D's Notebook

Tag: high school sports (Page 1 of 17)

Weekend High School Hoops Notes

February 17, 2025 /

I would wish you all a happy Presidents’ Day but, well, you know.

Speaking of bullshit, I’m splitting what would normally be in the Weekend Notes post into two entries this week to separate the fun from the bullshit. Although there will still be some bullshit in this post.

Regional Champs!

Saturday we drove about an hour west of the city to Greencastle for the regional round of the Indiana State basketball tournament.[1] Indiana high school sports are full of oddness. One of the oddest aspects of the basketball tournament is that each regional site hosts two games but those games aren’t necessarily related. In Greencastle, the early game was a 2A contest followed by our 3A matchup. We had no need to show up early to scout a possible semi-state opponent. It has something to do with geography and trying to keep teams from having to travel too far. I’m sure there’s some formula involved that makes sense, but there are always some weird assignments.

I was a little worried that our opponent, Northview, would pack the gym since they had an easy 30 minute drive down a state highway where we had to drive halfway around the 465 loop then halfway to Terre Haute. NV did bring a decent group of fans, but since the Greencastle gym holds nearly 5000 people, they didn’t seem super intimidating.

As big as this gym was, it was one of the quietest games I’ve ever attended. I think it was because our two sections on opposite sides of the court probably didn’t fill close to half the total seats, leaving lots of empty space, and because the building has a domed roof that all the noise seemed to disappear into. I heard our coach better than I’ve heard her at our home games when we have maybe 200 folks in attendance.[2]

The team got to bus over Thursday afternoon to practice there once before the actual games which was cool. That gave the event a more big time feel than sectionals.

Anyway, the game is what you care about, right?

NV came in at 20–6 on the season, but hadn’t played a very impressive schedule. I looked at the scouting report L brought home and it seemed like their offense revolved around a quick point guard and a big wing who worked out of the high post. I was confident but still super nervous when the game started.

Like most things in life, this was needless anxiety.

Our senior point guard, who is a D1 soccer recruit and rarely shoots, hit her first 3 of the season on our opening possession. On the next two possessions we worked carefully against NV’s sagging zone and got multiple shots in close that we could not get to drop. Eventually we hit another and that was, kind of, the game.

We led 9–0 after one quarter. Our trapping press destroyed their offense. We were doubling their big and daring their guard to shoot. We got nearly every rebound.

They finally hit two free throws to start the second quarter and basically played us even that period, leading 18–7 at the break.

After halftime we lost our composure. NV swapped their sagging 2–3 zone for a trapping 1–3–1 one and we turned the ball over on our first four possessions. And each turnover was more because of dumbness on our part than good D on theirs. We threw the same entry pass three times and each one got knocked away easily because the pass was horrible and our girl posting didn’t seal her defender. Midway through the quarter NV hit a 3 and suddenly it was a six-point game. We called a timeout. Their fans were fired up. Their players jumping on each other on the way to the bench.

That was a good time out. Moments later we got three straight steals out of our press. We kept threatening to completely blow them out but were just careless enough with the ball that we never got the lead over 15 points. The game was basically over with three minutes left as we casually tossed the ball around to kill time. Eventually they would foul us, we’d hit a free throw or two, they’d go down and hit a quick shot, then we’d start killing time again.

That point guard who hit the opening 3 for us? We learned during the game that she had been home with 103° fever two days earlier. She looked absolutely beat the entire second half. If the NV coach was smarter he would have attacked her when she brought the ball up. She looked like she might fall over if anyone pressured her very hard. In fact, both teams looked utterly wiped out for the entire fourth quarter. You’d think it was a 70–65 game, not one where both teams struggled to combine for 60 points. I wonder how many players would have tested positive for flu, Covid, or something else had we lined them up for nasal swabs after the game. Good thing it wasn’t a close game because I’m not sure either team had the energy to make winning plays.

Our coach cleared the bench with 55 seconds left and the reserves dribbled out the clock.

38–23, first regional title in 24 years. An impressive win that would have really raised some eyebrows if we could have hit our easiest shots. We missed 10–12–14? shots right at the rim, including multiple layups on breaks. We had at least three possessions where we grabbed two offensive rebounds but couldn’t do anything with them. We were very careless with the ball, something that needs to improve next week. Which, I guess, gives the coach something to focus on in film today.

It was also one of those games where even when we screwed up, things still went our way. There were several times when we turned it over, only to steal it right back or force NV to throw it away. One of our players turned the ball over on three straight possessions, then she drilled a 3 on the fourth possession.

Our defense continues to be fantastic, going back to our sectional opener against Chatard. I’m not sure why it took us so long to start pressing and trapping, but it has been working.

It’s been really fun to watch the girls enjoy this run. Each time they started to build momentum this season, they would have an all-around bad game to ruin it. But they’ve now won five in a row, six of seven, and nine of 11. It’s not always pretty, but they’ve been getting it done. Their work has been paying off and all the smiles and hugs after the games the past two weeks will be my lasting memory of this run.

Other than L cheering from the bench and getting to hold the trophies and cut the nets, my favorite memory (so far) came after Saturday’s game. I saw our senior who had carried us in sectionals but struggled Saturday being hugged by her dad. This dude and his wife are very tough on T. Like ridiculously tough. But I caught him hugging her, whispering to her with a smile on his face, then giving her a kiss. I don’t think much of this dad because of the stories I’ve heard about how he treats her. This moment, though? Fantastic.

