A quick note to share that L had her surgery this morning. Everything seemed to go well, no surprises, and she did great. She’s upstairs in bed, still groggy from the anesthesia and waiting for the pain meds to kick in. She’ll be home for a few days but hopefully back to school next week and on the path to healing.
Tag: family (Page 1 of 78)
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.
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.
- 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. ↩
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.
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.
- 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. ↩
- 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. ↩
Friday I had an appointment to get C’s iPad looked at. After confirming it needed a new battery, the guy helping me said the replacement would take about a week to arrive, so it would probably be “next Monday.” He paused, we looked at each other for a moment, and then we both started laughing. We both thought Friday was Monday because of the New Year’s holiday. Time and space gets freaky over the holidays!
C and L were supposed to go back to school today, although CHS begins the calendar year with J-Term and this week was not going to be a return to serious classwork. Until the school, like most in central Indiana, called off Monday classes early Sunday evening because of our big snow storm. As I begin this Monday morning, we are sitting on about 6” of snow in our part of town, with another wave blowing through that is expected to add one more inch or so. Worse, the winds are kicking up even any roads that have been plowed will likely get worse over the next few hours. S’s office did not close and she had to go in at the normal time. She arrived safely but said the roads are horrible. I’m not 100% certain our snowblower is functional, so we’ll see how much effort I have to put into clearing the driveway later this morning.
**Update: I measured 8″ of snow in our driveway before I began clearing it. One more squall passed through mid-morning and added another inch. As expected, the snowblower did not cooperate so I had to do it by hand. It took over three total hours, with a little help from L at the end. I am very sore and tired.**
It’s not quite our 2014 snowstorm – that one shut the city down for days and wiped out a whole week of school – but it’s good enough for the girls, who get to sleep in one more day.
We did have a little mishap in the storm. We let C drive to work Sunday, thinking she would be home before the roads got bad. Turns out we miscalculated by about an hour. On her way home she slid through a turn and hit a curb, popping a tire. Luckily she was right next to a gas station and was able to pull into the parking lot and wait for us to come change the tire for her. Given the age of the tire, that probably means we get to buy her a new, full set. Happy New Year!
Some more notes from New Year’s week.
NYE
The girls all had plans to ring in 2025 with friends. M traveled to Columbus, OH to hang out with some sorority pals for a couple days. She had a good time and traveled back-and-forth safely. She has one more week at home before UC classes resume next week.
C got together with her friend group. Seems like they had fun. L was supposed to do the same with a smaller group but started feeling bad Tuesday afternoon and ended up staying in her room all night. C came home Wendesday morning feeling bad, an illness that got worse Thursday. She’s been sick for the better part of a month and Dr. Mom finally called in the antibiotic troops to get her cleared up before the second semester begins. The drugs seem to be working so hopefully she starts ’25 healthier than she ended ’24.
As tends to happen, S was in bed well before midnight and I stayed up until just after the ball dropped. I don’t have any great fondness for New Year’s Eve, but I do like to see the calendar officially flip over to the next year and then sit around for a few minutes to make sure civilization doesn’t start breaking down because of some computer bug or whatever.
Thursday
Thursday was a big day for L. First thing in the morning she went back to sports medicine for a check-up on her foot. She was officially cleared to return to practice, although she’s supposed to take it easy and focus on rehab exercises for the time being. She was back at practice Friday and Saturday, the coaches letting her play in about 50% of the reps. There is still some foot pain, so we’re a little concerned that taking six weeks off did not resolve the issue. Unfortunately, she will not have enough practices to be cleared to play Wednesday night, so her first potential game will be in the City tournament next week.
Immediately after she got back from sports medicine I took her to the BMV where she got her driver’s license. She had passed her driving test nearly three months ago and just needed to wait the 90 days after her birthday to be eligible for her license. We got there as soon as they opened and were out in about 15 minutes. She’s driven herself to practice twice, along with going to a boys basketball game Saturday and run a few errands on her own. It would be nice if my days driving her to practice were over but as she and C share a car, those glory days won’t arrive until next year.
