D's Notebook

Tag: basketball (Page 7 of 55)

Sports Notes

August 8, 2023 /

After just a week it’s already time for some more sports notes.

Big 12/Realignment

I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week’s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again.

First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn’t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven’t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don’t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he’s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they’ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure.

What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference.

Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever.

After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There’s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn’t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn’t wreck the conference.

In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves?

I don’t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it’s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary.

I’ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don’t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point.

I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special.

KU Hoops

I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU.

I’m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games.

He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he’s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We’ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris’ eligibility comes into jeopardy.

I watched most of KU’s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1] You can’t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won’t dive in too deep to my observations.

It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12.

Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn’t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team’s.

And if anyone can consistently hit 3’s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable.

On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don’t look like they’ve been shooting the 8000 3’s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday.

These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2] What it all means is just speculation.

One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3’s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter.

Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday.

He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren’t as honest with him, and understood it since “you never really know how kids are going to turn out.” But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, “I don’t have to say anything. He knows.” Hilarious.

When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, “Yeah, he’s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.”

Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, “I’m not sure we can say that on the radio.”

Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, “Sorry about the curse word.” I was rolling. Buddy is the best.

Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, “We coming, Self! We coming!”

It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio.

I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3] I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn’t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player.

The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There’s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week’s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there’s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday’s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter.

How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don’t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy.

Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers’ offer sheet for him a year ago.

I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn’t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly.

USWNT/World Cup

Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women’s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game.

I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision.

I’ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I’ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I’ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas.

Royals

Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they’ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn’t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise’s longest since 2017.

  1. Props to KU for coming up with a way, last minute, to show the games. The single cam on the sideline wasn’t perfect, but was better than a lot of high school single-cam streams I’ve watched.  ↩
  2. It was clear in the two Bahamas games that the refs were making calls late to keep the games close. KU got dinged in for a few bad calls in the game they won Saturday, and benefited from a couple terrible calls when they were losing Monday. Self seemed surprised by the calls, but perhaps international refs try to make the end of exhibitions more interesting, or give coaches a chance to practice more late game stuff.  ↩
  3. If you don’t know your Indy geography, and why would most of you, we live in Washington Township and North Central is one block from our house. Pretty far from the Bahamas.  ↩

Sports Notes

August 1, 2023 /

I’ve stacked up a lot of sports thoughts over the past several weeks. Let’s dive in and see how long it takes to get through them.

Tour de France

After watching the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained in June, I was all-in for this year’s tour, even ponying up for Peacock for the month to watch.[1] It was like the good (bad) old days watching Lance Armstrong as I turned the race on first thing every morning and tracked the day’s progress.

This year’s race was awesome. Week one was incredible, with all kinds of cool attacks and finishes until Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, combined winners of the last three Tours, took over. The duo battled across France and stayed within seconds of each other into the final week, until Vingegaard won a convincing victory in stage 16’s individual time trial. The next day he blew the race open in the Alps. What had been a nine second lead exploded to over seven minutes. It was a remarkable two days to earn a deserved second-straight Tour win.

I had a few sources for reading about each day’s stages, one of them The Guardian. Which, being The Guardian, threw aspersions towards any biker who performed particularly well. Vingegaard got the worst of it as he took over the race. Who knows if the speculation is accurate or not. His team noted how many times his blood was tested over the month, an argument we’ve heard before. I just found it interesting it was NEVER discussed on the TV broadcast.

It also drove me nuts that the announcers, the same main two guys as back in Lance’s prime, have the same quirks they had 20 years ago. They’re looking at the same footage we are watching, and somehow almost always misread biker’s body language. Multiple times they suggested someone was in great shape, only to get dropped moments later, or that someone was struggling only for them to surge away from their rivals. And they love to speculate, with like 80 kilometers to race, that some guy with a minute lead “surely has this stage won.” I blame Europeans and their strange ways of covering sports.

KU Hoops

I’ve never followed up on my May thoughts, after Hunter Dickinson committed. It’s been a busy summer.
Both Zuby Ejiofor and Ernest Udeh transferred out, which really, really sucked. I totally understand why they left, and that is the big downside to adding a massive transfer in like Dickinson. I wish Bill Self could have talked at least one of them into staying. Udeh ending up at TCU was a real bummer, but better than Kansas State, which was one of his other options.
Kevin McCullar decided to come back, which was huge.
Christian Braun’s brother transferred in, giving KU another body in the front court.
Zach Clemence, who had said he was transferring to UCSB, changed his mind and announced he was returning and would redshirt.
Incoming freshman Chris Johnson saw the roster crunch in the backcourt and decided to de-commit and go to Texas.
Then, after a couple weeks of summer school, fellow freshman Marcus Adams decided Lawrence was “too country” for him and bailed, burning his free transfer in the process, for Gonzaga.

Suddenly a super-deep roster was kind of thin. There were rumors KU might grab an international player who could come in and play this year, but those rumors have faded. There could still be a grad transfer to add, but it looks like KU might roll into the season with just nine eligible players, assuming Clemence sticks with redshirting. Self normally only plays 7–8, but all it takes is a couple tweaked ankles or the flu running through the locker room for the bench to get shallow real quick.

The Jayhawks go to Puerto Rico this week to play a few games, two of which are against the Bahamas national team and could include several NBA players. Just need no one to get hurt…[2]

Pacers

Man, the Pacers had a nice summer. They made smart draft picks to start. Then they signed Bruce Brown. During the NBA Finals I knew someone would overpay him after his great performance, and I was bummed when it was the Pacers.

However, while his contract was reported as two years, it is basically a one-year deal that the Pacers can get out of if he doesn’t perform this year, or re-sign him on better terms for each side next year if he has a good season. A savvy, win-win signing.

Then they traded for Obi Toppin, which seems like an awesome move. He was always forced to play out of position in New York, and seems like a perfect match for Tyrese Haliburton. The duo showed up at a local pro-am league last week and combined for approximately 800 alley-oops. Toppin has vibes of the classic guy who needs a change of scenery to finally capitalize on his potential. I don’t think he’s going to be a superstar, but he fits what the Pacers are trying to do.

They still need to massage the roster a bit, the young guys need to develop, and Haliburton and Myles Turned need to stay healthy. But they could be one of the most fun teams in the league next year, and should battle for a playoff spot.

Royals

Props to the R’s! They won their last three games of July, giving them their first three-game winning streak of the season. No one keeps the Royals from winning three consecutive games for four months!

Colts

The team didn’t even get to training camp before drama popped up. Jonathan Taylor was part of a group of running backs around the league who met virtually to discuss how their position gets screwed by the current collective bargaining agreement. Then he suddenly was placed on the PUP list when camp opened. Two days later he requested a trade. This from the guy who has been the epitome of how you want a player to behave, and kept insisting he wanted to play his entire career in Indy.

I totally get where he, and his fellow RBs are coming from. Only kickers are compensated less under the franchise tags since the NFL has decided that running backs are basically interchangeable and dispensable. But that’s an argument they need to aim at their own union, not at ownership that is following the agreed upon rules.[3] And I also understand Taylor’s specific fears. He was hurt last year and had off-season surgery designed to keep his ankle healthy. The Colts drafted a dual threat QB who is going to be given the keys to the offense soon enough, which will cut down on Taylor’s carries, yards, and touchdowns. If he doesn’t get his money now, he might not get it next off season.