A new feature to the Indiana state tournament is keeping the semi-state bracket empty until after the regional round. Unlike the NCAA tournament, where you can plot out every team you might play on your path to the Final Four, in Indiana you only know your sectional and regional brackets. The tournament is split north-south from the beginning, and Sunday the four remaining teams in each half of each class were drawn in a live broadcast to determine who plays each other next week.

We knew we were in the tougher half of the draw, which featured us (#9) plus numbers 3, 4, and 10. The North side of 3A has numbers 1, 2, 22, and 70.[3] And even though it is a blind draw, we knew exactly what would happen. Sure enough, our ping pong ball popped up first, immediately followed by Roncalli, a Catholic school on the southside of Indy. For some reason the schools stopped playing each other two years ago, but before that it was an annual game that while not as intense as our rivalry with Chatard, was still a highlighted one on the schedule.[4]

We are 18–9. They are 17–8. They’ve won eight straight. They lost to several teams we beat, but I also am pretty sure they were missing a starter for much of December. They seem healthy and locked in. They also have a sophomore who is their best player, and was largely responsible for L’s kickball team losing both of the City championship games they played in. So we need to beat her.

Now, the real peach of this whole deal is where we play them. While the matchups for semi-state were selected Sunday, the host sites were already locked in. The IHSAA allegedly looks at each semi-state quad of teams and tries to send them to the host site that makes the most sense for travel, how many fans each school will bring, and so on.

Our quad features the two Indy teams, one from halfway between Indy and Cincinnati, and one from Evansville. So, naturally, we’ve been sent to play in New Albany, which is two hours south, just across the river from Louisville. Like so much about Indiana high school sports, it makes no sense. Although I guess if you draw a triangle between Indy and the two other schools, New Albany falls on the base of that line.[5]

As an extra bonus we have the first game, which tips at 10:00 AM. So we’ll be leaving our house by 7:30. Earlier if the weather is bad. The team will bus down the night before because otherwise that makes for potentially a super long day.

Why a super long day, you ask? Because the teams that win the early games (the second is at noon) get to hang around for the semi-state championship game. Which is scheduled for 8:00 PM.

For years I’ve heard stories about happy fans from small towns taking over other cities as they burn time Saturday afternoon before the semi-state championship game. Now we have a chance to live that experience.

I mean, I want our girls to win. But I’m not going to be mad if we come home after the first game. L isn’t even playing, for crying out loud. We may have to pack sleeping bags so we can put the seats down and nap in the car if we do have to stay. I guess we can drive over to Louisville and kill time there, although, as you’ll see in a moment, L will not be in walking around mode that day.

The important part, though, is the Irish added another trophy and set of nets to their collection, the program’s first regional title in 24 years. Might as well get the first semi-state one in 25 years since we’re making the drive.

Under the Knife

L was again on the bench in street clothes Saturday. They have a light workout today and a full practice Tuesday, and then she will be done as an active basketball player for several months.

At our follow-up with the specialist last Tuesday we scheduled her for surgery this Wednesday. We were hoping that the timing would work to get her in right away, but were worried that spring break in six weeks would complicate things and we’d have to wait, thus pushing recovery and rehab out further. The doc said that because of L’s age and fitness, he was comfortable taking her cast off a little bit early which would allow her to get on the plane and go to Florida on March 28.

So, surgery Wednesday to remove an accessory navicular bone then re-size/re-attach a tendon. She’ll be in a splint for three weeks, then a cast for three more. After the cast comes off she’ll stay in a boot and on crutches until she’s cleared to begin PT. He is confident that, again, because of her age and fitness, she will recover quicker than most. But we’re still looking at four months minimum to be fully cleared. Which means, officially, no travel ball this year. She is very bummed about that, and the whole process. She’s had a few bad days over the past couple weeks, as this all became real and consequences realer. But hopeful this means junior year will be better, personally, than her sophomore year has been.

  1. Biggest thing to ever happen in Greencastle? John Dillinger’s biggest bank robbery took place there in 1933.  ↩
  2. In this big gym that felt more like one a small college would use, there were exactly three banners hanging from the rafters. All for boys basketball. One for 1931, when they were State runners up, one for 1932 when they reached the Final Four, and one for 1933, when they again were runners up. I wonder if they had some 6’9” kid who seemed like a giant back then, or just a class of great players who weren’t quite good enough to get over the hump in Indy.  ↩
  3. All rankings based on the Sagarin computer ratings that can be found here.  ↩
  4. To be consistent, if the bracket was fair we would be playing #4 while Roncalli would be playing #3.  ↩
  5. The Apple Maps directions from each school to the New Albany gym shows 94 mile, 109 mile, 109 mile, and 125 mile trips, with CHS being the most distant.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 10, 2025 /

Well, one big topic to get to, and not the one most of the rest of the world is discussing today, so I’ll blow through the first two subjects quickly.

Jayhawk Talk

More stupidity. This team seemed to quit in the second half against K-State. Afterward, Bill Self said his players showed poor effort in practice Friday. This entire team is too old to not figure out the effort thing. And they get paid too much. But we’ll probably crush Colorado tomorrow and fool people into thinking they are close to figuring it out. I feel another blowout loss to a more athletic, engaged team in the round of 32 coming.

Meanwhile top recruit Darryn Peterson, ranked #2 in his class, played the #1 recruit’s team Friday and scored 58 points, including a game-winning 3. Next year can’t get here fast enough.

Super Bowl

I don’t like either team, rooting against the Chiefs has brought me more aggravation than joy in recent years, and I had zero interest in some of the peripheral aspects of the game involving famous people watching from the stands, so I kept the game on mute and worked through my YouTube queue most of the night. Obviously I should have done this a few Super Bowls ago. That was a total ass kicking. Crazy that Nick Sirianni was probably one game away from getting fired back in October, and now he’s a Super Bowl champion coach.