Sunday morning S and I took down all the Christmas decorations and got the house cleaned up. It’s always a little weird and a touch sad to be confronted with a “naked” living room after five weeks of having the tree, lights, and other decorations warm the space. Our house was still aglow last night, but this time because of street and house lights reflecting off the snow pack outside. Seriously, I woke a couple times thinking someone was shining a light into our bedroom it was so bright.
Colts
A mediocre season came to an appropriately mediocre ending with an overtime win over Jacksonville in front of a diminished but surly crowd. Tons of the people who bothered to show up left in the second half as the roads began to slicken and the stands were mostly empty as the game went to the extra frame. They would have been better served playing the game at one of the small, college stadiums in town. Then they could have been out in the elements, too! Kind of a shame that despite this massive snowstorm spreading across the country, not a single NFL game was affected by it because the Chiefs were in Denver, the Colts play in a dome, and the Bengals played Saturday night in Pittsburgh.
Owner Jim Irsay wasted no time in saying that GM Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen would return for the 2025 season, a decision that pleased zero Colts fans. Get excited for another year on the mediocre treadmill!
Pacers
Hey, they might actually be playing good ball! They climbed back to .500 with a win Saturday. Throw out the disaster loss in Boston right after Christmas, an L they got revenge for two nights later, and they’ve generally played pretty well for about three weeks now. Tyrese Haliburton’s highs have been higher, his lows not as low. Andrew Nembhard returning seems to have steadied the entire roster. They have back-to-backs with Cleveland in a week, which should go a long way to showing how legit they are.
KU Hoops
Talk about wild mood swings! Last week had such a wide variance I’ll hold off my thoughts until tomorrow.
We had a pretty good holiday week. Lots of good times and good food with family. The weather was mostly decent, dreary but unseasonably warm all week. There was some good basketball.
The only bummer was I caught cold #1 of the season last weekend and it wore me down several days. Christmas Day and the day after were when I felt the worst, which kind of sucked. Luckily on the scale of worst colds I’ve ever had, this was maybe a 5, so more annoying that truly debilitating. Adding insult to injury, between cold meds, congestion, and the occasional afternoon caffeine boost, my sleep schedule got all jacked up. Fortunately I don’t have much that I’m required to do in the mornings right now so it’ll work itself out. Just super annoying to have to crawl out of bed after tossing and turning for 90 minutes to read for another hour in an attempt to reset my brain.
Holiday Celebrations
Because of our schedule last week, we upset the biggest of our holiday traditions.
With our Denver family arriving Christmas Eve night, we decided to let our girls open their presents on Christmas Eve. The only catch was S had to work until 3:00 that day, and our Christmas Eve gathering began at 5:00. So the girls had “Christmas” at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon. A little weird but I don’t think the girls minded.
M and L both got new shoes and pants. M got perfume and a fancy purse. L got a makeup mirror and some of her favorite beauty products. C was the tech kid this year, receiving an electric vest, an electric blanket, a new speaker, and an Apple Watch. They all seemed pleased. But they got what they asked for, so it would be dumb if they weren’t happy.
Onto S’s sister’s house for our annual Christmas Eve gathering. This year there was a Mexican theme for the food, which you can never go wrong with. Feliz Navidad! After S was off to the airport to pick up her sister and family.
Christmas morning was kind of chill without presents. As usual we hosted brunch and the day-long gathering that followed. I believe we were around 23 for food, then a few left for other events and one sister-in-law joined later in the day. The kids played games and colored ornaments and there was plenty of general family hanging out.
Thursday was our nephew’s 15th birthday, so much of the family went to Top Golf to celebrate. That was mostly about the kids, as we had way too many people for our space and had to send some of the adults inside so we didn’t get yelled at. The kids had fun, which was all that mattered.
Friday evening was a mom’s night out, so three of my brothers-in-law and I managed the kids at our house. I had a huge box of Joe’s Barbecue from a friend in Kansas City that I shared. I think all the little kids loved the ribs, brisket, and burnt ends as much as the dads. There was a lot of kid-uncle wrestling and general mayhem without the moms around.
