D's Notebook

Tag: Kansas Jayhawks (Page 1 of 38)

Weekend Notes

December 16, 2024 /

A slightly quieter weekend. No sitting on the couch for 183 hours watching football. I actually got out of the house both days. Multiple times! Let’s review.

College Girls

I’ll share the biggest, best news up top: C got her acceptance letter from IU on Thursday. That’s the only school she’s really interested in, so I think she’s locked into being a Hoosier.[1] She’s pretty excited. Coincidentally she wore an IU shirt to school Thursday. It’s like she knew the letter was coming.

She found out a full month later than M did two years ago; apparently IU did rolling acceptances two years ago based on when you got your application in and switched to letting most early admission candidates know on the same set of days this year. We kind of wish they had waited another seven days so we can keep C focused for finals this week. Nothing to sap a kid’s motivation like telling her she’s been accepted to the college she wants to attend.

C and L have a review day today, three full days of finals, then a half day on Friday before they begin their holiday break.

M wrapped up her finals Thursday morning and was home by early afternoon. Seems like it was a good semester. Financial accounting was not her bag – is it anyone’s? – and that will be the first B on her college transcript. But she’s in marketing, not the CPA path, so surviving and advancing is the real goal with that class.

HS Hoops

We spent 3+ hours at CHS watching ball Saturday, so I’ll start with a review of last week’s three games.

Tuesday we traveled to ZHS, a big suburban school that tends to be good. Last year they beat us by 19 but we knew they are very young this year. We took advantage, winning by 20 in a game that was not that close. We hit shots, played good D, and made hustle plays. JV also won by 20. A good night.

Thursday we played a fellow Catholic school from the suburbs. We expected them to be trash. They were. Yet we only won by 20. A classic example of playing down to our competition’s level. Seriously, their varsity looked like a JV team, at least on offense. They were a scrappy team on defense but were just atrocious when trying to score. Each time we’d get the lead up to 20 or so, we’d go brain dead and let them cut 8–10 points off the deficit. JV also won easily.

The most exciting part of this night was driving to the game in an evening snow storm. There wasn’t much snow, but it was cold enough that the roads slicked-up quick. Throw in rush hour traffic and it took us 50 minutes to make what would normally have been a 20–22 minute trip. The only time we slipped or slid was pulling into the GCHS parking lot.

Finally, Saturday we took on undefeated #6 2A team EH. They went to Semistate the past two seasons but lost a ton of seniors from last year. We knew they have a truly great guard, but if we could contain her and limit the rest of the team, we’d have a good chance to win.

Until one of our two best players didn’t show up because she was sick. And we decided to let their best player go ahead and score 35. We had to put a JV girl on her for a couple stretches because of the missing player plus foul trouble. We kept digging holes and trying to climb out but let it get out of hand in the second half. The margin got over 15 points a couple times, we ended up losing by 13. JV won by 50. We were kind of incredulous that their varsity can be so good and JV so bad.

Roughly halfway through the season varsity is 5–6. JV is 9–2.

It is finals week so we don’t play again until Saturday.

Friday night L and I went to watch her middle school buddy play for our big rival school. Coincidentally they played the team we face this coming week, so it was a scouting trip, too. L proudly wore her CHS sweatshirt and left her coat in the car. I admired her confidence. There are tons of St P’s families at BCHS, so we got to see a lot of old friends.

Her buddy didn’t play much or very well, which was a bummer. L took mental notes on both teams to share with her coach.

We let her drop her crutches on Saturday. She’s not officially cleared but we also let her go over to the Y and shoot a little without her boot on Sunday afternoon. She said she lost her jump shot. I kept to myself that she didn’t have much of one before she got hurt.

There’s still some pain in her foot, but not like it was before the resting began. Two more weeks in the boot before she gets re-evaluated. Knock on wood, between some more rest, shoe inserts, and tape she’ll be cleared to play in our January 8 game, and then in the City Tournament the next week.

KU Hoops

Well that was better.

Bill Self compared North Carolina State to Missouri in terms of their physical abilities and style of play. I didn’t see much of that Saturday, although maybe it was a representation of the difference in playing at home vs on the road.

Naturally, most of the game took place at the same time as the CHS games, so I was following along and just made it home in time to see the final minutes, then watched the recording.

It is kind of crazy that KU has now beat NC State 13 straight times. That doesn’t seem possible in a non-conference matchup between two power conference teams.

Colts

I only saw the first half, as we went out to dinner Sunday evening. When we got home and I checked the highlights, I was pleased that I missed the second half. What a horrific effort that was! Jonathan Taylor fumbling a touchdown for a touchback for no reason. A completely idiotic trick play that turned into a pick-six for the Broncos. I remain in the You Have To Play Anthony Richardson camp. But days like yesterday make that a very tough place to be. He misses soooooo many throws, often the easiest ones, often badly. I’ve said it multiple times and I’ll say it again: even when he makes a good throw, there’s something about his ball that makes it very difficult to catch. I saw a couple in the first half yesterday that were relatively well-placed and for whatever reason the receivers just couldn’t bring them in. Maybe they’re surprised when the ball actually gets to them?

I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the city, but I gather a lot of impatience with the direction of the franchise. 2023 seemed like a great year to be drafting a quarterback. In retrospect, the Colts may have been smarter to draft a non-QB a year ago, tank last season with a fill-in, and then grab a QB in this year’s draft. As with just about everything else they’ve done since Andrew Luck retired, the Colts managed to mess that up, though.

