Summer Doings
Time to get back at it. After the long holiday week, bookended by trips down to the lake house, we’re finally home for what should be a very quiet week at home. Last week we had my brother-in-law, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter from Boston staying with us. It was good to catch up and hang out with them.…
PG, Pritchard, & the Pacers
How’s this for symmetry: when the calendar passed from Saturday to Sunday, we were officially on the backside of 2017. And when we passed from Sunday to Monday, we were officially on the downhill slope of our summer break. Weird! We’ve been busy with several family events: gatherings, trips to the lake, visitors from Boston. But I did want to…
NBA Draft Notes
Crap. With the NBA Draft on a Thursday going into a busy weekend, I totally forgot to share some draft-night thoughts. Which is a shame, because I probably had a couple really good ones I forgot about over the weekend! First off, some truth: draft night was a big letdown. There was sooooooo much hype coming into it. It had…
The Finals
I caught parts of almost every game of the NBA Finals. As compelling as the series was, I just couldn’t lock in for three hours for all five games. Often I would turn the game on only after the girls went to bed, which meant I generally just saw the second halves of the games. I think that’s a little…
The End
Saturday I had a feeling I can’t ever remember having during a KU loss, especially a season-ending loss. Peace. Oh, I had my moments of yelling, cursing the TV, and throwing things, no doubt about that. But as Oregon’s cold-blooded assassins dropped in ridiculous shot after ridiculous shot, as Jordan Bell kept rejecting every shot KU took near the rim,…
Destruction, Terror, and Mayhem
Holy shit! What a goddamn game. It’s taken me until noon Friday to calm down a little bit after a thoroughly satisfying Thursday night of hoops. I went to bed after 1:00, and slept only fitfully between the lingering adrenaline and the trips to the bathroom caused by that last beer at 12:30. This morning my pulse was still a…
Tourney Notes, KU Edition
And now for the mighty Jayhawks. Sunday was everything this year’s team is about, compressed into 40 minutes. Moments where they looked completely brilliant. Moments where they faced a serious personnel issue and eased past it with no problem. Moments where they looked totally dominant on the glass. Moments where they could get, and make, any shot they wanted. And…
Tourney Notes, Weekend Wrap Part 1
A much, much better weekend of hoops after a ho-hum first two days of the tournament. Quick catch up for Saturday. Although I lost my runner-up, I was just fine with Villanova going out. I’m in a weird place with ‘Nova. I’ve watched them quite a bit since Butler joined the Big East, and I’ve always been impressed with the…
Tourney Notes, Day 4
The least entertaining first round of the NCAA tournament in recent memory is in the books.[1] There were some solid games, but a shockingly low number of upsets. And only a handful of “text all your friends and tell them to turn game X on immediately” moments. KU rolled. Which was good. They did exactly what I expected them to…
Tourney Notes, Day 3
Day three, and the first marathon of the tournament. I hung in there pretty valiantly, but must admit I packed things in about 11:15 eastern when none of the games were particularly close. Fortunately I didn’t miss any amazing comebacks or crazy last-second shots. All-in-all, it was a kind of boring day. There were a couple close games, a couple…