The weekend was more chill. Our guests made the rounds visiting some other family then flew back to Denver in the evening. Sunday we took it easy, straightening up a bit but are saving most of the cleaning and taking-down of decorations for next weekend. M had some friends over and L went to a gift exchange party.
We also mixed in some movies and watching sports in there as well.
Probably too many details, but I know a lot of you expect such a breakdown after a big week, even if you don’t know many, or even any, of the other participants in our holiday activities.
HS Hoops
A terrific weekend for the Irish. They played in a holiday tournament in eastern Indiana. I wouldn’t say it was the strongest field of all the various holiday tournaments that ran over the weekend, but there were a few other decent teams, including the host squad, who were undefeated and ranked #2 in 2A. And we opened against the #12 2A team.[1] Remember, we lost to the #9 2A team two weeks ago by 13, so just because we’re 3A doesn’t mean we were the pre-tourney favorites.
In Friday’s first game, we beat the #12 team by 11 in a sloppy game. Later that evening we beat a solid 1A team by 12. As we had company, I was not able to go, but the games were streamed and I watched most of them. It was funny to blow my eight-year-old niece’s mind by saying the names of the players. “Wait, you know their names? How?!?!”
Saturday I did drive over for the championship game against, as expected, the 15–0 host Knights. They had a very poor strength of schedule rating, but 15–0 is 15–0. And they were ranked ahead of the team that beat us, so they must be good, right?
Well…
We were up 16–11 after one period and seemed to be getting a nice rhythm going. A few minutes into the second quarter their big girl, who was their only hope on offense, got her second foul and had to sit. Next thing you knew it was halftime and we were up by 21. We just destroyed those girls, carving up their zone and absolutely shutting down their offense. It was fun to watch.
In the second half, NHS stayed in their sagging zone and our girls were actually patient for the first time maybe ever. Our first three possessions of the third quarter took nearly four minutes off the clock as we passed and cut and waited for the defense to come out before getting open drives to the rim.
I think NHS might have gotten the lead down to 17 once, or maybe just 18, but for most of the second half it was between 25–30. We ended up winning by 31. If I’m looking at the records right, it was CHS’ first holiday tournament championship since December 2016. Good times and made for a happy bus ride home!
A true bonus was that L was included in the travel squad. The girls that traveled bussed over Thursday evening and spent the night at a hotel since their first game Friday was in the morning. They bussed back to Indy that night, then over again for the championship game Saturday evening. L thought she was included because she would have been on the travel roster if she was healthy. I thought it was a reward for her going to every practice and being the loudest girl on the bench during her six week absence. Or it could have just been because they only took two JV players and had room for one more girl in the hotel rooms. Or maybe a combination of all that. Regardless, it was fun she got to travel with the team, sit on the bench, and be in the postgame celebration and pictures. Varsity is now 9–6 with a week off before their next game.
Colts
Jesus…
I think it’s time for big changes in this organization. Playing against the worst team in the NFL, the New York Giants, losers of nine-straight, the Colts looked uninterested and unprepared. They gave up more points than the Giants had scored in their previous three games combined. They gave up big play after big play, including a kickoff return for a touchdown immediately after halftime. The defense missed easy tackles. Jonathan Taylor racked up a lot of yards again, but also made a few more grievous errors you just don’t make if you’re a professional who cares about the result of the game. There was even controversy about Anthony Richardson despite him not playing. After the game it was revealed that the true nature of his back injury hadn’t been shared, which led to questions about whether he was as injured as the team suggested.
It seems like everyone on this team has checked out. It’s time to pull the plug and start over. Clean out the front office and coaching staff. Trade some pieces to try to move up and grab a quarterback again, or begin the tanking process to land a high pick in the 2026 draft. Nothing they are trying is working and there’s no need to stay on the current path.
I moved to Indy in Peyton Manning’s sixth season. That year they made the playoffs for what turned out to be the second time in a nine-year span they did not miss the post season. Following the bridge year between Manning and Andrew Luck, they made the playoffs three straight times, capping that run with a loss to New England in the AFC title game. It seemed like the Colts would always be great.
Then Luck got hurt for the first time and, well, you know what happened next.