Pacers

On a bit of an upturn? They’ve looked better over the past week and won three-of-four. Their next nine games are brutal though – at Phoenix, at Sacramento, at Golden State, OKC at home, back-to-backs at Boston, Milwaukee at home, at Miami, and Phoenix at home. Is 3–6 a best-case scenario?

  1. Cincinnati is the only other school she applied to.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 9, 2024 /

Well, a lot to get caught up on. Not thrilled about all of it…

College Football

I spent the better part of 11 hours on the couch watching the big conference title games Saturday. Literally. I know I got up to eat dinner. Obviously a few restroom runs. Maybe I ran out to get the mail? Those were momentary breaks, though, and I spent the better part of noon-to–11 PM with my ass firmly planted in the same spot.

Arizona State hammering Iowa State was a surprise. That seemed like a very even game to me on paper going in. I’m not sure ASU is a team you would want to play if you were Texas or Clemson. They have some magic to them, like a six seed that goes on a deep run in March. It would somehow be appropriate if ASU raced through the playoff and pulled off the massive upset to win, since college football is now much more like college basketball. At least in the postseason. Also a reminder that Kansas took the lead on ASU with 2:04 left and gave up the winning score with 16 seconds remaining in October. Gah…

Georgia pulling the mild upset and knocking off Texas wasn’t a huge surprise. The game was in Atlanta and Kirby Smart clearly has Texas’ number. However, Texas not being able to get the win despite the Bulldogs playing with a backup quarterback for a half is concerning if you’re a Longhorns fan. The good news for Texas is they wouldn’t have to play Georgia for a third time until the national championship game. And with Carson Beck’s health in question, I wouldn’t put big money on the Dawgs getting there.

The nightcap was the Big 10 game, with a sprinkle of the ACC game late. I really thought Oregon would smack Penn State around. PSU is great against everyone except the elite teams, and the Ducks are elite, sooooo… Early on it looked like that would be the case. But props to PSU for fighting back and making it a game. The Ducks still look like the best team in the country. Which, of course, means nothing now.

Seeing Clemson was up big early I totally forgot about the ACC game. I did switch over to see SMU tie it then Clemson kick that huge-ass field goal to clinch their spot in the playoff.

As for the playoff itself, I don’t have huge problems with how it worked out. I found it interesting that Saturday evening, as Clemson seemed poised to steal a spot, every announcer I heard suggested that was good for Alabama. Which I 1000% did not understand. I guess they assumed SMU would get completely bounced? So I was super glad that Bama was the team that Clemson pushed out of the final bracket. Not that I like Clemson, but at least they earned their way in and didn’t get destroyed by the 13th place school in their conference.

IU having to go to South Bend was super predictable. All year I’ve been hoping it would be some southern team that had to go into South Bend and deal with cold and maybe snow in the first round. Instead it’s another team from the same state. Not very imaginative, CFP committee!

I have a hard time seeing any of the road teams getting a win in round one, although IU might have the best chance.

Assuming chalk holds in the first round, we get an Ohio State – Oregon rematch. Their first meeting seems like a long time ago, and OSU damn near won in Eugene. Now they seem a little Team Turmoil-ish so the gap feels wider than it probably is. Penn State – Boise State is super intriguing, mostly because we don’t know much about BSU. Other than they also played Oregon close early in the season.

It feels like the champion comes out of the top half of the bracket, meaning either Oregon, Texas, or Ohio State. If you tell me Beck is 100% healthy, Georgia is as good as anyone. Even if he somehow, miraculously heals, I still don’t trust him. I doubt UGa fans do, either.

Now we get two weeks of discussions about how the format and method of picking teams should be tweaked for next year. I’m already exhausted.

KU Hoops

Speaking of exhausted, this may have been the worst regular season week in recent KU basketball history.

Going to Creighton and losing by 13, in a game that wasn’t that close, was bad enough. Worse was that half the Bluejays were sick or playing at less than 100% because of injury. Insult to injury is that Pops Isaacs, who dropped 27 on KU, was declared out for the season three days later. Apparently he scored so many points he re-aggravated an injury he had surgery for over the summer and now has to have a second surgery.

Then a whole level of worseness worse than that was basically not showing up Sunday in Columbia and losing to Missouri. Well, I guess we made a run and got a 20-point deficit down to two late, but that came long after I bailed on the game and spent the lovely afternoon outside doing a final round of fall yard work. Let me tell you, ripping a bunch of shit out of the ground by hand does wonders for eliminating anger and angst caused by sports!

What was super concerning to me about both these games was that KU seemed disinterested, slow, unsure of themselves, and soft. Both Creighton and Mizzou were engaged, hustled, confident, and tough. If there was a loose ball in either game, there was about a 5% chance KU was getting it. The offense seems disjointed. The defense half-assed and tentative. The guys brought in to solve KU’s shooting woes suddenly can’t hit anything. Hunter Dickinson seems like a different, worse, player than a year ago.

Now, this is the same team that beat North Carolina, Michigan State, and Duke. Which seems amazing at the moment. There was a lot of anger in the various threads I’m in after Sunday’s game, calling out coaches and players. In the NIL era, there’s way less benefit of the doubt for players we know are making six figures.

There’s a part of me that wonders/hopes that maybe some horrible virus ripped through the team last week, and that explains how lifeless they looked. A friend suggested perhaps they were worn out after an intense slate of games in November.