I didn’t watch a single commercial, either, so no opinions or comments about that part of the evening.

I did watch the halftime show. I like the idea of Kendrick Lamar, and am 100% on his side in the whole Drake beef. But my old man ears can’t decipher what young guys with his style are saying, so I can only give his performance a solid B. C was disappointed he didn’t choose a few other songs and bring in more guests than SZA. Apparently old conservatives were annoyed with the entire thing, which is a true bonus.

L went to a party at a friend’s house. She gave another friend a ride back to our house so his mom could pick him up, since we live about halfway between his home and the party. They arrived when there were still about three minutes left in the game. I explained to the friend how I was from Kansas City but not a Chiefs fan. Which probably really confused him as I was wearing a Royals World Series champs shirt.

Sectional Champs!

OK, time for the topic of the day.

Cathedral won their first sectional championship in 20 years with a dominant performance Saturday night.

The girls took on the Polytechnical school from downtown that has a few nice players and was picked as a “darkhorse” to win the sectional in the paper last week. There was never much doubt. We jumped out by double digits early, pushed it to 20 early in the second quarter, and other than a couple lulls around halftime never let up.

The only real drama came when Poly’s coach got ejected in the third quarter. We’re not sure what happened. I saw her get warned in the first half but hadn’t noticed her doing anything too crazy. I did hear their fans going nuts when they thought one of our girls should have been whistled for a five-second call (they were probably right). Seconds later the coach got a T. She was seated on the bench, but I guess she kept jawing because she quickly got T number two.

We hit three of four free throws then Poly hit a 3 and got two free throws to pump up their fans, but that burst was short-lived.

The only down side to the night was that had L been healthy, she definitely would have played. Our coach cleared the bench with 3:00 left, which is very early for her. And I bet a healthy L would have got some minutes well before that.

She did get to help cut the net down though, which she was excited about. She wasn’t on the court, but she is in the trophy picture of a team that made a little school history. Amazing it had been two decades since the last sectional champion, but until this year we were slotted into one of the toughest 4A sectionals in the state. Moving down to 3A had an immediate benefit.

It was fun to see how happy the girls were, especially for our four seniors. Girls basketball at CHS isn’t a glamour sport. There are often more visiting fans than Irish ones at our home games. The boys team gets better warmups and gear. CHS teams play difficult schedules in every sport but that seems to hit our girls a little harder. They earned all that happiness they got to display this weekend.

Our Friday semifinal was more interesting than the championship game, even it if was less competitive.

We played CA, the school that won a game 115–5 last month. Well, their coach was suspended for the game by the state athletic association because of that. Which seemed weird on a couple levels, but whatever. CA is led by his two junior daughters, who have attended four different schools in the past four years.[1] The better of the two sisters is a ranked recruit that lots of Big 10 schools are looking at. But the team is basically the sisters playing off each other, while their three teammates are expected to screen, rebound, and play D.

Although they were ranked well behind us, they still had the most talented player on the court and we were coming off an emotional win over our arch rival. So, you never know, right?

No doubt Friday. We opened on a 22–0 run and that was pretty much that. TWENTY TWO STRAIGHT POINTS!!! Final score: 65–27. We shut down their star and other than letting her sister hit three 3’s, contained the rest of the team. Dominant.

The best thing to come out of these games was that one of our seniors, T, has finally shaken off the bad luck that plagued her all year. I swear this poor kid is shooting 20% because she has shots rim out in the cruelest possible ways. Wide open shots will bounce around the rim 3–4 times before falling off. Layups will spin out or catch the wrong side of the rim. It’s impossible to accurately explain but if you just watch her work to get open and shoot, you would guess she scores 15 points a night. In reality she averages less than 10 ppg.

L and T became good friends last summer, with T often coming over to hang out at our place. I know she has a tough home life. Her parents are very hard on her. She has four older brothers who all played D1 football and the parents expect the same from her. You can see the weight on her shoulders getting heavier each time she misses a shot.

Tuesday against BC she was very good on both ends of the court, keying our pressure and hitting a couple big shots early. Friday she got the defensive assignment of the better CA sister and completely shut her down. Saturday she was on fire, scoring 19 points before halftime. Most of all, you could see her playing free and easy. She hit a 3 in every game, the first time this season she’s hit one in consecutive games, let alone three-straight.

Saturday, as the team was celebrating, I found T and told her whatever she’s been eating, DO NOT change it. She laughed and said she agreed that she wouldn’t change a thing.

The Irish advance to the Regional round of the state tournament.[2] We will play a team that is 20–6, but against a schedule ranked 194. They are #26 in 3A to our #9. According to the computer rankings, we are a 13-point favorite with a 78% chance to win. We just need to keep everyone focused and get any illnesses out of the way early in the week (L is home sick today) and we should be fine. The computer says we have pretty good odds.

  1. That’s as far as I know. They were in 8th grade on the southeast side of town, freshmen in a different district on the southwest side, spent sophomore year in Florida, and this year came back to an inner city school. Who knows if they were somewhere else for 7th grade, or will move out-of-state again for senior year.  ↩
  2. I could get real geeky about the structure of the Indiana playoff bracket, but I’m guessing no one wants to read about that. Long story short, Regionals were two games in one day for a long time, but a year or two back reverted to the old school style of Regionals being a single game, then the Semistate round consisting of two games. If we are lucky enough to win this week, I’ll share more about that.  ↩

More Hoops Talk: I Am A Fraud

February 5, 2025 /

Me, in Monday’s post:

I’m not sure if I have a worse feeling about tonight’s KU game or Tuesday’s CHS one.