The Colts don’t seem inclined to move him; I wonder if they’ll have the guts not to play him. Regardless of cause and odds of resolution, it’s not a great way to begin the season. Especially when his prime backup broke his arm in practice on Monday.

Oh, and I read this morning that the Colts have dropped hints that Taylor also hurt his back over the summer working out on his own, a claim Taylor angrily denied. We’ve moved beyond ugly and are pushing irreparable.

USWNT/World Cup

Ooof. I was not up at 3:00 AM today to watch the US women’s national team’s final group stage game against Portugal. Pretty glad I did not set an alarm. The outcome could have been worse, but not much. A team that has looked sluggish through their first two games failed to score and had to rely on Portugal hitting the post in stoppage time to advance to the knockout stage.

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski has faced a lot of criticism for how he’s constructed the team and how they played in the run-up to the tournament. I haven’t watched enough nor know enough about high-level soccer tactics to be able to critique his choices. At some point, though, the most talented team in the world, filled with both veterans who own two World Cup titles and some of the brightest young stars in the world, have to take responsibility for their play. Even if Andonovski has made terrible tactical choices, they should be good enough to overcome his errors.

I guess the only good thing about the team’s subpar performance is that so few Americans can watch it because of the time difference.

  1. Strangely convenient how our free access to Peacock thanks to being Xfinity customers expired the day before the race began.  ↩
  2. Jinx. You read it here first.  ↩
  3. Note is, as it may be a first: me siding with ownership over labor.  ↩

Weekend Notes: Living That Buckeye Lifestyle

July 25, 2023 /

Three-fifths of our family spent the weekend in Ohio. You want details? I got details!

Kid Hoops

L and I went to Cincinnati for the final travel tournament of the year. We’ve never done well in these events but were looking forward to one last shot to prove ourselves on the national stage. We had six games, so I’ll keep the breakdowns brief.

We played Friday and Saturday at the event’s main gym, a building in Hamilton, OH that had 30-ish courts. It was big and nice and as the final stop on Under Armour’s summer circuit, there were some elite high school teams and lots of college coaches around. We peaked into the side where most of the high schoolers were and a few courts were packed with coaches watching. More on that in a bit.

Luckily our first game was Friday afternoon so we got up at a normal time, packed, and drove two hours straight to the gym.

Game One, Friday

Lost to a team from New York by 11. We were down 16 at halftime, trailed by as many as 20, but cut it to seven with about 5:00 to play. They pushed it back up to 15 then we went on another run that included two 3’s by L, the second cutting the deficit to six with 1:00 left. We couldn’t get any closer. This team ended up winning our age group, beating a team from Indy that features one of L’s friends in overtime.

Game Two, Friday

We played a team from Cincinnati and, again, fell behind early. This time it was something like 11–3 before we went on a 20–4 run and were never threatened. We led by 15 with about a minute to play but got sloppy and won by just nine.

Game Three, Saturday

To wrap up pool play we took on a squad from Nashville. Hey, once again we started slow, down 9–0 to start. But we battled back and were up by three at the half. We led by five midway through the second half, had two good looks to stretch it further that missed, and then went cold. Thanks to 3–4 free throws after a personal and technical foul, we tied it at 44. But they smoked us from there and we lost by nine.

Game Four, Sunday

Into bracket play. We were feeling good as the other three teams from our division had already won their opening games, all by double figures. After finishing third in our division we took on the #4 team from another division. They were from Canada. They were awkward and not very good. But they were so awkward that they kept getting in the way and our girls could not shake them. It was a 2–5 point game for the first 26 minutes until we finally put some baskets together and won by 15.

Game Five, Sunday

Semifinal time, against a team from Dayton. These girls were absolute bruisers who took us out of everything we wanted to do. We played solid D, too, so it was a brutal slog of a game. We were down four at halftime, went on an 8–0 run to open the second half, then gave it right back and played from behind the rest of the half. It was just a two-point game in the final minute but we never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. We had to foul and ended up losing by five.

I said it was physical. One of our girls took an elbow in the face that drew blood…and she was called for a foul. The next play the same Dayton girl threw her to the ground…and again we got called for a foul. Not these refs’ best day. Also one of them apparently had to drop a deuce at halftime, as the girls stood around waiting for 10 minutes until he slowly walked back to the court. Then apparently he got into it with the other ref, telling him that he “fucking sucks.” They both sucked but I give this guy extra umbrage. He called L for a travel that was not a travel, wiping out her only basket of the game, so it was personal for me.

Game Six, Monday.

Third-place game, against those Cincinnati girls we beat Friday. As a bonus, in addition to our tallest, most athletic girl who we were missing all week, we lost two other girls for this game. One had to leave for a funeral, the other got strep and went home early. That left us with one sub against a team with 10 players.

They pounded us pretty good, and from the jump. The lead got up to 20 once, we cut it to 10 twice in the second half, but generally played terrible and could never match their effort or physicality. The final was 50–35 but it didn’t feel that close.

As for L, she scored 32 points for the weekend. Which sounds decent until you consider she had 15 of those in our first game again the New York team. That might have been her best game of the summer, as she scored 11 during our comeback attempt. She could never get it going in the other games, although she scored six against the Canadians. She was ok on D but was often limited by more physical guards shoving her on offense. Like playing in the varsity games in June showed, as much as working on shooting and ball handling, she needs to get stronger to compete at the high school level. She slept all the way home and was super sore when she got up this morning.

My favorite moments of hers from the weekend? When she hit the 3 to cut the NY game to six she was right in front of us and she screamed when it went in. She played her ass off in this game, and it was cool to see it pay off with good results. In the Nashville game she had an awesome blow-by hoop and earned a foul to give us the lead, although she missed the free throw. And in the Dayton game, she fouled a girl pretty hard, knocking her over. She immediately helped the girl up and checked on her. After the game they hugged. I asked what that was all about and she after the foul they talked the entire game, the girl starting it by saying no one had ever asked if she was ok after a hard foul before.

I’m proud of L for being a good teammate and hard worker, and especially proud when she has really good games. But I love that she usually handles herself really well and does things like that. There are a lot of shitty, immature, insecure players in these games, and it would be easy to follow their lead.

That was a sad way to end our travel season. It was a pretty good year. We won three tournaments and lost two championship games by one point, once in double overtime. This weekend was the only time we didn’t either play for the championship or lose to the eventual champ.

It was also this group’s last time all playing together as one team. In Indiana (and I assume in some other states), once you start high school you can only play travel ball with two teammates from your high school program. Although we have six different schools represented on our squad, we have four players from one school. So, at a minimum, we have to drop one of them before next March. That’s been a subject of whispered conversations all season. There’s no great answer to it. Even if we can keep eight of these girls together, a good player – and more importantly a nice kid/family – is going to be forced out.

There are other changes as we move forward to high school that add uncertainty, but I think the majority of this team – players and parents – would prefer to stay together at least one more year if the rules allowed it.

Tryouts for next year start in August, so we need to begin thinking about if we want to explore other programs as a hedge. The good news for L is that the varsity coach at CHS also coaches in her travel program. So we think L will have clearance to stay there. She doesn’t want to lose this good group of friends she’s made over the past two years, especially her closest friend who is going to a rival high school anyway.

Lodging

Once again we had a hotel fiasco. Despite its size, this was not a Play to Stay tournament, where registering automatically gets you access to blocks of rooms set aside for participants. Our coach also waited until three weeks ago to start looking into rooms. We all booked at a place together but a mom on our team, who is from Cincinnati, suggested we not stay there as it wasn’t in a great part of town. So another mom spent hours on the phone calling around, not finding any good alternatives that could take nine families.