Still, you can’t get up for the Missouri game, something is wrong with you. Maybe it’s too many transfers who don’t understand the meaning of that game. But Mizzou has a bunch of transfers, too, and they seemed engaged. Of course, two of their transfers are KC kids so they were well aware of the history wrapped up when those schools get together. Bill Self needs to get Christian Braun on the phone to explain the rivalry next year.

I’m going to assume playing time is going to change in the coming weeks. There will be more focus on the 5–6–7 guys who put in effort and do what Bill Self wants them to do and less emphasis on playing nine or ten each night. Again, NIL era. You’re getting paid to play. If you can’t perform, you don’t deserve the opportunity.

I wonder if there will also be tweaks to the offense. Dickinson needs to stay in the low post, or at least start there. Having him roam the perimeter to set screens then post when there are 10 seconds left on the shot clock is not working and bogs everything down. Especially since he can’t attack the rim after setting a screen because he’s so big and slow. Play inside out, which focuses on his strengths: low post scoring and passing. He in particular has taken a lot of heat from the fans. Mostly justified as he’s not playing as well as he did this time last year. But the team is kind of built around him and his skills, so might as well go all-in with the HD experience, flaws and all.

KU should be fine. The shooters are too good to keep shooting this poorly. The new guys who get minutes will continue to get acclimated and some wrinkles will be smoothed out. Self will figure out a way to hide weakness and play to strengths.

That doesn’t make the aftertaste of the past week any less bitter, though.

Pacers

They’ve lost five of their last six. Their defense is truly atrocious. The only positives are that Tyrese Haliburton has shown signs of life, although he was not great last night, and Johnny Furphy has been getting minutes and playing relatively well.

HS Hoops

One game last week, Tuesday night against BD, which entered the game 1–5. We were missing two varsity starters due to injury. Over the course of the game we lost another starter who got hurt. We had three girls in foul trouble. At one point we had two JV girls and another one who is basically the last girl on the regular varsity bench playing at the same time. In the fourth quarter. Of a close game. Things were dicey. Had L been healthy, she probably would have been on the court a lot.

We were down one at the half, built a seven-point lead, then gave it all back and trailed by one going into the fourth quarter. That period was back-and-forth, but we had the ball, tied, with 16 seconds left and inbounding under our own basket. Despite having two timeouts, we didn’t get the ball in. Naturally BD went down and scored with 1.6 seconds left. A lot of dumbness.

I chose to look at the positive: despite three major injuries and foul issues, we scored 60 points. Last year we only scored 60 points twice, one of those in a double overtime game. If we could just tighten a few things up on both offense and defense, this team could be really solid. The loss dropped us to 3–5.

JV won by 20, which was cool.

This week is a tough one. Three games. No idea how many of our injured girls will be available. We play a decent 4A team, a 3A Catholic rival with a better record but who is 40-ish spots below us in the computer rankings, and the undefeated #6 2A team that beat us last year.

So KU is a mess, the Pacers are a bigger mess, and L is injured watching her teammates from the sidelines. Not the most fun week of basketball in our house.

KU Football

KU fans got an early Christmas present when Wisconsin hired offensive co-ordinator Jeff Grimes. I don’t think all the problems with this year’s offense were on him – I mentioned often that Jalon Daniels still appeared to be injured early in the year – but it took him way too long to figure out how to mesh with a team that returned almost everyone on offense. He also made a number of bizarre calls. No one was sad to see him leave.

Jim Zebrowski takes over as new OC. He coached under Andy Kotelnicki. He was also the acting OC in the bowl game last year, when KU was unstoppable. I approve.

Defensive coordinator Brian Borland also retired, to the surprise of few. He had been rumored to be close to calling it quits for a couple years. Not sure if that meant he was half-assing it and helps explain some of KU’s defensive issues, but it will be good to get someone new blood in charge. Lance Leipold also stayed in-house here, elevating D.K. McDonald. I don’t know much about McDonald, so not sure what to think.

There was a lot of chatter about Texas A&M co-DC Jordan Peterson being a target. Peterson had coached at KU for four years and was responsible for recruiting several of KU’s best players, including DJ Warner, the highest rated recruit in school history who announced he was entering the portal last week. McDonald got the job so quickly I don’t know if that meant overtures were made to Peterson and he declined, or Leipold was just more comfortable going with McDonald.

Both new coordinators will need to hit the portal hard to fill a lot of holes left by graduating seniors.

And in news that received decidedly mixed reaction, Daniels announced that he would return for his final year of eligibility. Two years ago he was the savior of the program. Now a lot of people would rather roll with a freshman next year. Most of that is because Daniels has never had a full, healthy season at KU. There’s not much reason to expect he will be healthy for 12 games next year. Aside from health concerns, maybe having Zebrowski in charge of the offense will be better for JD’s game.

I was excited about Isaiah Marshall potentially starting next year. Now I’m hoping he is patient enough to get a few spot starts in ’25 when JD is hurt and then be ready to take over as a sophomore in ’26.

Jayhawk Talk

December 3, 2024 /

A few thoughts about how the Jayhawks fared Thanksgiving week.

Hoops

A good week. A very good week. With one exception.

First, taking care of Duke in Las Vegas was a nice way to wrap up the first part of the season. KJ Adams basically shut down super phenom Cooper Flag for three-quarters of the night. I loved how the KU coaches made sure to stress it would be a group effort rather than KJ vs Cooper so KJ didn’t get in his own head about the matchup before the game. I was worried he would get called for three touch fouls before halftime and that would ruin KU’s strategy. Happily he was just tagged with one touch foul and was able to stay on the court.