Shows what I know about ball.

Jayhawk Talk

Well, that was much, much better. Arguably KU’s best, wire-to-wire, performance of the year, jumping on Iowa State early and never letting up. The offense was humming, moving the ball quickly and finding the open man. Aside from a few ill-advised drives by guys who couldn’t shoot and Rylan Griffen missing four wide-ass-open 3’s, you couldn’t ask for much more on that end of the court.

And the defense was locked in all night. Iowa State is in a bit of a funk, but KU’s switching defense thoroughly baffled the Cyclone guards. You could see them setting something up and then, suddenly, they were faced with KJ Adams in front of them and they had zero interest in either driving or pulling up.

The question is was this a one-off performance, or have they genuinely found something and can start playing to their talent level? They are about to start the most important stretch of the year, as their next six games are all about as favorable as you can have. Now that run begins with a suddenly frisky K-State team in Manhattan and includes back-to-back visits to the Utah schools over four days. I’m not saying they should go 6–0. But 5–1 would be a terrific boost before a brutal closing stretch that includes Texas Tech, Houston, and Arizona.

Wild stats that came up during/after the game:

Bill Self is now 38–0 in Big Monday home games. Video game numbers.

Baring a total collapse by Houston, this will be the first time in 24 years that KU has gone more than one year between conference championships. Again, that just doesn’t seem right, even having lived through Self’s domination of the Big 12.

HS Sectionals

Man, I was convinced the Bishop Chatard would blow the doors off our girls Tuesday night. We beat them by three for the City championship three weeks ago, and that win seemed a little flukey. The Trojans were four-time defending sectional champs. They have a tough-ass senior who I figured would not let her team lose. Throw in some illness/general bad vibes on our team over the past week, and I was prepared to have to shake the hands of our BC friends after the game and wish them luck moving forward while getting out of the gym as quick as possible.

Again, I don’t know shit.

Our girls played their best 15 minutes of the season to start the game. We forced at least 10 BC turnovers in the first quarter and led by eight after 12 minutes. Midway through the second quarter the lead was up to 28–13 and our top scorer had barely played. We were ridiculous on D and knocked down some shots. It didn’t feel sustainable, but 15 point leads give you a lot of rope to work with.

By halftime the lead was down to just to seven when we gave up an offensive rebound and put-back at the buzzer. It felt like BC had all the momentum so the break was well timed.

Except we didn’t do anything to start the second half, turning it over on our first two possessions. By the end of the third period we were down five, the BC run 28–8 since our largest lead. Moments later, the deficit was up to eight and our student section resorted to yelling “Let’s play football!” at the BC students across the way.[1] Fun chant, but seems like they had lost hope. I understood it; the game felt over.

But one of our freshmen hit her first 3 of the season – it might have been her first made jump shot of the season – and we followed with a long two. Next thing you knew one of our senior leaders was driving and flipped up a tough attempt from five feet that would have made it a one-point game, but it rimmed out. BC went down and scored off the miss and hit a free throw to push it back to six with 3:00 left.

The next three minutes were literally insane. Drunk as a game can get. Off the rails. Bananas. Etc.

The dad who normally sits next to me was home sick and couldn’t get the streaming broadcast to work so I was texting him updates. Thus I can kind of recreate the final minutes.

BC is up 48–42, they are in a box-and-one defense to keep our best player from getting the ball, and we seem to have no idea how to attack them.

Somehow we strung together a couple stops and baskets, got another steal from our press and one of our seniors, A, went to the line with 1:57 and a chance to tie the game. She hit one-of-two, down one.

BC ball, they turn it over.
We give the ball right back to them.
They turn it over again.
We call a timeout with 54 seconds left.
After the timeout A is fouled again, this time she hits both, we are up 49–48.

BC has the ball and we knock a rebound out of play. They are inbounding under their own basket. Our defender tips the pass, but the BC inbounder grabs the loose ball and immediately passes to their center who lays it in. 50–49 BC, less than 30 seconds left.

We turn it over with 17 seconds left. Shit, game over again, right?

Our other freshman steals the ball in the backcourt and gets fouled going to the rim. She hits both, 51–50 us, about 10 seconds left.

BC inbounds, makes a cross court pass that the same freshman steals. She sprints down the sideline and whips a pass as she tries to avoid getting fouled to keep the clock running. She gets absolutely jacked and flies out of bounds, where she lands and grabs her head. She has a history of concussions so this did not look good. She stays on the ground for several minutes before she goes to the bench. The refs did call a foul when she got trucked, so we will go to the line up one with 3.9 left. We sub in a girl who doesn’t play much, but had hit 4–4 free throws on the night.

Naturally she misses both.

A BC guard got the rebound in the corner, took three dribbles (they had no timeouts left), and let it fly from halfcourt. It looked good on the way and I had visions of their 3-pointer that beat us at the buzzer in overtime a year ago.[2] But this shot crashed off the backboard and had no chance to go in.

Pandemonium on our bench, the BC girls were on the ground in tears. Both locker rooms are in the same corner of the gym, so there was a lot of awkward standing around by the families while waiting for both teams to exit as the girls for the next quarterfinal warmed up. Luckily our best BC friends are great people and I was able to chat normally with them. When their daughter, one of L’s best friends since forever, came out she mocked shoved L a few times before they gave each other big hugs. She plays a lot so the loss was tougher on her than it would have been on L had we lost. I love that all those years together at St. P’s don’t get pushed aside because they are on different teams now.