Eventually our coach found an extended stay place in Mason, getting approval from Cincy mom that it was a nice area.

Then we arrived.

Yes, it was a nice area. Until we turned down the street where this place was. It seemed more aimed at folks having rough times than business travelers spending weeks in town. When we checked-in Friday night there were a series of pretty rough looking, but very friendly, people outside smoking weed. The pool looked murky. The inside of the hotel had seen better days. Fortunately the room L and I had was very clean, if reeking of a combination of Indian food and weed. A few of us parents sat by the pool and drank a couple beers while we watching the Friday evening traffic. It was interesting.

Saturday when we got back from our game, there were two fire trucks and an ambulance outside. Turned out they were there for one of the other buildings, and it was a false alarm. The firefighters acted pretty nonchalant, like they had been there many times.

Two of our families were staying at other places, one at a Marriott. We had all tried to stay there initially but it was booked full. A parent called Saturday afternoon and enough people were checking out Sunday that we could slide over there for our last night. Plus the parent already there had a code that got us a greatly reduced rate. Still, we had one more night in the dump.

We ordered pizza for dinner and the dad who took the boxes to the dumpster said he was 90% sure a bunch of dudes were smoking crack behind it. We noticed a lot of very down on their luck looking folks hanging around before the sun went down. Apparently the parking lot turned into a party after we retired for the night.

Whatever, we survived two nights there and happily checked in to the Marriott before our first game Sunday. That new place seemed like one of the hubs for the tournament. We ran into three of L’s friends from CHS, a couple girls we know that she played against in middle school, and another friend from St. P’s. L rode the elevator with an assistant coach from UCLA. And a few parents saw Kim Mulkey in all her bedazzled glory Monday morning.

Other activities

With two early games Saturday we had the afternoon and evening to kill. There was talk of going downtown – we were about 25 minutes outside the city – and going to the Reds game or wandering through the Over the Rhine area. Some people wanted to go to King’s Island. Not everyone wanted to do any of these things so we settled on spending time at Top Golf and Main Event. The girls had fun, the parents had a few drinks, and it worked out fine.

It’s always interesting traveling with a big group. Friday night we went to a restaurant right in the middle of the dinner rush. When we asked if they could seat a group of 18 – divided up however worked easiest for them – the poor girl working the hostess stand seemed overwhelmed. We only had to wait an hour, enough time to run to the hotel and back, and then she realized to ask us if we wanted to sit outside and be seated immediately. Which was fine as it was a gorgeous night. Then she seated us at tables with 15 seats so three of us had to find our own table, which confused the waiters for a moment. At least we got to eat.

M in Toledo

Thursday night M drove up to Toledo to spend the weekend with her future roommate at UC. They’ve met once before and have been talking a lot, but this was their first time spending entire days and nights together. A trial run for the next 9 ½ months. It went great.

M had a fantastic time and really got along with G and her family.[1] There isn’t a ton to do in Toledo, but she met a lot of G’s high school friends and saw her local hangouts. They went to a Mudhens game, sat in the front row, and got a picture with the mascot.[2] They saw the Barbie movie and loved it. All-in-all, they had a great time.

It was also her first extended car trip on her own. That made us a little nervous, especially since there were huge storms between here and Toledo Thursday. But she waited an extra 45 minutes to leave and managed to dodge them. She made it there and back safely.

They will move into their dorm room in 18 days. Oh, and M turns 19 today.

Double audible gulp.

  1. Her name actually starts with an S, but since we already have an S in these posts, I’ll go with her last initial.  ↩
  2. M was amazed that I knew the baseball team was called the Mudhens.  ↩

Weekend Notes

July 17, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A weird weekend for L and her teammates.

We were in Bloomington for this week’s games. While that seems close it also involves navigating a shit-ton of construction and means we’re in the car for nearly three hours each day.

Saturday we opened with an easy win. In fact, I’m not sure we’ll ever have an easier win. At halftime we were ahead 39–0. We added 16 more points before these poor girls finally got their first bucker. That’s a 55–0 run. FIFTY. FIVE. TO. ZERO. Sadly that was the only basket they could muster, and the final was 65–2. Our girls really didn’t try to score too hard in the second half and, thankfully, the clock ran the entire time.

Obviously there was a big talent disparity here. Our girls were also hitting just about everything they threw up – we hit 3’s on four of six possessions at one point in the first half – and were dominating on defense as well. The other team took only six shots for the entire game because they were either turning it over or we were just flat stealing it before they had a chance to shoot.

We learned afterward that two of the girls were sixth graders, and most of the rest were going into 8th grade. I’m honestly not sure they could have competed against six graders. There was some real strangeness in the bracketing this weekend.

I will give those girls this credit: they never got frustrated or angry. They kept trying, as best as they could, and were smiling after the game. Props to their coach and parents for teaching them to stay positive.

After dispensing with them we watched our program’s C team win a tight contest that was physical and a little nasty. We walked over to warm up for our second game, but no one was warming up on the other side. Things were ahead of schedule but as we got closer to tip there still wasn’t anyone on the other bench. The tournament director called his contact for that team and got some long, sob story about how a bunch of girls quit on the coach this week so they couldn’t field a team. Sure would have been nice if they had shared that information ahead of time to either adjust the schedule or just let us leave early.

The tournament director offered to let us play the first team again, the team we beat 65–2, but our coach politely declined.

So we “earned” a 20–0 win by forfeit and headed to downtown Bloomington for an earlier-than=expected dinner.

Sunday we went back down for the semis/finals. Our first opponents had gone 1–1 Saturday, losing to our C team. So we didn’t expect much. But these girls were tough, guarded the hell out of people, and had a big girl who could move her feet and block shots anywhere in the paint. Six minutes into the game we were down 3–0. Not exactly getting blown out but also not looking anywhere near as good as we had a week earlier. We went on a run after calling a time out and led by 14 at half, stretched it close to 20 a couple times, and ended up winning by 12.

On to the title game against our C team, who we beat handily the one time we’ve played them this year. They had a couple different girls this time, though, including one who was on our team last year and one of L’s CHS friends/classmates. Still, we knew they weren’t as good as us if we focused and played hard. Which is what we did. We got an early lead and never let up, winning by 19.

So, good team weekend.

L did not have such a great weekend. Her jump shot was not working at all. She hit nothing outside the lane in our three games. She also missed a couple easy layups. She had a few bad turnovers. In short, she didn’t play nearly as well as she did in St. Louis. She had six points and three assists in the blowout Saturday, but only two points in each game Sunday. She did not want to be in the team picture after, and made sure she was as far from the championship plaque as possible. She pouted most of the way home. I let her stew in the backseat with her headphones on while I listened to my own music. As always, I respect the bitterness.

Next weekend is our final week as a travel team. We go to Cincinnati for a four-day event. I’m guessing the competition will be a little tougher. We know our first three games are against teams from New York, Nashville, and Cincinnati.

Weather

As we drove back to Indy I noticed it was hard to see buildings downtown. Yes, that good, ol’ Canadian wildfire smoke we have been missing returned!

And there was the added bonus of a line of heavy storms blowing in. We drove through two squalls once we got within 15 minutes of home. Then, just as we pulled onto our street, the skies really let loose.