Even happier, KU came out red hot and built a big lead. Duke made a run, KU matched it.

And then came the big negative of the night. After being undercut while making a rebound, Hunter Dickinson was tagged with a flagrant 2 foul and ejection for kicking Maliq Brown in the face.

He definitely kicked with intent. So, by the letter of the law the flagrant 2 was deserved.

But, he was just undercut and nearly flipped while falling, and the Duke player’s feet were in his face when he landed. Seems like a flagrant 1 because of circumstance. But he is Hunter Dickinson, the opponent was Duke, so of course it was a flagrant 2. Really looking forward to Fran Fraschilla referencing this play 87 times the rest of the year.

KU was up by two, I believe, at the time of the ejection. Flory Bidunga had not played well earlier in the game, and a friend of mine had texted about three minutes earlier that we wouldn’t see him again after he made a huge defensive error.

So it was not looking good.

Duke immediately took the lead and it felt like an L was coming.

But Flory played well. The rest of the team buckled down. Adams, DaJuan Harris, and Rylan Griffen made some huge shots and defensive stops, and the Jayhawks escaped with a nice win.

I think Bill Self loved all of this. He got a reason to scream at Dickinson and point out how his stupidity nearly cost KU the game. The rest of the team stepped up when everything seemed to be stacked against them. That was a tough win, even if Duke isn’t playing at nearly the level they will be later in the season.

Same can be said, hopefully, for the Jayhawks.

Saturday they added a nice win against a solid Furman team. I missed all of this game while watching high school ball.

Also a bummer that Shakeel Moore is continuing to struggle with his recovery from foot surgery. He’s played maybe 10 combined minutes in two games and seems to be out indefinitely once again. I’m not sure he’s a true difference maker, but he was the only pure point guard who can backup Harris and he’s a plus defender. There is some question about whether a medical redshirt is an option, so it seems like the plan is to let him sit until his foot heals and then attempt to work him in. Not sure if we should expect anything from him at this point.

Football

Well, I called it.

After three straight wins over ranked teams that put KU on the verge of bowl eligibility after a terrible start, they laid a big, fat egg against Baylor. This L was mostly on the defense. They had a couple nice plays early then seemed to make no effort, giving up big play after big play. Baylor definitely found some things to pick on, but once KU fell behind the effort went to shit.

The offense moved the ball, but Jalon Daniels tossed a couple bad interceptions after seeming to fix that issue. The Jayhawks also had a brutal fumble after a long completion.

It seemed like KU had exhausted their reservoir of good play against Colorado.

A disappointing end to a disappointing season. Change a couple plays here-and-there and the season could look very different. It is crazy to see how perspective changes over the course of a season. Back in August, KU had some of the best betting odds to make the Big 12 championship game and CFP, largely because of their schedule, which was perceived to be weak. They ended up playing the toughest conference schedule in the league. That should mitigate some of the frustration from this year: Arizona State and BYU were the good teams from their respective states, not Arizona and Utah.

Now KU loses a ton of players going into the 2025 season. The best running back in school history will be gone. Daniels could return, but is expected to leave. Cobee Bryant and Mello Dotson will be in the NFL next year. The three top receivers have exhausted their eligibility.

Next year will be a real test for Lance Leipold, as all of Les Miles’ recruits are gone. At first glance next year’s schedule seems to be tougher than this year’s. Leipold has done a decent job bringing in transfers to plug holes, but next year will be the first real test of how well his staff has recruited. Pretty much every skill position, as of now, will be filled by someone they recruited out of high school, most of them underclassmen. We’ll see if they’re ready.

It also seems like OC Jeff Grimes is safe. Maybe he’ll mesh better/earlier with Isaiah Marshall, Cole Ballard, or whoever starts for KU at quarterback next year than he did with Daniels. There are already rumors that there will be a change at defensive coordinator. KU’s D certainly took a step back this year. I’m not smart enough to know if it was because of scheme, depth, or just the lack of pass rush that put everyone else in a hole as soon as the ball was snapped. I know DC is a brutal job these days. It just didn’t seem like the KU defense made adjustments, or of they did they were almost always the wrong ones. Time for a new voice on that side of the ball.

Weekend Notes

November 25, 2024 /

The last weekend update before we dive neck-deep into the holiday season.

KU Football

How ‘bout them Jayhawks?!?!?! Taking the Colorado Buffaloes out to the woodshed on the sturdy legs of Devin Neal. There could not have been a more appropriate day for #4 to go off than the 33rd anniversary of Tony Sands’ record-breaking performance. It was even sweeter after Buffaloes “senior quality control analyst” Warren Sapp trashed pretty much everything about KU in a video he posted last week. Zero respect for Neal or Jalon Daniels or any other Jayhawk. Yet, aside from a couple big plays by Travis Hunter, which will happen no matter what you do, the Jayhawks completely dominated that game.

As was trumpeted often during and after the game, KU became the first school in the entire history of college football to beat three consecutive ranked teams while having a losing record. That’s kind of an odd piece of trivia, since it suggests that you likely either had a hugely disappointing start to the season, had a series of injuries to important players who eventually returned, a lot of bad luck, or a combination of all that. I think option D applies to KU. Regardless, crazy that they are a win away from becoming bowl eligible. Just little, ol’ Baylor stands in the way, which should be easy after going to Provo and beating BYU a week ago, right?