Amazingly the franchise has reached the playoffs just twice in the last decade. That doesn’t seem possible in the modern NFL, where teams go from drafting in the top ten to making the playoffs constantly. Especially playing in the AFC South. There have only been two truly bad seasons in there, both four win campaigns. Even this year the Colts could end up with eight wins.
What was once one of the most well-run and successful franchises in the NFL is now thoroughly mediocre on the field and a mess off it. Yes, having an all-time great quarterback papers over a lot of issues. I’m not sure the franchise has had much of a plan since Luck’s sudden, surprise retirement, though. And you still hear his departure as an excuse when the front office is criticized. Luck hasn’t played since 2018. It might be time to move on and figure some shit out.
Pacers
Hey, the Pacers had a nice little run going, sweeping their West Coast trip before coming home and blowing a lead late against Oklahoma City. That was a bummer but OKC is one of the two, three best teams in the league.
Then they got destroyed by the Celtics Friday. Like Colts losing to the Giants bad.
Their reward was getting to stay in Boston and take another crack at the C’s Sunday.
Guess what? They somehow fixed all their issues and led Boston wire-to-wire for a solid win. Andrew Nembhard did not play Friday, he did play Sunday. I’m not sure he’s worth 46 points, but it worked Sunday.
- There were teams from all four clases in the bracket. ↩
A slightly quieter weekend. No sitting on the couch for 183 hours watching football. I actually got out of the house both days. Multiple times! Let’s review.
College Girls
I’ll share the biggest, best news up top: C got her acceptance letter from IU on Thursday. That’s the only school she’s really interested in, so I think she’s locked into being a Hoosier.[1] She’s pretty excited. Coincidentally she wore an IU shirt to school Thursday. It’s like she knew the letter was coming.
She found out a full month later than M did two years ago; apparently IU did rolling acceptances two years ago based on when you got your application in and switched to letting most early admission candidates know on the same set of days this year. We kind of wish they had waited another seven days so we can keep C focused for finals this week. Nothing to sap a kid’s motivation like telling her she’s been accepted to the college she wants to attend.
C and L have a review day today, three full days of finals, then a half day on Friday before they begin their holiday break.
M wrapped up her finals Thursday morning and was home by early afternoon. Seems like it was a good semester. Financial accounting was not her bag – is it anyone’s? – and that will be the first B on her college transcript. But she’s in marketing, not the CPA path, so surviving and advancing is the real goal with that class.
HS Hoops
We spent 3+ hours at CHS watching ball Saturday, so I’ll start with a review of last week’s three games.
Tuesday we traveled to ZHS, a big suburban school that tends to be good. Last year they beat us by 19 but we knew they are very young this year. We took advantage, winning by 20 in a game that was not that close. We hit shots, played good D, and made hustle plays. JV also won by 20. A good night.
Thursday we played a fellow Catholic school from the suburbs. We expected them to be trash. They were. Yet we only won by 20. A classic example of playing down to our competition’s level. Seriously, their varsity looked like a JV team, at least on offense. They were a scrappy team on defense but were just atrocious when trying to score. Each time we’d get the lead up to 20 or so, we’d go brain dead and let them cut 8–10 points off the deficit. JV also won easily.
The most exciting part of this night was driving to the game in an evening snow storm. There wasn’t much snow, but it was cold enough that the roads slicked-up quick. Throw in rush hour traffic and it took us 50 minutes to make what would normally have been a 20–22 minute trip. The only time we slipped or slid was pulling into the GCHS parking lot.
Finally, Saturday we took on undefeated #6 2A team EH. They went to Semistate the past two seasons but lost a ton of seniors from last year. We knew they have a truly great guard, but if we could contain her and limit the rest of the team, we’d have a good chance to win.
Until one of our two best players didn’t show up because she was sick. And we decided to let their best player go ahead and score 35. We had to put a JV girl on her for a couple stretches because of the missing player plus foul trouble. We kept digging holes and trying to climb out but let it get out of hand in the second half. The margin got over 15 points a couple times, we ended up losing by 13. JV won by 50. We were kind of incredulous that their varsity can be so good and JV so bad.
Roughly halfway through the season varsity is 5–6. JV is 9–2.