For the next two hours it absolutely dumped. I don’t have a rain gauge but the weather stations in our area I can pull up all had between 2–3” of rain for the night. When I put our pool cover pump out once the storms had passed, it sunk completely below the water level and was still completely submerged after it had been running for an hour.

During the storm, it would pour for 10 minutes, then stop for five. Then the winds would kick back up and rain would start blasting again, occasionally with small hail. This pattern repeated for two hours. We had three different severe thunderstorm warnings in this stretch. At one point the winds got up around 60 MPH. We ran outside to move some of our patio cushions and the rain was literally blowing sideways, soaking us even though we were well back under the patio roof.

Our power flickered off-and-on at least five times during the first 20 minutes of the storm before it went off for good at 6:45. It stayed off until nearly 10:00. We are just getting our fridge fully stocked again after our extended power outage two weeks back. I was not enthused about starting all over again again. I think we dodged the bullet there.

Weekend Notes

July 11, 2023 /

It was an extra-long weekend featuring many hours in the car.

Hoops in the Lou

L and I drove west to St. Louis for her first out-of-town tournament of the year.

The hoops were good. We went 3–1, winning the championship game by nine thanks to a 9–2 run in the final minute to put away a game we were trying to lose. We led by nine with 8:00 left, five with 5:00 left, but by just two as the clock ticked under a minute. Against a team we had blown a 15-point lead against on Saturday. Tense, but the girls got it done.

That team was a local St. Louis squad. The parents were a little rough. One dad just yelled the entire game Saturday. Mostly kind of positive things at his team with the occasional barb at the refs. But he just never stopped. And as we blew our lead, he was one of those dads who decides he needs to walk onto the court to celebrate when his team makes a big play. He was harmless as he never directed anything at us or our girls. But since he never stopped and thought he had all the answers, he was mega annoying.

We thought it was hilarious that between games he and the other parents from their team were in the parking lot sharing a joint. At like 2:00 PM on a Saturday. I checked and I don’t think this kind of use is protected under the new Missouri marijuana law, but I’m no attorney. I’m not sure if that chilled him out a little for their second game, as I was keeping score rather than in the seats and couldn’t hear him.

Sadly he was missing for Sunday’s championship game. He may have partied a little too hard Saturday night.

L had a good weekend. She scored 23 points across the four games, had 9 total rebounds, 9 assists, and had four steals alone in our Sunday morning game. Our second game Saturday was tight but she helped blow it open with a 3-pointer on one possession, then a bucket, foul, and free throw on the next. That helped push a two-point lead to 12 before we gave up three buckets in the last 30 seconds to only win by seven.

We were in St. Louis because our coach’s wife is from there, and her family was celebrating their mom’s 80th birthday over the weekend. So rather than go to the big GUAA tournament in Louisville, we went to a smaller, local tournament so he and his daughter could be with us. Good thing, since she scored six of our nine points in the last minute of the championship game.

Friday night we hung out at his wife’s sister’s house. I took some good-natured ribbing from a house full of Mizzou fans. I offered to show them the national champions sticker on my car and they politely declined. I spent a good chunk of the evening talking to the brother that played basketball at Central Missouri in the late ‘90s, mostly about the St. Louis high school scene he grew up in.

The big bummer of the weekend was our hotel. In a word, it was a dump. It was one of those places that might have been nice 20 years ago, but probably hasn’t had any renovations or deep cleanings since then. The rooms were all full of stains and disrepair. Some of the rooms – including ours – were only half-cleaned. The room across from us had two dogs in it, plus the humans with them seemed to be smoking a lot of weed. There was a room down the hall that definitely had birds in it. Several families couldn’t get their door keys to work properly. The overall vibe made you not want to touch anything.

The final straw came Saturday morning. We heard the shower in the room above us running and soon heard dripping in ours. The water damage to the ceiling I noticed when we checked in was a result of the tub on the second floor leaking directly into ours. I was off to the front desk to get a new room. Fortunately our second one had been cleaned and was away from the weed-smoking dog lovers.

We realized later that a big, municipal dump was right across the street, thus the terrible trash odor when we tried to sit outside.

A dump by a literal dump.

Hopefully we didn’t bring home bed bugs or anything, but at this point nothing would surprise me.

Also, on our trip home, the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on a highway happened. I’m honestly not sure how to describe it. Basically, it looked like a small cat fell out of the car in front of us as we were traveling at roughly 85 MPH. Like it dropped out of a wheel well or some other space underneath the car, not like it jumped or was tossed out the window. It was skidding and trying to get its footing as I went over it, definitely alive and not a stuffed animal. It was right in the middle of the lane so I sailed past comfortably but I’m assuming it met a horrible fate not too far behind me.

Thing is, I was traveling behind this car for awhile; for 10 minutes at least. Who knows when they had last stopped. Had this poor thing been hanging on for dear life for 30 minutes? An hour? Longer? Or did it come from a car further up? No one in front of me braked or swerved so I honestly can’t be sure where it came from.

Or maybe it was just all that passive weed smoke I breathed in at our hotel that had me seeing things.

There’s an obvious National Lampoon’s Vacation reference here but it feels wrong directly quoting it.

A mostly good, if weird, weekend in the Lou. We’re back-and-forth to Bloomington next weekend.

UC Orientation

Monday morning we were in the car bright and early to make the quick trip down to Cincinnati for M’s UC orientation. For the first time S rode along so she could finally take a look at campus. She approved.

That was pretty much the highlight of the day. Since M had already attended admitted students day and gone through virtual orientation plus done her advising appointment and made her schedule online, there wasn’t a ton of new information for her. They didn’t have the dorms open for tours, which was a bummer, as S really wanted a look to help focus our shopping.

M is supposed to move in the weekend of August 12. She will find out in a couple weeks what her official move-in date/time is. Because UC is such a tight campus you have to request a window for your arrival. Things should be a little easier for her as she’s going down a week before official move-in day for rush, but we still won’t know our time until the whole process does its thing. She’s hoping for August 12, as there are rush events the evening of the 13th. There is a chance, though, we could be moving her in during the day on the 13th.

Weekend Notes

July 5, 2023 /

A lot to get caught up on after a long holiday weekend.

July 4th

Our standard family pool party for the Fourth of July. Almost all the locals were over for a daytime gathering. I smoked rather than grilled burgers for the first time and they turned out pretty good. All the young ones were well behaved, and it seems like both generations of sisters got along for the day, too.

We had neighbors over for drinks in the evening after the family had cleared out. No driveway fireworks this year.

Kid Hoops

Thursday was the last night of summer league games. CHS played a team they lost to by six earlier in June, and both coaches agreed to stack their rosters so that it was a true A game. Which got L excited.

She played pretty well in an eight-point loss. She hit a shot right before halftime to give us a 20–19 lead. But we were on the wrong side of a 9–2 run to start the third quarter that was pretty much the game. L was not on the court for any of that run. When she played, it was an even ballgame. When she sat, our offense bogged down and the defense was disconnected.

She scored six for the night on 3–4 shooting, and had a rebound, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

She wasn’t super pleased with her play afterward, but I told her about my rough +/- numbers and how I saw her affect the game. There are definitely girls better than her on the team. There are girls with more potential or who are better than her in individual aspects of the game. But of the girls in the 20-ish player pool the JV teams pulled from this summer, no one organizes the game better than her.

Her first summer of high school hoops was a success. She fit in, she got more confident as the season progressed, was high scorer in at least two games, earned the coaches’ trust, and most importantly, she made some new, good friends. I’m excited to see how she improves once fall practice kicks off.