For the record, after the BYU win I told two KU buddies – who both have kids at Baylor – that we were going to beat Colorado then likely blow it in Waco. Going to hate it if I nailed both sides of that prediction.

Once again, major props to the KU coaches and players for hanging in there through all the heartbreak and negatives of the first half of the season and rebounding to become the team we expected back in August. If only they had jumped on that fumble against UNLV, or got one stop against West Virginia or Arizona State, or hung on to the touchdown against K-State…

Oh, and what an amazing day from Devin Neal! I was at that Tony Sands game and remember how KU basically ran the same play over-and-over in the second half and Missouri couldn’t do a thing about it. That’s what happened to Colorado Saturday. Devin put the game on his shoulders and made sure there was no way the Jayhawks were going to lose it. A great final home game for a great, great Jayhawk. Truly one of the greatest ever.

IU

Welp, saw that coming a mile away.

I was kind of in the middle on IU. Yes, they hadn’t played anyone good. Or, better said, they hadn’t played a team that was playing well this year. Michigan and Washington both look like great wins in the media guide. But both teams are also thoroughly mediocre this year. However, IU had also 100% been killing everyone they played other than Michigan. Most notably, they crushed Nebraska a week after the Huskers almost won on the road at Ohio State.

They reminded me a little of the 2007 Jayhawks, who had some great media guide wins (at KSU, at CU, at A&M, at Oklahoma State) but had the immense bad luck of all those teams being down that season. When the Jayhawks got to 11–0 before the Mizzou game, there was a lot of national debate about how good KU truly was.

So I sympathized with IU fans this past week, as so many national writers wrote them off before they had the chance to prove themselves against OSU.

I was always pro-big playoff. As we approach the first 12-team football bracket, I’m re-thinking that stance. It sure seems like it’s going to be the SEC Invitational with Special Guest the Big Ten. Create these giant conferences where only a truly elite team can get through with one or zero losses, then tout the strength of your league as defense for teams losing three games but still deserving a crack at the national title. The politicking is already exhausting.

Is IU one of the eight best teams in the country after the four bye teams? I think so. They might be 11th or 12th, but they’re in there. With one exception they’ve beaten everyone on their schedule, which is all you can ask for.

I think there needs to be room in this expanded system for teams like IU, or ’07 KU, traditional doormats who come out of nowhere with a miracle season. I keep hearing analysts give Alabama, etc. credit for the history of their program. Which is asinine. All that should matter is this year. But if we’re going to the history books to determine this year’s playoff, the teams that have never been there before deserve a boost. Curt Cignetti has done wonders in Bloomington. Honestly, though, this might be the Hoosiers only shot to ever make the playoff. Reward that over a team that is always in the playoffs.

That said, Alabama would probably kill IU. That’s not the point, though.

Determining a division one college football champion has always been an imperfect system. Expanding to a 12-team playoff doesn’t really fix anything the issues that have been there for over 100 years. It will turn the game into more of a mirror of college hoops, where the best team usually does not win the title but rather the team that gets hot for three weeks. And the ultimate benefactors will be the powers that have dominated the game in the modern era, the Bamas, the Georgias, the Ohio States rather than even the second-tier teams in their own conferences.

Colts

Sunday was, maybe, the last nice day of the year here, so S and I did a lot of stuff in and around the house while we had a chance. Thus I only kept a partial eye on the Colts. Losing to the Lions was expected. Anthony Richardson seemed to regress a bit, with several wild-ass throws that had no chance to be caught. But, again, his receivers gave him little help and the offensive line was truly offensive.

Even if Richardson, miraculously, figures some things out between now and next season, this team feels a long way from being a legit contender in the AFC. Too many holes on both sides of the ball, holes that a franchise that doesn’t traditionally go crazy in the free agent market will struggle to fill. Unless Crazy Jim Irsay thinks the end is near and starts spending like a fool.

Pacers

Oh yeah, the Pacers are definitely a mess, too. Fortunately the Sixers are a bigger mess so Indiana is not getting as much national attention for how far they’ve fallen from last spring’s playoff form.

I listen to a bunch of NBA podcasts. I laugh at how, each time the Pacers come up, attention turns to Tyrese Haliburton and how his game has fallen apart. Then, as almost an afterthought, the hosts will close the segment by muttering, “Maybe he’s hurt…”

I legit don’t get why this is in question. He doesn’t move or shoot the way he did last year. Every time he checks out of the game, trainers strap a huge pad to his back and then he sits on one of those giant seat pads like what Joel Embiid sits on. Whether it’s a strain, a pull, a disk issue, or something else, the Pacers and Hali won’t share. But unless/until his back heals, the Pacers have no chance. Even in the weak-as-hell Eastern Conference.

High School Hoops

One week down in L’s stress fracture absence. A couple of good games, both JV and varsity going 1–1.

Tuesday we played the #2 4A team in the state, HSE, a team that has three top 60 recruits. One is the senior who is going to IU next year that L got switched onto twice in summer ball to my great amusement, plus two juniors who have lots of D1 offers. Last year HSE beat us by 35 and returned basically their entire team.

Varsity played their asses off. They held the IU recruit, who was averaging over 30 points a game, to just 19. Which is huge since she’s 6’4” and our tallest girl is 5’11”. Fortunately she prefers to shoot 3’s and didn’t hit one. We trailed by about 15 in the third quarter before making a strong run. We cut the deficit down to four a couple times but just didn’t have the offensive game to make it closer. We ended up losing by 11 but our girls played really well. Our coach usually isn’t into moral victories but was super pleased.