It is finals week so we don’t play again until Saturday.
Friday night L and I went to watch her middle school buddy play for our big rival school. Coincidentally they played the team we face this coming week, so it was a scouting trip, too. L proudly wore her CHS sweatshirt and left her coat in the car. I admired her confidence. There are tons of St P’s families at BCHS, so we got to see a lot of old friends.
Her buddy didn’t play much or very well, which was a bummer. L took mental notes on both teams to share with her coach.
We let her drop her crutches on Saturday. She’s not officially cleared but we also let her go over to the Y and shoot a little without her boot on Sunday afternoon. She said she lost her jump shot. I kept to myself that she didn’t have much of one before she got hurt.
There’s still some pain in her foot, but not like it was before the resting began. Two more weeks in the boot before she gets re-evaluated. Knock on wood, between some more rest, shoe inserts, and tape she’ll be cleared to play in our January 8 game, and then in the City Tournament the next week.
KU Hoops
Well that was better.
Bill Self compared North Carolina State to Missouri in terms of their physical abilities and style of play. I didn’t see much of that Saturday, although maybe it was a representation of the difference in playing at home vs on the road.
Naturally, most of the game took place at the same time as the CHS games, so I was following along and just made it home in time to see the final minutes, then watched the recording.
It is kind of crazy that KU has now beat NC State 13 straight times. That doesn’t seem possible in a non-conference matchup between two power conference teams.
Colts
I only saw the first half, as we went out to dinner Sunday evening. When we got home and I checked the highlights, I was pleased that I missed the second half. What a horrific effort that was! Jonathan Taylor fumbling a touchdown for a touchback for no reason. A completely idiotic trick play that turned into a pick-six for the Broncos. I remain in the You Have To Play Anthony Richardson camp. But days like yesterday make that a very tough place to be. He misses soooooo many throws, often the easiest ones, often badly. I’ve said it multiple times and I’ll say it again: even when he makes a good throw, there’s something about his ball that makes it very difficult to catch. I saw a couple in the first half yesterday that were relatively well-placed and for whatever reason the receivers just couldn’t bring them in. Maybe they’re surprised when the ball actually gets to them?
I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the city, but I gather a lot of impatience with the direction of the franchise. 2023 seemed like a great year to be drafting a quarterback. In retrospect, the Colts may have been smarter to draft a non-QB a year ago, tank last season with a fill-in, and then grab a QB in this year’s draft. As with just about everything else they’ve done since Andrew Luck retired, the Colts managed to mess that up, though.
Pacers
On a bit of an upturn? They’ve looked better over the past week and won three-of-four. Their next nine games are brutal though – at Phoenix, at Sacramento, at Golden State, OKC at home, back-to-backs at Boston, Milwaukee at home, at Miami, and Phoenix at home. Is 3–6 a best-case scenario?
- Cincinnati is the only other school she applied to. ↩
A long, extra-stuffed Thanksgiving weekend is in the books. Let’s run through the highlights.
Thanksgiving
For the first time in ages that we’ve been home for the holiday,[1] we did not host the local gathering on Turkey Day. One of S’s sisters and her husband opened up their house to the family. It was nice to not have to clean before and after, run around wildly the morning of, and hope that we hadn’t forgotten anything as we started serving the food. We provided mashed potatoes, Giada’s dressing, a meat and cheese tray, and pumpkin pie. That took a couple hours of prep, and I had a moment of panic when I wasn’t sure if the potatoes were going to be ready in time. In general, though, a much lower stress Thanksgiving than we’ve had in a long time. And we got to come home, get into comfy clothes, and crash on the couch instead of the hours of dishes afterward. Thumbs up all around.
College Girl
M came home Monday afternoon and was here in time for dinner. She went back mid-day Sunday. It was nice to have her home. She had only visited once this fall, so S and her sisters had barely seen her since summer. She has one week of regular classes before finals begin next week. She’s still not sure of her exam/project schedule, but should be home for Christmas break a week from Friday. Classes are going well. She’s eager to be done with financial accounting and never think about it again. No CPA accreditation in her future.