Not much rest for her. The travel team goes to St. Louis Friday for a tournament.

Over the weekend we went to the Y to shoot three times. She came up with a new workout that required her to make 300 shots. Mid-range, floaters, and 3’s. Off-the-catch and off-the-dribble. Lots of free throws. It took roughly an hour to get through it each day. I worked up a good sweat rebounding and passing.

Weather/Power

What a weird weather week.

We began with a terrible bout with the Canadian wild fire smoke. A couple times we had the worst air quality of any city in the US. Wednesday morning we were up to #2 in the world. Never say that Indianapolis can’t compete on the world stage!

It was much worse than our first run with the smoke a month ago. Two days the sky resembled the winter sky right before a big snow storm. Those days we couldn’t even see the sun, let alone take eerie pictures of its light refracted by the smoke. There was also a strange, metallic smell to the air.

Then Thursday a Derecho storm blew through with winds over 70 MPH. Our power went off at 3:57 and did not come back on until 3:00 Saturday afternoon. We filled up coolers with ice and transported our important items from the freezer to a relative’s home, but lost pretty much everything else from our fridges and freezers. S said it was time to replace a lot of our condiments anyway. Our house got pretty toasty each afternoon, but at least our basement remained cool. It was completely comfortable sleeping down there.

At one point nearly 80,000 people in Indianapolis were without power. I was obsessively checking the outage map and watched it slowly tick down a few thousand at a time, only for it to shoot back up after more, if less intense, storms came through both Friday night and Saturday morning.

When our power came back on there were still around 20,000 people in the city without power. I think most of them were back up and running by Sunday evening.

We had zero damage at our house. The neighbors to either side of us kept their power. It was just a thin row of 7–8 houses behind us that all come off the same line that got knocked out. Obviously the big downside of living in an area with tons of old trees and old power lines.

The big surprise was that our pool survived without turning bad. I was worried that sitting in the heat, covered, with zero circulation or filtration would be a recipe for stuff to grow quickly. It has turned cloudy in less time before. But Saturday night it was clear and tested out fine. I shocked it and ran the pump a little higher than normal and it was fine to swim in on Sunday.

In a related note, our refrigerators are very clean and organized.

Taylor Swift

I mentioned in Friday’s playlist that M was off to Cincy to watch Taylor Swift perform. She said the show was awesome.

M just got her tickets a week before the show. She received a text saying that some new tickets had been released. She was worried it was a scam, but noticed the message came from the same number her other Ticketmaster texts came from, so she decided to quickly buy two tickets and hope they were legit. She messaged some friends and they asked if she could try to get two more. The link indeed worked again so she bought four total tickets at face value 10 days before the show. She checked the secondary market and seats in her section were going for more than $2000. Pretty crazy. She was in the lower level in the Bengals stadium, with a great view of the main stage.

The grandparents of one of the friends that went with her live in Cincy, so the girls stayed at their house. The grandfather also met them near the stadium so M could park in a good spot hours before the show, took them to his house to drop their stuff, then back to the stadium. She’s living right these days.

Just a nice bonus this trip allowed her to miss out on about 24 hours of our power outage.

Football Recruiting

I will not address KU football recruiting until December.

Home States

Finally, not only did I just pass my 20th wedding anniversary and my 20th blogging anniversary, but also marked my 20th year living in Indiana. A few years ago I went through the exercise of figuring out how long I spent in each of the four states I lived in.

That was harder than you would think because of the college years, splitting time between two states. I decided to give Kansas ¾ credit for my first three years at KU, then full credit for the last couple after I gained residency and stayed there most of the summers. I’m not sure if that works out exactly right, but it seemed close and fair.

Anyway, my 20th year in Indiana means I’ve officially lived here longer than any other state. That still doesn’t sound right. My current tally looks like this:

Indiana 20 years
Missouri 19 years
Kansas 12 years
California 1 year

2003 NBA Draft Diary Revisited

June 28, 2023 /

As promised, a look back at the very first post I ever published to this site. Perhaps you’ve already gone back and re-read it. I thought it would be fun for me to annotate it with some thoughts.

I have edited out sections of the original that did not inspire me to add something new.

With apologies to the Sports Guy…

Ah, back when I read and loved everything Bill Simmons wrote.

We are coming to you live from the palatial basement of DDB in beautiful Carmel, IN. I have a bowl of Margarita’s salsa with a bag of Tostitos Hint of Lime chips in front of me, and an ice cold Boulevard Pale Ale to my right. We’re ready to watch the lottery picks of the 2003 NBA Draft. Why just the lottery picks? Well, I realized too late that I didn’t have much around for dinner so I only think I can go about 12–13 picks before the real hunger kicks in.

You may (or may not) recall that the first name for this site was DDBinIndy. Very clever.

Our house was at least 50% made up of food and beverages brought from Kansas City a week earlier. I know we did not have real furniture yet, so I was watching on the futon brought from my KC apartment. This was probably the first big event I watched on the fat, rear-projection 62” TV that came with our house. That thing seemed so cool at the time when it was actually kind of garbage. I bet it cost the previous owners a couple grand. When we replaced it eight or nine years later, it was with a LCD screen that cost maybe $500 that I could carry out of Costco with one hand.

One of the more interesting drafts in recent memory. The top three picks are all but locked in, and have been for several weeks. The foreign invasion looks to be as strong as ever. And, most importantly to America’s sports fans, two Kansas Jayhawks are possible lottery picks. So let’s get started.
Have I mentioned how I think ESPN taking over the NBA is going to kill the league? Seriously, Mike Tirico as the lead announcer? This guy is about as charismatic as a bowling ball. He makes Bryant Gumbel look like Soul Brother #1. There’s a reason why he does so much golf.

I still strongly dislike Tirico, but he’s hung around to become NBC’s #1 announcer/host for pretty much everything. Apparently my finger was not on the pulse of what America prefers here. The Soul Brother #1 line was solid.

Stuart Scott is the devil. Wait, if he was the devil, he wouldn’t have to suck up to people in a manner that makes Ahmad Rashad look reserved. He’s just a horrible broadcaster with a tired act.

Harsh. I got tired of Scott’s shtick pretty early in his ESPN career. But apparently he was a really good guy, everyone who knew him loved him, and since he lost a battle with cancer a few years back I feel kind of bad about this one.

And I think we can all agree the Indiana Pacers only signed Tim Hardaway to get him out of the studio. I haven’t even mentioned Bill Walton yet. Tom Tolbert is good, but I think his sarcasm gets lost in the format. Greg Anthony was the surprise of the year with his insightful commentary, but he’s too close to his playing days to be critical of people. I know they need time to prove themselves, iron out the kinks, etc, but I don’t think Marv, the Czar, Ernie, Kenny the Jet, and Chuck over at TNT lose sleep about the ESPN crew gaining on them.

The final line of that section might be the most incisive of this piece. There were several articles this season about how, no matter how many different formats and personalities they try, ESPN can never seem to catch the magic and quality of TNT’s studio show, which still features Ernie, Kenny, and Chuck with the addition of Shaq.

“With the first pick, the Cleveland Cavaliers select LeBron James.” Have there been less surprising words ever spoken?

There have been a few no-brainer #1 picks in the interim, but kind of funny it took until last week for the next “We’ve known who the #1 pick will be for over a year” selection. Also, not sure why I didn’t write more about Victor Wembanyama in my post about this year’s draft.