What a win for our girls! They played out of their minds to start the game, then made an incredibly tough comeback after blowing their lead. It isn’t always pretty, but our girls might be tougher than I give them credit for.

When I picked L up from practice Monday I mentioned how that might have been her last practice of the season. She flatly said, “It wasn’t.” She had faith where I lacked it. While she is on the sectional roster, she did not get to dress, but was allowed to sit on the bench. There’s a good picture on Instagram of our coach screaming after the final buzzer. You can see L’s curls flying in the air as she jumps in the background.

Now is where things get tricky. Pretty much everyone said, before the game, that whoever won Tuesday’s opening game would be the heavy favorite to win two more games and advance to regionals. So now there’s all that pressure of not screwing it up after winning the toughest game. And we might be playing without a starter because of that injury in the closing minutes.

In Friday’s semis we play the third-best team (of course) in our sectional. This is the squad I mentioned last month that won a game 115–5. They have one of the best juniors in the state and play a frenetic style. But they are only 8–13 for the season, most of those wins against bad teams. Against common opponents they are 1–5, we are 4–2. Again, though, anything can happen in a single elimination tournament.

Last week when we played that 1–18 team, CE, a few of us laughed that their opponent in their sectional opener sent coaches to scout them. Why scout a team that bad? Well, those coaches should be fired, because CE beat them by six! Good for those girls!

  1. The Irish beat the Trojans 31–7 this past season.  ↩
  2. On that play they called a timeout after we made one-of-two free throws to go up 2, and had 4.9 seconds to get a shot off.  ↩

Monday Hoops Notes

February 3, 2025 /

Yeesh. Quite a weekend for basketball stuff, so I guess that will be my focus today. Let’s get the worst of it out of the way first. Feel free to skip; it ain’t brief.

Jayhawk Talk

I’ll begin by saying I’ve never been happier to have missed watching a KU game live than I was Saturday. Yet I was still angry and frustrated later that evening because I had checked the score just as KU took a 21-point lead on Baylor late in the first half and felt pretty good about how things would turn out. The next time I checked the score it was a four-point game. This was concerning. The final time I checked the score Baylor was up by seven with a couple minutes left. That’s when the relief kicked in that I hadn’t devoted my late afternoon/early evening to watching this shitshow and would then sit and stew about it the rest of the night.

Coming on the heels of last weekend’s disaster against Houston and then Tuesday’s near disaster against UCF, I think we can officially call this a trend. Or, better yet, just what this team is. Which is not very good, relatively speaking. With an angry Iowa State team, that got wrecked at home by a mediocre K-State team Saturday, coming to Lawrence tonight, it sure feels like it’s going to get worse, too.

I guess there is still the opportunity to make adjustments that paper over some of this team’s issues. I doubt even the most optimistic of KU fans thinks that’s likely, though. Making this feel like not only a lost season, but a lost mini-era. And hopefully not the end of something bigger.

The transfer portal/NIL era was supposed to be a gift for Bill Self. He had just won his second national title and Jay Wright had retired, leaving Self as the unquestioned Best Coach in the Game. The NCAA probe was also over. Self was going to clean up in recruiting, whether in the portal or with high school kids, and put himself in a great position to win at least one more title before he decided to retire.

The problem is that his portal success has been decidedly mixed. Kevin McCullar Jr. was great for a year and a half, arguably the best player in the country for the first six weeks of the ’23–24 season until his knee gave out on him. Hunter Dickinson is flawed and takes a lot of deserved heat for that, but for the most part he’s been good to very good. Zeke Mayo has been KU’s best player most of this season, although he mixes in the occasional stinker.

But pretty much every other transfer has been anywhere from mediocre to terrible. And that has wrecked the culture of the program.

What made KU so good for those 14 straight years they won the Big 12? It was the continuity in the program, the proverbial Culture. The Jayhawks didn’t always have the best talent, or the best pro talent I guess. But they always had the best combination of talent and experience. It was those top 50–60 recruits that stayed for three and four years and learned how to play for Self and understood the rigors of the Big 12 who made the biggest plays in the biggest games.

Those guys are gone. DaJuan Harris and KJ Adams have such limited games that they can’t fill the Ochai Agbaji, Devonte Graham, Frank Mason, Landon Lucas, Perry Ellis, Jeff Withey, Elijah Johnson, Tyshawn Taylor, Sherron Collins roles of carrying a team that is struggling in crunch time to a win in Ames or Manhattan or even in Allen Fieldhouse. I just don’t think that’s in Dickinson’s DNA, even with him being a second-year Jayhawk. And none of the other transfers or freshmen have any idea what to do in those moments.

There’s another big red flag here, one I’m reluctant to address. KU had won the Big 12 and was headed for a number one seed in the NCAA tournament when Self had his heart attack in March 2023. Without him, and without Harris who rolled his ankle just before halftime, KU blew a big second half lead over Arkansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament. That was seen as a blessing in disguise, as under-seeded UConn was waiting in the next round and would have destroyed KU, just like they destroyed everyone else that spring.

Since then it’s been an uncharacteristically mid run for KU. Some good wins in the early part of each season, followed by more really bad losses than I can remember as teams learned how to attack KU and the Jayhawks seemed to have no answers. Last year they were blown out in the second round by Gonzaga. Has this team done anything for the past month that suggests a third-straight second round loss is their ceiling?

