basketball. It was the biggest KU win since 2008, the biggest conference road win in school history. And the wild thing is they really didn’t play all that well on offense. They missed a ton of open 3’s. They missed so many shots at the rim. You know, evergreen KU problems. But their defense was dominant, Shak Moore moving into the starting lineup seemed to energize the team, and Bidunga had his breakout game. He blocked every shot. He grabbed every rebound. Then he did this:

Mercy. I immediately started texting friends that Bill Self needed to talk to Adidas and everyone else to double-up Flory’s NIL bag so he has zero interest in being the #25 pick in this year’s draft. Fortunately he showed some typical freshman struggles last night so I doubt we need to worry about it too much for now.[1]

If they had shown even 50% of Sunday’s effort five days earlier, the West Virginia game isn’t close. You would think a team dominated by fifth and sixth year players would understand this a little better. Alas…

Then last night’s game against Arizona State managed to combine both the WVU and UCF games into one, 40-minute package. I missed the first half, but effort again seemed to be the issue. Then the Jayhawks came out and dominated the second half, turning a six-point deficit into a 19-point win. Shak Moore was, again, the difference. As a whole the team cranked things up on the defensive end, but his back-to-back steals that turned into dunks basically ended the game midway through the second half. Wild that a few weeks ago there were rumors that he wouldn’t play the rest of the year and would likely transfer at semester and seek a medical redshirt elsewhere. Dude might have saved the season.

Let’s bullet point a few good things, and a few concerning ones.

Good Things

  • Shak, obviously. Brings effort and energy and means DaJuan Harris doesn’t have the ball in his hands constantly.
  • Rylan Griffen figuring it out. His defense is improving, as does his general comfort level. Seems like he has a great attitiude. With that has come more minutes and more makes.
  • Flory’s continued moments of brilliance. I really need my Hoosier Jayhawk to hang in Lawrence at least two years. If he stays 2–3 years, he will be one of the best rebounders of the Bill Self era.
  • Zeke Mayo as the offensive alpha. Who saw this coming?

Bad Things

  • AJ Storr being a complete waste. A massive recruiting miss. He played three minutes last night and it sounds like they were a disaster.
  • Hunter Dickenson’s offense. A mess. He’s 7’2” and has shot under 50% in three of his last four games. He shot just 33% against Arizona State. And it’s not like he’s shooting a ton of 3’s. He needs to plant his big ass in the low post and focus on what he’s good at.
  • DaJuan Harris missing layups and bricking 3’s. Listen, DaJuan was the starting point guard on a national championship team. He doesn’t suck. But it is totally maddening that his game has not improved more than 5% on the offensive end while his defense has regressed.

Mixed Bag

  • KJ Adams’ entire game. He’s been fantastic the last two games. No one plays harder. But he is so limited on offense and he doesn’t do the one thing he exels at – dunking – as much as he used to, is a mediocre rebounder, and not really a lock-down defender. Yet he starts and generally plays over 30 minutes a game. Storr really should have taken a bunch of his minutes, but that’s not going to happen. Fortunately Storr’s failure led to Bidunga getting some of KJ’s minutes. While Flory can’t do much other than dunk lobs within the offense, he’s a rebounding machine, and probably a better defender. I know Self loves KJ, but Flory playing more is the best way to maximize KU’s ceiling.
  • Bill Self. Listen, you don’t want to criticize a man who has won two national titles too much, but this team’s issues mostly come down to recruiting failures of one kind or another and not being able to find the right match of personel and scheme. That’s all on the coach. He’ll figure some shit out – going to pressure turned the Arizona State game around – but my worry is that the roster has the wrong mix of talent for him to get them to their preseason expectations. This team feels reactive, and each game will present a new set of problems that Self is forced to figure out and adjust for.

It feels like you should divide the Big 12 schedule into three-game stretches. KU just dropped one in what should be their easiest, or second easiest, of those stretches. Maybe they figured some things out in there. There are clearly some structural issues, but to me the biggest thing is can we count on all five guys on the court to play hard every minute they are out there? Storr seems like he might be buried for good. The rest of the team are making progress.

However, the next three games are at Cincinnati, at Iowa State, home vs Kansas State. Good teams can go 1–2 in that stretch. Showing up for any of those game indifferent and unfocused can turn respectable losses into embarassing ones. The next 11 days will go a long way towards determining what their ceiling is.

  1. I snuck peaks at three differnet mock drafts. He’s not listed in any of them, one of which even goes 150 players deep. That same site did have him #19 in their 2026 mock draft.  ↩

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