Is LeBron the next Jordan? That I can not say. I saw some footage this week of him playing two years ago, when he was quite a bit shorter and less athletic. He was scoring at will on people without exploding to the rim. Good, solid fundamental basketball. That base is why I think he’s going to succeed. Hopefully he can keep his head on straight.

Twenty years later and LeBron sure seems to have kept his head on pretty straight. I have rarely loved him, but I’ve always admired and appreciated him. We should be so lucky that the next super-duper alpha star handles themself as well as LBJ has, aside from the occasional whining. Or manufactured drama about his team’s roster. No one is perfect.

At number two, the Detroit Pistons select Darko Milicic. I’ve been trying to tell you for years that Larry Brown is a genius and the best basketball coach on any level. He just spent seven years putting up with Allen Iverson, got to the Finals once, and had a really good run there. As his tinkering starts to grow tiresome and Iverson gets ready to jump the shark, why not take a job with a team that was in the conference finals and has the #2 pick in the draft? Seems like a good move to me, but no one else would have had the imagination, creativity, and passion to make the move. Only Larry.

Darko went down as one of the greatest NBA busts ever, in one of the greatest drafts ever. So maybe this pick wasn’t so inspired. Yet LB did win an NBA title the following season despite Darko being a wasted pick. Well, not totally wasted if you were into early Blog Era sarcastic sports content.

Can we get some non-grainy video for these Euros some year? Are they still using Beta cam over there or what?

This made me laugh. Kids, Betacam was…

With our final lock pick, Denver goes with Carmelo Anthony. Dude exudes cool, calm, and style. I have some questions about his ability to dominate in the NBA right away, but I keep thinking George Gervin when I look at him.

‘Melo did just fine. Hell, he just retired! That George Gervin comp was pretty close.
Melo’s career line: 22.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 2.7 apg, eFG% of 48.5, Player Efficiency Rating of 19.5 and 108.5 Win Shares.
Gervin’s: 25.1, 5.3, 2.6, eFG% 50.7, PER 21.4, 116.3 Win Shares.

Sadly they do not appear on each other’s Basketball Reference Similarity Scores section. Probably because of differing eras and Carmelo taking more outside shots.

4 – Toronto – Chris Bosh. You know, it’s one thing for a Shaq or Kenny Anderson who completely dominated as freshmen to declare for the draft early. But when kids I never heard of, who had nice, but not incredible seasons do it, I think there are big problems with the draft entry process. I think I heard Chris Bosh’s name twice all season. And now he’s the #4 pick in the draft.

I clearly missed here, although I will always say Chris Bosh was overrated and wouldn’t have been nearly as good had be not played with LeBron and D-Wade. Then I looked at his stats and he was very, very good, borderline great, for a five year stretch in the middle of his career.

And, yes, I knew Shaq played two years at LSU. I was just making the comparison between a guy who lit the world up as a freshman and one who was semi-anonymous.

5 – Miami – Dwyane Wade. My first “Whoa!” of the night. Miami has 73 swingman-type players, and they draft another one? I know Eddie Jones is on the downside of his career, but he’s got 157 years left on his contract, making him untradeable. Caron Butler didn’t quite become the next Paul Pierce, but he had a nice rookie year. Wade is a really good player, and I think I have more faith in his NBA potential than my Marquette friends. But if he’s bringing the ball up for the Heat on a regular basis, Riley has truly lost it.

Note that I was higher on Wade than my Marquette buddies!

I think I had Eddie Jones on my squad one of the years I played fantasy basketball, so I always loved his subtle, stat-filling game.

The NYC fans booing Pat Riley still, almost ten years later, was great too.

That shit has never ended, nor should it. New Yorkers will boo Pat Riley’s funeral. I love it.

6 – LA Clippers – Chris Kaman. He’s big, he’s white, and he can shoot with both hands. He’s drafted by the Clippers. Let’s go ahead and give him the early lead for Most Likely to Bust.

Looking back, I should have wondered if Darko was Serbian for Chris.

7 – Chicago – Kirk Hinrich. Best pick of the draft!!!! When even the commish is surprised, you know something interesting has happened. I’ve been saying for months Hinrich is the better NBA prospect than Collison. Whether he’s Stockton, Hornacek, or Kerr remains to be seen. But I think, baring injury, he’ll have a long, solid career.

Decent take. Kirk played for 11 seasons, averaging nearly 11 ppg and dishing just under 5 assists per game.

9 – New York – Mike Sweetney. Great moment, the Knicks select a Georgetown player and everyone in the Garden goes nuts. Crazy insane times. You know there were guys calling their cousins Sal, Vinnie, and Rocco to discuss getting season tickets so they could pick up playoff tickets in April. Somewhere, Joey Tribiani was yelling “KNICKS RULE!!!” off a fire escape. Can’t wait to see how an undersized forward with a history of weight problems does in the Big Apple.

Sometimes I was funny on this site.

10 – Washington – Jarvis Hayes. Clearly, the Wizards weren’t interested in getting Christian Laettner and Nick Collison on the same team. Some draft preview had Nick going here and mentioned they could have the two best white players to sit the end of a Dream Team bench together. Nice.

Christian Laettner was still playing in 2003???

11 – Golden State – Mickael Pietrus. The pick was greeted by absolute silence. Is it better for the New York fans to boo your pick as a horrible reach, or greet it with ignorant silence? And this is team #4 that took a pick that has no clear path towards playing time. “I don’t know what they hell you’re doing,” Tom Tolbert. Line of the night regarding Clippers North.

“Clippers North.” NBA Finals appearances/championships since 2003: Golden State 6/4, LA Clippers 0/0. In my defense the Warriors continued to suck until they drafted Steph Curry.

12 – Seattle – Nick Collison. Genius pick. Pure brilliance. Rewarding hard work, commitment, and success in college. Granted, I think Nick’s going to have to work hard and hope he can reach Ed Nealy levels of success, but still, you have to admire the Seattle GM’s foresight. He’s 6’10’’ but doesn’t jump well. He relied on exceptional position and moves to score in college. That will only get you so far in the NBA when you have a three-inch vertical.

Man was I rough on one of my all-time favorite college players. He only hung around for 14 years. He was never more than a role player physically, but became a rock in the Thunder locker room, mentoring guys like Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden as they transitioned into a winning franchise. They even retired his number!

Also, it was a travesty how David Stern and the rest of NBA ownership let Oklahoma City steal the franchise away from Seattle.

Other comments:
Did they keep Vitale in his Florida office in an attempt for him to not talk over others? Or do they know he has no clue about what it takes to be a player in the NBA and this way they can minimize the damage he does to his reputation by cutting off his ridiculous comments?

Maybe this was the genesis of the Hot Take Culture that dominates ESPN today: Dick Vitale coming onto the NBA draft show and saying ridiculous things that annoyed people.

So who wins the Paul Pierce – Jermaine O’Neal match-up anyway? Looks like Jermaine just keeps taking Paul to the hole, but the Truth continues to light it up from outside.

I forgot about this commercial. PP was my favorite NBA player of that era. JO become my favorite Pacer of that era. Good stuff.

And with that, I retired for dinner.

Big miss here not sharing what I ate. Decent odds that I went to Qdoba and got some fat burrito with queso added on. One of my favorite activities that summer was going to the gym on nights that S had to work, then stopping at Qdoba across the street on the way home. I wasn’t exactly trying to lose weight at the time, but I think I cancelled out any calories burned when I followed up a workout with Mexican food.