Some of KU’s issues are talent. Harris and Adams are such one-dimensional players that when they can’t do those things well – basically defense for Harris and effort for Adams – they are giant holes on the court. Putting more pressure on the other three players out there with them, most of whom have their own flaws. Dickinson is a scoring savant in the low post and can grab 10 rebounds without trying. However, he’s a huge liability on defense if he has to take more than one step. He’s regressed when he takes shots away from the basket. Mayo, as hot as he can get, also has games where he can’t hit a thing and forces things to the point where he turns the ball over. And so on.

If you read back through my KU posts for the past 21 years, you’ll find that I was always whining about something each team doesn’t do well. But the teams that didn’t shoot well could still get to the rim and score there. Ones that struggled to guard could at least rebound. Teams that were offensively challenged could choke the life out of the game on the defensive end.

This year’s team has no identity, no strength, no experience to fall back on when they can’t hit 3’s and can’t get to the rim and the defense breaks down and they get out-rebounded. Their two homegrown senior leaders are players that should be backups or complimentary players, not the guys who make the tough ass plays in the last three minutes that turn an L into a W.

Self recruited this roster, and the ones the two previous years that also had massive flaws. The bad portal players have been so bad that they counter-balance a lot of the credit he should get for bringing in McCullar/Dickinson/Mayo. High school recruiting has been uneven for several years, although the incoming class seems like a return to form. He’s refused, for whatever reason, to recruit over Harris and Adams, and neither of them has improved much in their time on campus.

No matter how much we want to ignore it, we have to wonder if Self lost something in his health scare two years ago. Has he dialed back his intensity, and that spills over to the team? Is his preparation time less rigorous than it was? Does he process things a half step slower than he used to? Is there some other issue that he hides in public but which affects how he coaches? I sure hope this is all coincidental, but it’s a question that has to be considered.

A good buddy of mine shared this hot take after the back-to-back Creighton-Missouri losses in December: this would be Self’s last year. He thought this team would drive Self to pull a Jay Wright and go sit on a beach or work on TV. I argued that Self has raved as much about Darryn Peterson as he has any recruit ever, and there’s no way, health allowing, that he won’t be back to coach him next year. But, I added, after that all bets are off. If the passion is gone, he could retire any time after next season.

After the last week I have to wonder if leaving after this year might truly be on the table. Again, I sure as hell hope not and am frantically lighting candles, saying prayers, and rubbing rabbit feet to guard against this option. We need to keep kicking that nightmare scenario down the road as long as we can.

In reality Self just won a national title three years ago. He was chasing his third, which would place him in the truly all-time elite list of coaches, and made some big swings that ended up being huge misses. I don’t think he suddenly forgot how to coach, or his methods stopped working in 2023.

The modern era of Kansas Basketball began on March 10, 1984, when Ron Kellogg hit a baseline jumper to beat #6 Oklahoma in the Big 8 tournament championship game. We Jayhawk fans have had things pretty good for over 40 years. I think it’s way too early for us to start worrying about KU falling into the pattern that Indiana has been stuck in for over 20 years. There are some concerning cracks in the foundation, though.

HS Hoops + Injury Update

The final week of the regular season was not great.

Tuesday we took on Carmel. The JV game went down to the final seconds, and we hit a shot with about three ticks left to get a one-point win. I enjoyed the Carmel coaches getting super heated with the refs for not giving them a time out as the clock ran out. It went on for several minutes after the game, and then our athletic director had to keep one of the coaches from approaching the refs as they left the gym. I would have been equally livid had that happened to us. L again didn’t play much, and she was annoyed about it after the game. On the one hand I understood her frustration. On the other, she is clearly compromised and can’t do a ton so I totally got why the coaches didn’t play her much. She had four points, an assist, and three steals.

The varsity game was kind of a mess. Carmel lost their best player to a knee injury a month ago and had gone 2–6 since. If we played smart, we should win. We were up with a couple minutes left until we let a freshman hit consecutive 3’s to give them the lead. Our offense couldn’t get a thing going on the other end and we lost by three. Carmel is really well coached and has some nice players, but this is not a game that a team that wants to make a serious run in the tournament should lose.

Thursday we traveled 75 minutes south to play one of the worst programs in the state. They had sent word earlier in the week that they only had six JV players, so asked if the JV game could just be two quarters. Lovely. We’re spending over an hour in the car for half a JV game then a varsity game that shouldn’t be close.

JV took care of business, winning easily. L was even more limited in minutes and had just an assist and a turnover.

Varsity jumped out to a big lead, I think it got as high as 30 early in the second half, but then got sloppy and never reached running clock territory. We ended up winning by 24. The JV parents were annoyed because CE had 11 girls dressed for varsity. They easily could have moved a couple down for JV so we could have played a full game. I mean, the varsity team ended the season 1–19. It’s not like they go 10 deep with decent players.

JV ended the year 17–3. A terrible, blowout loss to start the year. The other two losses L is convinced we would have won had she been healthy and available. A really good season for a team dominated by sophomores. I just wish a few of those sophomores were obviously kids that could step in and start for varsity next year.

Varsity ended the regular season at 14–9. Three of those losses were by three points or less. I can’t say I’m super confident about sectionals because this team has never really locked in for multiple games in a row. They struggle to make shots and are too reliant on our leading scorer for offense, and she’s far from an unstoppable player. Our defense is spotty. We have no size so struggle to rebound. We don’t have a deep bench. Oh, and there’s the matter of playing our arch rival we beat three weeks ago in the opening game of the tournament. I’m not sure if I have a worse feeling about tonight’s KU game or Tuesday’s CHS one.