JV lost a very sloppy game. L was convinced had she played the Irish would have won. I like her confidence but that might be stretching it.

Then Friday we played the #9 3A team in the state, JC, who beat us by 17 last year. Their best player from that team is now a freshman at Michigan State, but they return a junior who dropped 28 on us last year and almost single-handedly turned a tie game with 2:00 left into a JC win during a summer tournament game.

We rallied just before halftime to cut a nine-point deficit to six before blowing the game open in the second half. We out-scored them 20–2 in the third quarter, got the lead up to as much as 13 before holding off a few runs and eventually winning by 12. A great, great win for our girls. They have to be scrappy to beat people this year and were definitely that in the second half. The freshman who is the future star of the program had 18 points, five rebounds, and five steals. She runs hot and cold, in pretty much every way, and was the right combo of that most of the night.

JV had no real issues, other than a rough five minute stretch in the third quarter. They are 3–2, varsity 2–3.

This is a tough week, with games against two 4A schools that are both 3–1. However, we are ranked ahead of both of them in the all-class computer rankings, likely thanks to our strength of schedule. Our girls need to stay scrappy.

Weekend Notes

November 18, 2024 /

A Great Weekend To Be A Jayhawk

Saturday, specifically.

First, just before noon Eastern, Bryson Tiller, the #20 recruit in the current senior class, signed to play at KU next year. This was unexpected. KU had chased him hard, but earlier in the week his Overtime Elite teammate Samis Calderon had signed with KU. They are not exactly the same player, but have some overlapping skills and attributes. Most recruiting nerds thought this was an either/or situation. Apparently not.

Now KU has two long, bouncy, NBA-bodied big wings/inside players coming in to join Darryn Peterson, one of the top two or three players in the class. Even before whoever Bill Self adds in the transfer portal later this year, this is going to be one of the very best recruiting classes of his career. As Phog Allen once said, I hope they all try out for basketball when they arrive in Lawrence next year.

Later in the day, this year’s basketball Jayhawks had zero trouble with Oakland. Now this was not the same Oakland roster that beat Kentucky and took Final Four-bound North Carolina State to overtime last March. But they still play a funky style on both ends and are exactly the type of team KU has struggled with the last two years. No struggle at all Saturday evening. KU shot nearly 70% in the first half before cooling off. AJ Storr scored 10 points in about 45 seconds. Shakeel Moore made his debut and looked smooth and comfortable. A solid if unspectacular night.

Finally, to wrap up the day, the football Jayhawks went to Provo, Utah and knocked off the previously undefeated, #7 BYU Cougars. I’m not going to lie: I went to bed when the first quarter ended a little after 11:00 Eastern. If KU entered the game 7–2 or 6–3, I probably would have toughed it out. Or at least tried to. But at 3–6 and having gotten up at 6:00 AM to get L to practice, I was not feeling it. Especially against an undefeated, top ten team.

Shows what I know.

Hey, KU FINALLY GOT A BREAK THIS YEAR! Jalon Daniels’ quick-kick bouncing off two Cougars right to Quentin Skinner to set up the winning score was exactly the kind of flukey play that had gone against the Jayhawks all year. Hell, I’m convinced if that UNLV fumble on their final drive hadn’t bounced off six Jayhawks before the Rebels recovered it, KU would be at least 7–3 right now.

Speaking of that, super props to the coaching staff and players for sticking together. With the K-State loss three weeks ago and a bye week the next, it would have been easy for a lot of dudes to check out for the season. Instead they went out and beat ranked opponents in back-to-back weeks for the first time in school history. Which seems like an impossible thing to not have done in the first 134 years of Kansas football. Anything is always possible at KU, though.

Rock Chalk, bitches.

Colts

It was not pretty, but the Colts got a big win Sunday in New York with Anthony Richardson back behind center. The defense was incredible in the first 29 minutes of the game, forcing the Jets to go three-and-out on their first five possessions. Then they eased up in the final minute of the first half and let the Jets score to cut the Colts’ lead to just 13–7. I was driving at this time and laughed out loud when Colts radio analyst Rick Venturi kind of lost his mind on the scoring play. I’m paraphrasing here but it went something like:

No. No. NO! NO!!!!! (Long pause) Soft ass defense…

I loved it. Because it was true.

The Jets scoring to take the lead quickly after halftime was super predictable.

Guess what? The Colts made some huge plays late, especially Richardson. After taking the lead the defense shut down Aaron Rodgers one last time to seal the win.

All that said, it was another maddening game to watch. The defense was insanely good at times, totally inept at others. The offensive line, which has been erratic all year, was simply terrible Sunday. Richardson played about as consistently well as he’s ever played. It was smart to put him back in. Now let him play out the season.

Pacers

Hammered by Miami in the Emirates Cup Friday. Controlled almost the entire game in getting a revenge, normal win against the Heat on Sunday. That’s how things go in the NBA.

Body Stuff

I had a terrible, random back pain Sunday morning. Like out of nowhere. I was just standing there, not holding anything or twisting or lifting, when suddenly I had this horrible, crippling pain. I had to stagger over to a rug and slowly fall onto my side then roll onto my back. I could barely breathe or even make pained noises it hurt so bad. I’ve had back spasms before but this was waaaaay worse than any of those. After about five minutes it disappeared. I think it may have actually been a cramp rather than a spasm. But I had a big knot in my back the rest of the day. It is still sore this morning. Not fun.