NBA Draft Notes

June 26, 2023 /

L had a game early Thursday evening and then wanted to stay and watch her teammates play in the second game, so I didn’t make it home until the late teens of the NBA Draft. Thus no extensive breakdown this year.

Gradey Dick was, apparently, the star of the show for his outrageous suit. I got a few texts about him from non-KU people. I heard a lot of commentators destroying him for his fit. Many of them are people who do deep dives on players for their personal prospect rankings. I’m not sure why his outfit surprised anyone. Surely they’ve seen the Tik Toks Gradey has been posting for years. I would have been surprised if he didn’t wear something garish and attention grabbing.

I was hoping he would go to Orlando at 11, but Toronto at 13 isn’t a bad spot. It’s a strong organization that has nurtured young players. They need shooting. Seems like a good spot.

I thought it was funny how a guy like him, with a known skill that is coveted in the NBA of now, became a semi-boring pick since he doesn’t appear to have some huge, untapped potential. He’s probably going to be a very good shooter no matter what his role is. He has the ability to be one of the best shooters in the league if all goes perfectly. He’ll get stronger and smarter, which should make him a passable defender. He is great without the ball on offense. Maybe that doesn’t scream All Star, but does check so many boxes of what organizations want from their complementary players.

The Pacers entered the draft as one of the most intriguing organizations because of the five picks they possessed. A couple trades whittled that down to four selections, but gave them lots of options.

I was following from the summer league stands and was shocked when I saw Bilal Coulibaly’s name come up as their first pick at #7. I flipped to Twitter and saw that they were trading him to Washington for Jarace Walker, who the Wizards took with the next pick. I guess the Pacers got two future second round picks for doing the swap. The NBA Draft is so weird sometimes.

I loved the Walker pick. He slots in nicely next to Myles Turner on the defensive end. He is a great piece to complement Tyrese Haliburton on the offensive end. He can even do a little playmaking from either the wing or the high post. If he can develop a jump shot and/or get better at attacking with the ball, he might become a home run pick. Even if he can’t do those things – and he’s only 19 so he has plenty of time – he seems like an upgrade at the big wing slot.

I wasn’t as big of a fan of the Pacers’ other picks.

They took Ben Sheppard at 26. Sheppard is supposed to be a great shooter and decent athlete. In the film I saw, his body needs a lot of work. He reminded me of those late ‘80s role players who weren’t super strong or athletic. I have low expectations.

In the second round they took two athletic guards, neither of whom project as great shooters or have a ton of size. Mojeve King is a 21-year-old product of the G-League. Isaiah Wong was a terrific college player but needs to make great improvement to his game to have a chance to be an NBA player.

There was a lot of whining here about the Pacers not drafting Indy native and IU alum Trayce Jackson-Davis, who went at 57 to Golden State. The Pacers needed size, he’s athletic, and made major improvements to his game last year that made him much more NBA-ready.

The Pacers’ GM Chad Buchanan went on local radio Friday and basically said that TJD’s agents told him he didn’t want to play for the Pacers. He offered that comment in context of the other players who TJD would be competing with. I guess he saw the combination of Walker and returnees Jalen Smith and Isaiah Jackson as too much to fight against if he wanted serious playing time this year?

I thought it was a little funny that, during the draft, TJD Tweeted out something along the lines of the teams that passed on him will regret it. Which is fine. But maybe don’t tell some organizations you don’t want to play for them, then get upset when you drop.

Buchanan also said the Pacers tried hard to trade up for every spot from 10 to 20 to get Cam Whitmore, who had the big fall of the night, but couldn’t find any takers.

I believe that, ideally, the Pacers would have used their draft picks to get an established veteran back in a trade. There were concerns about adding so many rookies to a roster that is already young. I guess they couldn’t find a trade partner that suited their needs.

Overall, I’ll give them a solid B for their draft. Not great, but not terrible either, and if one or two of those guards hit it could become a very nice draft class.

Jalen Wilson went to Brooklyn at 51. He’ll be playing for a fellow Jayhawk in Jacque Vaughn, a coach who has always looked to develop his young guys. Word was Jalen did not shoot well in his NBA workout process. While people admire his rebounding and will, there are real concerns about his game given his lack of athleticism if he can’t develop a shot. He’s been working on that for two years. Seems like he has one more summer to make it happen if he wants to play in the NBA as opposed to heading overseas.

Weekend Notes

June 26, 2023 /

Quite a few things to discuss this week, so I’m going to split this into two posts. The personal stuff first, the NBA Draft stuff later on today.

Weather

We dodged a big ol’ bullet Sunday when storms roared through our area. There was a tornado on the ground about 10 minutes north of us. Several on the ground on the south side of Indy did significant damage. There was fairly large hail within two miles of our house.

But we just got a couple brief downpours and gusty winds.

In fact, we had worse problems a few nights earlier when the wind kicked up and briefly knocked our power out. I’m talking like a quick blink. However, a few minutes later I noticed a fire truck was sitting in the street in front of our house and the firefighters were walking through our neighbors’ yard.

We later learned the gusts had pulled down a power line in their yard which had caused a small fire. They were not home, but fortunately the fire was just in their yard and well away from their house.

Also fortunate that it wasn’t an integral power line for any of us and no one had to sit in the dark until the power company arrived to fix the line at 3:00 AM.

A Night of Music

S and I joined some friends to watch Ben Folds play at the Rock the Ruins concert series at Holliday Park, which is about 10 minutes from our house.

It had been a hot afternoon, but once the sun disappeared behind the park’s thick tree canopy it became a lovely evening.

I’m not a huge Ben Folds fan, but did very much enjoy the show. He only played a couple songs that I knew, somehow not playing “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” which would have been perfect for the setting.

A key part of Holliday Park are some “ruins” that were transported from a building in New York to Indy in the 1950s. Folds mentioned that it was an honor to play in this ancient, historic site. “One that they rocked so hard 2000 years ago that they blew the motherfucker up.”

The Bear

I spent a good chunk of the weekend racing through season two of The Bear. I loved the first season. I liked this one even more.

SPOILER ALERT

Everything that made season one great was still there. I can sum all of that up with one word: porn.

The show is food porn, obviously. It is acting porn. It is music porn.[1] It is cinema/photography porn. It is writing porn. Just about every aspect of the show is pornographic it is so good.

What made this season slightly better than the first was how the little moments where the supporting characters were allowed to shine in those first eight episodes were all expanded here, often to episode-long explorations. Marcus going to Copenhagen. Sydney’s food tour of Chicago. Richie’s week learning how the best restaurant in the world operates. Tina’s trip to culinary school.

I think what was brilliant about these episodes/scenes was their restraint. Any actor can go big: see Jamie Lee Curtis’ turn as Donna Berzatto in episode six. In each of those other performances, though, the actor we are focused on had to go small and subtle. We learned so much about them through small gestures and looks and actions. I don’t know who deserves more credit, the writers or actors, but major props all around for making such good television.

My favorite scene of the year? Near the end of episode nine, “Omelette,” as the new restaurant is minutes away from opening their doors for Friends and Family night, Carmen and Syd crawl under a table to make sure it is level. Their conversation was so honest and open and intimate despite being just about work.