One of her friends who goes to the College of Charleston begins finals today. That just seems cruel.
College Football
Was this the wildest week of college football ever? Some huge upsets. Some great games. Most importantly, it seemed like there were about 50 games that included some kind of brawl. Fighting in sports is generally stupid, but in this case I approve. Nothing like some good, old fashioned hate to wrap up the holiday weekend.
Regarding the planting of flags on the opponent’s field, I’m 100,000% for it. Rub that shit in. Pettiness is always good. If you don’t like it, don’t lose the game. Take your L like a man instead of starting some punk-ass fight about it. Then go plant your flag on your rival’s field next year.
Of course now we’re going to get all kinds of dumb rules that ban flags on the field, postgame interactions, etc, etc, etc. Sports are dumb. The people that run them are dumber.
KU
I have three games to cover in this section, so I’ll pull them out for their own Jayhawk Talk post.
Colts
I missed most of the Colts game as we were watching a couple of our nephews yesterday. S and I helped the boys with their homework. I had the four-year-old and his pre-K stuff, which involved identifying letters and coloring them a certain way and coloring, cutting, and pasting a series of pictures of puppies so the matching ones went together. S assisted the second grader with his reading and answering questions related to his stories. Some of that was in Spanish, which she does not speak. The rest of us may or may not have laughed at her behind her back.
I was finally able to flip on the Colts game late in the fourth quarter. I saw Anthony Richardson throw three-straight balls that sailed into an area where no one could catch them. It looked like the Colts were going to lose to the lowly Patriots.
Then AR threw three-straight amazing balls. Of course, two were dropped by his receivers. One buried itself into the receiver’s chest so he couldn’t drop it. The Colts tried to screw it up, but converted three different fourth downs on a 19-play drive, including scoring on fourth-and-goal, and then converted the two-point conversion to eek out the win. Although the Pats came up just short on a 68-yard field goal that would have won the game. Not sure if winning is good or bad at this point. Somehow the Colts are still in the playoff picture. I still think getting a top 10 draft pick would be better than chasing the postseason.
SNF
I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve it, but for the second time in a couple weeks we got a prime time NFL game played in snow. Last night’s snow in Buffalo was a proper snow, too, although it looked like it had really dumped earlier in the day. When the Colts played up there in a foot of snow a decade or so ago, that may have been the greatest NFL snow game ever. I didn’t have a ton of interest in the game and was tired after a late night Saturday. But I stayed up deep into the fourth quarter to watch the majesty of football in a driving snowstorm.
Pacers
They might, officially, stink. Losses to Detroit and Memphis, after leading by 19, this weekend.
High School Hoops
Three nights of CHS basketball over the last week.
Tuesday the JV beat WC by seven. This was a wild game full of swings and runs. Lots of horrible calls. One ref was so preoccupied with a WC dad in the stands that he kept screaming at people sitting at the scorer’s table to get him out of the gym. I have no idea what that was about. I hadn’t seen the guy he was yelling about do a thing, and our athletic director didn’t seem super motivated to remove him.
Wednesday was varsity night. For the first three quarters, our girls played the best they had played all season. As the lead jumped up to 23 I leaned over to the dad next to me and said we seemed to have turned a corner, getting tougher and playing smarter since that respectable loss to 4A #2 a week earlier.
Guess what happened next?
That’s right, I jinxed those poor girls.
They lost their minds and blew 17 points of that 23-point lead. Mindless turnovers. Passivity on offense. Missed free throws. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. To top it off, late in the quarter, when our coach really should have been clearing her bench because we were up 15+, there was a loose ball that our freshman starter dove for. Her head cracked against another player’s knee and she went down, not getting up for several minutes. When she was able to walk she looked dazed and had a huge goose egg on her temple. Based on her injury history, we are worried she’s going to miss an extended period.
We held on and won by six but ruined all the good feelings in the process. At practice Friday the girls got to watch film for 90 minutes. All of that film was from the fourth quarter. Which is kind of funny when you’re not the one watching it.