It’s a knock-out tournament, though, and anything can happen. When two Catholic schools are playing God obviously sits back, eats popcorn, and watches rather than taking a side.

L did make the sectional roster, so she’s continued to practice with the varsity. In theory. I don’t think she did much Friday or Saturday, and Saturday her foot hurt so bad that she went back to the crutches when she got home.

If you’ve made it this far I’ll share the biggest bad news of this post last: she is scheduled for an MRI on Thursday, and we’re pretty sure she’s going to need surgery. That will knock her out for most, if not all, of the travel season. I’ll share more about that once we get results/confirmation, but it’s obviously been a rough couple of weeks for her. She didn’t make varsity to start the season, had to stop playing three games in, was never fully healthy when she returned, and is now looking at another long stretch without basketball. I think she’d love a do-over for her sophomore year, at least for basketball.

NBA

HOLY SHIT!!!!

The biggest, dumbest trade in NBA history took place late Saturday night. Luka Doncic to the Lakers, Anthony Davis to the Mavericks. Plus other parts and picks.

If you don’t follow the NBA, Doncic is one of the three best players in the world, when he’s healthy. He’s been out since Christmas, though, and has a history of not taking care of his body. Which may have been the reason Dallas moved him. Davis was once a top five player in the league, but now probably somewhere between 15–20 most nights, with the random night he can still go nuts. But Doncic is seven years younger than Davis. And Dallas didn’t get nearly enough back for him.

This is an insane trade if you’re Dallas. You are basically gambling that Doncic’s body is going to fail on him sooner rather than later. But instead of leveraging his ability and age, you treated him like he was an equal to Davis.

It makes no sense to me why/how you make this trade. Worse, it hands a golden ticket to the Lakers, who somehow always come up with deals that get them superstars just as they are reaching their peaks. If Luka listens to LeBron and gets healthy and takes his fitness seriously, they could be a monster next year.

The NBA pods were insanely fun the past 24 hours as people tried to make sense of this trade. The conspiracy theories are A++++ at the moment!

A few hours later, Sacramento sent De’Aaron Fox to San Antonio. This wasn’t as seismic, and the Kings actually got a decent return. What made this huge was that Victor Wembanyama now has a legit running mate, along with several other nice, young players around him. This probably doesn’t do much for the team this year. It does make them title contenders as soon as next year.

I have college buddies who are big Mavericks and Kings fans. When the Fox trade broke last night, I told them I am now going to start getting worried that either Tyrese Haliburton or Pascal Siakam gets moved before the trade deadline Thursday.

Fever

There was some actual good basketball news in our house: the Fever made some great moves over the weekend. First they re-signed Kelsey Mitchell, Caitlin Clark’s backcourt running mate. Then they traded for two former All Stars with championship rings, Natasha Howard and DeWanna Bonner. Both are on the back ends of their careers but have experience and size and versatility that the Fever needed. Finally they added shooter in Sophie Cunningham. Through all that they also managed to keep super-sub Lexie Hull, for the time being at least.

We’ll see how these all work out, but on paper they make the Fever much better. Especially when you figure Clark should be steadier and stronger as a second-year player than she was as a rookie.

Weekend Notes

January 27, 2025 /

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

HS Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brackets

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

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

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

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

Scorekeeper Weirdness

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

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

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

KU Hoops

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

At least we’re not Indiana, I guess.

Pacers

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

NFL

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

Skiing

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

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

And NBC never should have killed the NBC Sports Network.

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

HS Hoops: Double Champs

January 20, 2025 /

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

City Tournament

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good times!

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

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

Good clean fun since we weren’t directly involved.

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

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

High School Hoops

January 15, 2025 /

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

January 13, 2025 /

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

Weather

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

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

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

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

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

J Term

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

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

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

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

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

KU Hoops

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

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

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

CFP

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

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

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

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

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

I might watch a movie instead of the game.

NFL Playoffs

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

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

HS Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Week Notes

December 30, 2024 /

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.

  1. There were teams from all four clases in the bracket.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 23, 2024 /

Christmas week has finally arrived! The countdown that begins sometime around October 1 in my mind is just about done.

Reading through old posts, I see I often updated you all on my state of holiday spirit. This has been a weird year for me. I’ve listened to less holiday music than anytime this century maybe? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still listened to plenty, probably more than the average person. For the first time in ages, though, I don’t have a radio/speaker in the kitchen that has defaulted to holiday music every day since Thanksgiving. For some reason this year I’ve kept our kitchen music pointed elsewhere. And I haven’t listened to our local Christmas music station once.

I’m not sure why, either.

Weird for a guy who several times a year has a dream that he made it to Christmas day without listening to all his favorite songs.

I also haven’t watched as much Christmas TV as normal. In an average year I’ll watch parts of Elf and Christmas Vacation dozens of time. This year? All the way through each movie once (so far) and then a handful of other times checking in on them. I knocked out A Christmas Story and Die Hard over the weekend. E! is showing an Office Christmas marathon later today that I’ll catch. And I ran through some of my favorite SNL holiday sketches over the weekend.

Still, my spirit seems to be lagging a bit this year and I can’t isolate the cause. Maybe it is the daily reminders that he who shall not be named is already making noise that the next four years will be far worse than his first crack at fucking up the world. Maybe it’s because our kids are older and don’t get excited about the lead-up to the holiday anymore?

Here’s the best way to measure my Christmas spirit: despite understanding how a calendar works, Sunday morning was the first time it hit me that Christmas Eve is Tuesday. For some reason I thought it was Wednesday and I had two full days this week to get ready for our festivities. And I’m the one who does the family advent calendar every day. Yet somehow I was a day behind.