One of the big storylines of the season was Carmy trying to balance beginning a romantic relationship with the super cute Claire and opening a restaurant under a ton of pressure.[2] When I heard he and Syd connecting under that table, though, I knew that Claire wasn’t going to work out. Not because he and Syd have a romantic attraction for each other, but because she is the only woman, maybe person, who he can truly be open and connect with. If you are more honest with your co-worker than your girlfriend, girlfriend ain’t gonna last.

So of course Carmy fucks it up.

There were also like half a dozen other conversations like the one between Carmy and Syd that were amazing and affecting and make this show so good.

I also loved how everyone but Carmy figured their shit out over the course of the season while he became more of a mess. By the end of the year, The Bear (the restaurant) was a lean, mean fighting machine of competent, confident staff that saved F&F night when it was on the verge of becoming a disaster. And did so largely without Carmy, who was locked in the walk-in , pounding on its doors and screaming.

Richie especially was a revelation. He went from literally having no idea where he fit into the new restaurant concept and how that would affect the rest of his life, to being a total food and hospitality badass in a suit.

I feel obligated to throw out a few words about episode six, “Fishes.” The obvious comparison is to last season’s episode seven, “Review.” They are both over-the-top, breakneck episodes designed to overwhelm and challenge. If you want to love the show, you have to keep up. “Fishes” is like your worst family holiday nightmare cranked up to the maximum boss level. It is probably too much. Especially with how it ends. It was shocking and draining and thoroughly depressing. Much of what happens in that episode does end up being vital for how the rest of the season plays out, but I think it came very close to distracting from how strong and consistent the other nine episodes were.

Despite that slight hiccup, there is just so much goodness in this show. It’s the best thing I’ve watched this year and I give it my highest recommendation.

Kid Hoops

Two weeks of JV updates for L.

The past two weeks they’ve split the JV pool into two teams that each played one game in the Thursday league.

A week ago L’s group played sectional rival North Central, the school we live down the block from. She scored a game-high 10 points in a nine-point win. Everything was at/near the rim as she went 5–8 on 2’s and 0–3 on 3’s. Her best move of the night ended up a waste. She ran out on a break, caught a pass over the top of the defense, took two dribbles, then stopped and faked, sending her defender by her in the air. The CHS bench all let out howls and screams. And then she blew the layup. Oh well…

This past Thursday they played Lawrence Central, another school that falls into CHS’ sectional. L had five points in a seven-point win. This time she was shooting from outside, going 1–4 on 3’s and hitting another long two. LC was playing a zone and a couple times she was wide open but chose to pass.

When she subbed out after turning down her most open look of the night, her coach told her, gently, that she needs to shoot more. “You have a nice shot. Be ready and take them when you’re open.” That’s exactly what I’ve been saying…

I should probably mention who coached her team that night. It was the CHS freshman coach. He just happens to be a 1982 McDonald’s All American at Cathedral and a first-round pick in the 1986 draft.

I had not met him before – he is a VP for Community Relations and Diversity at CHS – but did introduce myself since I was keeping the book. Super nice guy. If you do some digging you can find stories about his life and what he does outside of coaching and his work for CHS.

I also met the dad of another freshman. He told me he liked my KU shirt a couple weeks ago in passing. We talked this week and he told me he has both graduate and law degrees from KU, although he arrived in Lawrence about the time I left. We bored our daughters with about 10 minutes of KU hoops talk before we broke it off.

College Prep

We have begun ordering things for M to take to college in less than two months.[3] Saturday the Amazon man dropped off like five boxes for her. Sunday three different Amazon folks came to our house with stuff. Two things are coming tomorrow. Two other things are backordered and will be here in the next couple weeks. And we’ve only just started.

I swear I didn’t take half as much shit when I moved into McCollum Hall in August 1989. Pretty sure I just took some clothes, toiletries, my boombox, and a bunch of cassette tapes.

Ok, that might be an exaggeration but I know we easily fit everything into the trunk of my stepdad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. We’re thinking about renting a van for the day we drive M to Cincinnati.

  1. THREE Neil Finn songs!?!?! As if the music choices weren’t good enough already…  ↩
  2. For the record, I’m very much in favor of dudes dating short, cute, dark-haired medical residents. Although Molly Gordon is 5’5” so perhaps I shouldn’t call her short.  ↩
  3. Yikes!  ↩

Weekend Notes

June 5, 2023 /

We’ve hit a cycle of boom-bust weekends that should extend at least a couple more weeks.

This was one of the bust weekends. At least for four of us.

M had parties all weekend, I believe she had 12 she could have attended from Friday through Sunday. We met her at one of her buddy’s on Sunday and she looked totally wiped out. So naturally we – meaning S and I and other parents who have known M for years – made fun of her for being so tired from just having fun. We suggested she either go home and go to bed, or have a Diet Coke, eat something, and stop moping around.

She did not take this advice well. So we just laughed at her and enjoyed talking to the people who wanted to have fun.

Poor girl has one more week of parties to get through. Hopefully she survives.

S and I are only hitting up the families we know well and/or have spent a lot of time with over the years. We hit one each day. The Saturday party was fun because it was for a middle school classmate who went to a different high school. So we got to see some parents we haven’t seen in four years, other than on Facebook.

Sunday evening I took C and L to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse. All the thumbs up. I believe I’ve said this every time I’ve watched a Spider-Man movie since the latest iterations started, but I’m not a big Marvel/DC/superhero movie guy at all. There’s something about the Spidey movies that always works for me, though. And the Miles Morales universe ones are especially excellent. They are some of the most stunning visual entertainment I’ve ever seen. And the stories aren’t bad, either. I also love how these movies don’t take themselves too seriously. There are lots of jokes that poke fun at comic-based stories or the idea of a multiverse.

SPOILER ALERT

I hadn’t read anything about the new movie before we saw it, or watched the first Miles Morales movie again to refresh my memory. All I knew was that it was getting great reviews. So I was floored when the final scene closed and the screen displayed “To Be Continued…” I mean, I figured this wouldn’t be the last Miles Morales movie. But I had no clue this one was going to end in a proper cliffhanger. I was looking at my watch the last ten minutes thinking, “How the hell are they going to wrap this up?” I guess they will wrap things up in the next movie!

END SPOILER ALERT

NBA

I haven’t written a thing about the NBA playoffs. Last fall I flooded my podcast app with a bunch of NBA pods and generally listen to one or two each day, depending on my schedule. However, once Tyrese Haliburton got hurt and the Big 12 picked up its conference pace in January, I didn’t watch a ton of pro ball until the playoffs started.

This has been an entertaining playoff season. The Nuggets are so fun to watch, with such good balance and one of the low-key most entertaining players of all time in Nikola Jokic. And the Heat are just so damn relentless that they force you to admire their play, especially Jimmy Butler with his uncanny ability to morph into one of the five best players in the world once the playoffs begin.

I haven’t watched all of every playoff game, but most nights I turn the TV on around 9:00 and pick up whatever game is on. Back when there were still multiple series going on, I would also watch the first half of the late game before heading to bed.

If all this sticks to me through the summer, I may have to write more consistently about the NBA next year. Especially if the Pacers make a good draft pick/trade and take another leap in the ’23–24 season.

Summer School

L started summer school today. She’s taking two classes – PE and health – as that clears her to take strength training in the fall. So she basically has a regular school day. I dropped her off at 8:00 this morning and will pick her up at 3:30. On Tuesdays she will have basketball workouts for two hours after school, on Wednesdays for two hours before school. They will likely play games on Thursday nights.

Kid is going to be tired for the next month.

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