Saturday we drove down to the Louisville area for another boy-girl, JV-varsity doubleheader. These are usually cool, but I was bummed the games were scheduled that way. While I was being a good dad watching the JV girls in the auxiliary gym, there was a terrific boys game in the main gym. In the all-class, coaches poll, JHS was #2, CHS #4. Which would make JHS #2 in 4A, CHS #1 in 3A. We peeked in a couple times and JHS was always up by 6–8, but the Irish made a run and ended up losing by two.
The varsity girls lost by 10. They were down just one at halftime but foul trouble and lack of depth because of the injury killed them in the second half.
The JV girls played really well for three quarters, but like their varsity sisters three nights earlier, fell apart in the fourth quarter and let a 15-point lead get down to two a couple times. We ended up winning by six but it was way too nervy. You know what would have helped? A point guard who takes decent care of the ball. Hopefully we get one of those back in about a month.
Travel
Louisville is two hours away, so we did end up traveling for the weekend. This was my first trip in the Tesla in cold weather. Sub-freezing temps make the battery less efficient and cause charging to take longer. Which meant my brain had been spinning for a couple days on the best way to handle the logistics for this trip.
My plan was to leave home with a 100% charge and then stop at the Supercharger in Columbus, IN, a little over an hour away, on the way down to get back up to 80%. That would give me several options for the return trip.
However, the Supercharger in Columbus was not working. So I drove straight through, arriving at my destination with about 45% charge left. While we ate dinner I explored different options on the Tesla app. It kept trying to send me to Shelbyville, IN, which would involve taking a big right turn on the way back to Indy. It would also have me arrive at the Supercharger with about 5% charge remaining, which was way too low for my tastes with the temps dropping and snow falling. As much as I hated to go the wrong way, it made the most sense to cross the river into Louisville proper and go to a charging station about 10 minutes from where the games were. By the time the game ended, even the Telsa app was sending me that way. I think it was too cold to make it to Shelbyville.
So when the game was over I got L some Chick-Fil-A and we went to Kentucky to grab some electrons. Earlier in the evening the estimate was about a 10 minute charge to get home. By the time we got there, it was cold enough that it took us about 25 minutes. This was a 250 KW charger. Because seven of the eight chargers were being used and the falling temperature, mine maxed out at 85 KW, and was usually much lower than that.[2]
We left the charging station at 10 PM, arrived home just after midnight with about 13% of the charge left. If it had been warmer I would have been comfortable going under 10%, but being new to cold weather EV driving, I wanted as much buffer as I could have.
L didn’t mind. She had her iPad and watched shows both while we charged and on the way home. I was able to pull up the Texas-Texas A&M game on Hulu while we charged. And we lucked out with the snow. Early forecasts had called for 2–3” of snow in Southern Indiana right when we were driving. It was definitely snowing hard while we charged, but still mostly melting. And we drove out of it pretty quickly once we headed back north.
We got the Christmas decorations up across Friday-Saturday-Sunday. The calendar says December. Ten days after pushing 70 we are stuck in the 20s and 30s for most of this week. The holiday season is officially here!
- We missed 2021 and 2022 while traveling to Hawaii and Italy. ↩
- Not to get too deep into the details, but you will rarely get the full listed power from a charger. Many elements go into what your car can pull, including how many other cars are charging at that location, weather, the temperature of your battery, and how charged your battery is. In general, you will pull more power early in your charge, and as the battery fills the rate will slow dramatically. The analogy I heard when I was car shopping was a theater filling for a movie. When the seats are all empty, people flow in easily. But as it fills and it’s harder to find an open seat, the people searching for one have to take more time to select one. Same pouring energy into your battery. ↩
Two games to catch up on from last week.
Tuesday the Irish played their Jesuit sisters from down the block. L was excited because the Braves were missing two of their best varsity players, meaning girls from their kinda crappy JV team had moved up, so she was hoping for two wins.
She got them.
CHS dominated the JV game and won by 20 in a game that wasn’t close after the first few minutes. L scored 8 on 3–6 shooting, hitting both of her 3-point attempts. She added three assists and SIX steals. She dressed for varsity but did not get in despite the Irish winning by 23. Her coach looked at her once but since the Jesuits still had starters in thought better of it.