Speaking of not fun, I took L to see the sports medicine doc this morning. I’ll share more about that tomorrow.

Weekend Notes

November 11, 2024 /

A busy weekend with more driving than normal, some big events I was not able to watch live, and the standard wide range of topics to discuss.

High School Hoops

L’s sophomore season kicked off Friday with a trip 90 minutes north to play Norwell, class 3A runners up last year. We played their varsity over the summer in a close, fun game we closed with a big run to win. NHS lost several seniors from a year ago, but are traditionally a very good program with a strong youth program, so we figured this would be a tough night.

JV was a disaster. It looked like our girls had never faced a trapping defense before. We trailed 17–8 after one quarter and that was as close as the game got. We scored one in the second quarter, four in the third, and three in the fourth to lose 58–16. L played most of the first three quarters, scoring just two on 1–4 from the field. As a bonus she had to run off the court and throw up in the second quarter. We’re hoping it was just something she ate before the game and not her body still trying to get the mono out of her system. We let a freshman score 22 on us. She was good, but she was not 22 points in a JV game good.

The dad I was sitting with and I guessed we had between 20–25 turnovers in the first half. L later confirmed that they turned it over 23 times in those 14 minutes, 50 for the entire game. That’s what happens when JV just serves as a scout team in practice.

Varsity was a little better. Our girls had an early lead then gave up a 30–10 run, but trailed by just 10 at halftime. Then they gave up nine-straight to open the second half and were in trouble. They made a great rally in the fourth quarter and cut it to four a couple times, but never got closer and lost by eight. We sat by some very nice Norwell people, which was a bonus.

L was officially on the varsity roster, but did not suit up for that game. She definitely had a lot of work to do to climb into that rotation. Two games this week.

HS Football

While L and her teammates were in action up near Ft. Wayne, CHS was playing #1 Lawrence North for the sectional football championship. None of us could not get a good signal in the gym, so could only get updates when someone ran outside for a few seconds. CHS threw a pick six early and trailed 7–0 at halftime. The CHS defense had three interceptions of their own in the first half but the offense could not turn them into points. The game got away from the Irish in the second half and they lost 24–7, ending their season at 6–4. It was their first loss in a sectional game in the five years they’ve played in 6A. If they lose in sectionals again next year I believe they’ll move down to 5A for L’s senior year. Unless the IHSAA changes the rules again to keep CHS from dropping a class.

KU Hoops

Also at the same time as L’s game was the big North Carolina – Kansas game in Lawrence.

College basketball on Friday nights is dumb. I know, I know, Saturdays and Sundays are for football this time of year. Doesn’t make this scheduling any dumber. Move this to December when weekend slots are a little easier to find. Still, you can’t criticize the schools too much since they agreed to play a home-and-home series rather than drop this in an NBA arena or attach it to some kind of special event on a neutral court. KU just finished with IU. They start a series this year with Duke that has two neutral court games and two on campus. Bill Self continues to check boxes on places he wants to take the Jayhawks in the final act of his career.

Try as I might, I could not get any score updates on my phone, although the occasional text from a friend came through. The other KU dad on the team got a running score update from Google, so we saw that KU jumped out to a big lead then blew it all after halftime. Just as the varsity game ended his wife was somehow able to get ESPN to stream on her phone, so we watched the last 90 seconds of KU’s win. We both felt a little bad about being pumped about the win while our girls were hanging their heads about their losses.

I watched the recording of the game Sunday and was pretty pleased. A great start from a super-balanced team. Obviously taking the foot off the gas in the second half was not good. It was like they just stopped playing defense. Zeke Mayo belongs at this level. Hunter Dickinson needs to get his stamina back. If Flory sticks around a few years he might be the best rebounder of the Self era. I like all the options this team has, and they should get better playing together as they get more comfortable.

I have a few broader thoughts about the team, but seems better to save those until I’ve seen them in a real game a few more times.

Hey, guess when KU plays next? Tuesday night at 6:30 Eastern. Guess what high school team will be playing at the same time again? I’m not enthused about how the schedules are lining up this season. At least we can get a signal in the CHS game so I can keep one eye on the Jayhawks vs Irish grad Xavier Booker.

Dude’s Day

L and I got home around 11:00 Friday night. I stayed up a little bit to have a snack, talk to S a little, then make sure my car was charging before setting my alarm for 7:00 AM and going to bed. Saturday was M’s sorority’s “Dude’s Day” and I needed to be back on the road around 8:00.

Why “Dude’s Day?” Because kids these days want to be inclusive and make the event open for any relatives who aren’t biological dads who join in the fun. That said, I think I only met actual dads.

Anyway, I got to campus around 10:00. M introduced me to a bunch of sisters and their dads, we ate some food, then she asked me if I wanted to go to a frat party. It would be dumb not to, right? She also told me the young man she’s been spending time with would be there and he was “excited to meet you!” Oh boy.

I’m not drinking much these days, for a few reasons. So I wasn’t looking to get smashed with my daughter or anything. Fortunately for me M admitted on the way to the party that she was hungover from the night before and didn’t feel like drinking. Made the day cheaper/easier for me!

Anyway, we got to this party and hung around for an hour or so. Her best buddy from St P’s/CHS found us. Unlike M she was drinking and was very excited to see me, which was funny. And I got to meet M’s young man friend. He was nervous and goofy. As long as he treats M well it’s all good.