Anyway, today I was off early for a grocery run then hit Costco as soon as it opened. Pro tip: a lot of times during the holidays, Costco will open their doors a few minutes early. I walked in at 9:52 when they weren’t supposed to open until 10. I was out in 25 minutes, which has to be December record. I’ll have to make one more grocery run tomorrow to fill a few holes, grab another dessert, and load up on ice.

We have our first family gathering Tuesday evening. Our guests from Denver will arrive late tomorrow night. Christmas day we will host our annual brunch for about 25. We have plenty of other stuff planned for the week. As usual, you’ll get a full roundup next week.

Now some quick-ish words about the weekend.

CFP

Thanks to our weekend schedule and how the games turned out, I was only able to watch all of the Indiana-Notre Dame CFP game this weekend. The environment in South Bend was amazing; I don’t recall a regular season Notre Dame game seeming like that, although I’m far from an expert on the matter. Irish fans seemed extra fired up and there were just enough IU fans in the crowd to push things to another level. At least until the Irish ran away with the game. It would have been even cooler if the heavy snow that was falling about an hour west of South Bend and drifted to Notre Dame Stadium.

I agree with the snap judgement: not only is having first round games on campus a genius idea, but the quarterfinals really should be on campus as well. This is college sports, though, and things that make total sense rarely happen. Forget what’s best for the game or the fans, or that rewards nearly four months of excellence, the old bowl structure must have final say on where the playoff teams end up.

Of course there was immediate backlash about how IU didn’t deserve to be in the tournament. Which spilled over to SMU and Clemson Saturday. Strangely I didn’t hear nearly as much chatter about Tennessee not being worthy. Wonder why?

I think the big takeaway, if you have to make one based on four games in the first year of the new format, is that 12 teams is too many. The line for where the best team is college football is probably falls in the 5–6–7–8 area most years. That doesn’t mean we will always see blowouts in the first round. I do think they are more likely, though, than classic games.

Again, we shouldn’t burn down the system because of a single year. And also don’t lose three games if you want a shot.

Oh, speaking of how dumb college sports are, opening the transfer portal while there are still games being played might the the dumbest thing yet. College sports always finds a way to drain a little more out of the shallow end of the dumb pool.

HS Hoops

Big games Saturday for the Irish. They took on HCA, the Christian school from around the way. This is the team L and I went to scout a week ago when we watched her buddy play against them. She had shared her thoughts with her coaches, so I guess the result was a measure of her scouting abilities.

Varsity won by nine. The game was close in the first half then we led comfortably almost the entire second half, although we could never stretch it out to blow out territory. We watched HCA lose by nearly 30 a week ago. I think if we had played zone like BCHS did against them, we would have won by more. But we don’t play zone much and I think our coaches were worried since HCA has shooters.

JV got a nice, 17-point win. After the game L announced in the locker room that this was probably her last game to sit out. She said everyone screamed and yelled. Now fingers crossed she gets cleared in a week. JV is 9–3, 7–1 without her, so I joked that maybe they don’t want her back.

Varsity is 6–6. They have a tournament this coming weekend; JV is off until January 8.

KU Hoops

After a sluggish start the Jayhawks got their shit together in the second half and pounded Brown by 34. Not the 70 or 58 point wins the first two times these programs played. But still solid. Eight days until Big 12 play begins. More about the state of the team later.

Colts/Pacers

Both local teams get nice wins Sunday. I only saw part of the Colts game. Fortunately it was the good part.

And don’t look now but the Pacers have won four-straight and five-of-six after blasting Sacramento last night. I had to run to get L from a friends and in about eight minutes of game time the Pacers grew their lead from 12 to 29 at one point. They were cooking! The toughest part of this toughest stretch of the year is still to come, but the team is getting healthy and starting to play much better.

Rickey

The biggest news of the weekend was the death of Rickey Henderson, one of the greatest players in the history of Major League Baseball. He, Jim Rice, and George Brett were my holy trinity of favorite players when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure in my big box of baseball cards in the basement I have whole sheets of his cards in an album, the highest praise from me in the early Eighties.

There was this weird spot in our backyard where someone had let a fishing boat sit upside-down for years so grass didn’t grow, basically turning it into a dirt pit. I used it to practice diving back to first base, as if a pitcher was trying to pick me off, imagining I was Rickey.[1]

There genuinely was no one ever like Rickey with his combination of speed, power, and on-base ability. He along with Bo Jackson were the type of players you had to see to believe, and even then you didn’t fully trust your eyes. He ruffled all kinds of feathers amongst older fans, but for kids of my generation, he was about as cool as it got.

For years there were all kinds of crazy stories about his eccentricities. Later we learned that he was one of the kindest men in the game, someone who remembered where he came from and made sure to take care of those who made his life easier.

Mike Piazza shared this great story of how Rickey responded when voting on playoff shares one year:

“[He] was the most generous guy I ever played with, and whenever the discussion came around to what we should give one of the fringe people — whether it was a minor leaguer who came up for a few days or the parking lot attendant — Rickey would shout out “Full Share!” We’d argue for a while, and he’d say, “F— that! You can change somebody’s life.”

RIP to one of the greatest.

Not sure what the blog schedule will be for the rest of the week. My Favorite Songs list isn’t quite ready, so I may hold onto it until next week. I may share some links but otherwise this may be it for a few days. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

  1. Remember, I was a geeky, sports-obsessed, only child.  ↩
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