Thursday we took on Mooresville, a traditionally strong program from a mostly rural area just outside the Indy metro area. We got two very different yet similar games.
In JV, we led by 12 at halftime and got it up to 15 a couple times in the third quarter before their coach decided it couldn’t hurt to start pressing us. Not sure why he waited over half the game to do that, because it destroyed our offense. We struggled to get the ball across halfcourt, and when we did made terrible plays once we set up the offense. Worth noting L either sat or was playing off the ball during this stretch. We had two girls who both scored around 10 points in the first half. Both of them took about a million terrible shots in the second half and failed to score. Just a total panic on offense.
MHS got it down to three a couple times but never closer as we held on in the final 90 seconds. L took seven shots, hitting just one, but she was clearly fouled on two of those misses. She added one free throw for three points, grabbed a rebound, had an assist, and accounted for just one of those stupid turnovers. Best of all, she again had SIX STEALS and forced a couple other turnovers. Her offense isn’t really clicking yet, but her defense has been great.
Varsity was another story. CHS fell behind early and trailed by as many as 15, but caught fire in a crazy fourth quarter that felt like it lasted about an hour. We got it down to three with MHS’ two bigs both fouling out along the way. Then we relaxed and the margin got back up to eight. We cut it to three two more times but couldn’t get the defensive stop for a chance to tie. We hit a three at the buzzer to lose by three. L again dressed but did not play. I’m pretty sure MHS hit 99% of their free throws while we hit maybe 50%.
A highlight from this game was a CHS dad getting into it with some MHS parents. I’ve known this dad for nearly 10 years and he’s always been a fool at games. He was ejected from multiple CYO games over the years but has somehow not learned his lesson. As usual, he was overly into the game Thursday. When an MHS mom seemed to lose her mind on a close call, he decided to tell her that she should keep her mouth shut, but in cruder terms. Now Mooresville folks are a little rougher than us Indy, private school folks. Or at least this lady was. I thought there was going to be a brawl. Luckily that was averted. This will not be the last incident this parent is involved in. I always try to not sit too close to him so I don’t get pulled into any confrontations.
JV is 2–1, varsity 1–2.
Now for the bummer.
L had been experiencing some periodic foot pain. It would flare up one day, disappear completely the next. It didn’t seem to affect her play so we decided to just monitor it. She told the trainer one day after practice, who examined her and gave her a bag of ice.
Then Sunday, following a hard practice Saturday to prepare for the #2 team in the state tonight, she could barely walk.[1] We put her in a boot for the rest of the day and Monday morning I took her straight to sports medicine.
The diagnosis was what S expected: stress reaction. Crutches or a knee scooter for the next four weeks while wearing the boot, followed by at least two more weeks in the boot. She will be re-evaluated on January 2. Obviously no basketball during those six weeks, a span of at least 10 games.
L has actually been taking it pretty good so far. I think it’s going to hit her tonight when she has to sit on the bench during the JV game and then behind the bench for varsity. And the longer she goes without practicing the more she’ll realize what she’s missing.
JV is really hurting at the moment. Four girls who weren’t playing much quit this week. Three more were too sick to practice Monday. And now L is out. A couple girls who don’t normally get a lot of minutes have a huge opportunity.
It could certainly be worse. L didn’t tear or break anything, she doesn’t need surgery, and this wasn’t like one of her friends last year who had concussions number four and five and had to stop playing forever. But it still sucks. She’s going to miss roughly half of her sophomore season. Even if she comes back in early January, it’s going to take her awhile to get her fitness back.
About all she can do now is sit in a chair doing dribbling or form shooting exercises. I remember watching videos of Isiah Thomas doing folding chair workouts when I was in middle school. I need to find those for her.
That also means less high school basketball content for me to share. I’ll keep you updated on the game results, but doubt I’ll have as detailed breakdowns as normal.
- JV played scout, and L was assigned the part of the 6’3” girl who is going to IU next year. That may seem like an odd choice since L is only 5’7”, but the big girl spends most of her time behind the 3-point arc, so L got to chuck a lot. I was hoping this would carry over to her looking to shoot more but that’s not going to happen now. ↩