We did not have tickets to the football game (UC was playing West Virginia) so we went to a restaurant/bar to watch and eat. I have one friend who lives in Cincinnati, O-Dog that some of you know. Guess whose daughter gave us the table as she and her friends headed to the game? Small world.

We spent an hour or so there before the group split up. It seemed like a lot of girls were hung over and some of them needed naps. M and I moved outside where we hung with some more of her sisters and dads for another hour or so. The apartment she will live in the next two years is a couple blocks away, so we cruised by it when we left. We ended up going downtown to walk around a bit and enjoy the nice day.

We met up with one of her roommates and her dad for dinner at this fun sushi place right off campus. For some reason the sushi is always half price. It even says that on the menu, “All sushi is always half off.” I’m not sure what the angle there is, but I like it. I spent just $25 on a sushi dinner for two! And the sushi wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.

I walked M back to her house and hopped into the car for the ride home, pulling into the garage at about 9:00. It was fun seeing M in her environment. I know she was excited to introduce me to her friends and the other dads. A couple of the dads were pretty cool so that was a bonus.

KU Football

Guess what I (mostly) missed while hanging with my daughter? The Jayhawks rolling over Iowa State in the game I had been dreading all year. I’ve only seen highlights so don’t know how much of Arrowhead was filled with ISU fans – the pics I saw showed the stadium was not very full of any fans, Clones or Jayhawks – but the important part was KU played extremely well on offense, made a couple big defensive plays, and finally got a few breaks. It was fun to get the updates as KU ran up the big lead early, then nervously watch as they bungled things a bit on the fourth quarter before Mello Dotson effectively ended things with a pick six as I walked to my car. Clearly the concerns about Jalen Daniels’ health early in the year were correct, as he has seemed more comfortable and like the old JD for the last month. If only he had been able to play like this in September and October…

Alas, we’ll have to settle for being the best 3–6 team in the country, with a visit to #9 BYU and #20 Colorado in KC the next two weeks.

Colts

Man, the Colts are a true disaster. Joe Flacco throws a pick six on his first pass of the game, before I could get the TV on after dropping L at practice. He throws another interception in the first quarter, and was lucky not to have thrown a third in the opening 15 minutes. Later he lost a fumble. The Colts dropped an easy touchdown pass. The defense made some nice plays then fell apart late. There’s just no consistency in this team. Shane Steichen seems committed to Flacco going forward, even with him looking terrible the past two weeks. There were boos aimed towards Flacco throughout the game Sunday. It makes no sense to stick with him, even if you have no faith that Anthony Richardson is the answer. At this point you play AR and allow him to try to figure things out while aiming for a high draft position next year to get some kind of impact player for a team that has very few of them.

Pacers

I also missed a Pacers loss to Charlotte Friday, but was able to watch them beat the Knicks Sunday despite being short five players. Tyrese Haliburton bounced back from his zero point, five assist performance against the Knicks two weeks ago with 35 points and 14 assists. Bennedict Mathurin scored a career-high 38. My man Johnny Furphy even got some first quarter minutes, although he did not score.

I am glad the Pacers only play the Knicks three times in the regular season. A truly maddening team to play against. I’ve said this before but it amazed me what those Villanova dudes got away with in college, between the constant bumps and shoves and not-so-subtle elbows the refs somehow always missed and then the constant bitching after every play as if they were the ones being pushed around. That they all still get away with it in the NBA is exponentially more maddening.

Other Shit

The weather is still unreasonably nice here. I probably wore shorts for the final time until spring break last week, although I’ve thought that a couple times and had to bust them out a few days later. Our lawn service is still coming, which is kind of crazy. Usually by now they have finished and I borrow my sister-in-law’s mower to do my one mow of the year to chop up any remaining leaves.

I’m obviously avoiding the biggest story of the past week. I don’t have the energy to get into it. I will just share that I took C to vote when she got home from school on Tuesday. S had voted the week before and waited nearly an hour. It took C and I longer to actually go through the ballot than to wait and get checked in. The lady running the door asked C if she was a first-time voter and everyone cheered for her when she said yes. Shame the day was all downhill from there.

Jayhawk Talk: Season Opener

November 5, 2024 /

It is finally here, the day we’ve all been waiting for.

That’s right, it’s time to start talking KU hoops again!

After another wild offseason filled with recruiting twists and turns,[1] the Jayhawks crushed poor Howard University by 30 Monday night. Howard is a good program and is picked to win their conference, although they have a roster full of grad-transfers and looked like a group of players who don’t know each other well yet. Last year KU would have slogged through this game, likely winning by 20 but not looking all that good in the process. Last night KU jumped all over the Bison early and while the defense faltered in the second half, never had those moments of “They’re not going to blow this, are they?” the team had last year.

The Jayhawks looked terrific. Especially given that they are without a defensive stud (Shakeel Moore), Hunter Dickinson is obviously playing his way back into form after missing a couple weeks with a sprained foot, the lineups are fluid, and the team is still trying to carve out an identity. They definitely look faster than they were a year ago. The ball was moving. It was so refreshing having multiple players on the court who were both willing to take a 3 and had the ability to hit them. Crazy how offense gets easier when the defense has to worry about guarding the 3-point line. My man Flory Bidunga might have set a record for most dunks in first game as a Jayhawk.

Surprisingly the defense was the highlight of the night. DaJuan Harris, knowing he doesn’t have to play 40 minutes a game, seemed to rediscover the intensity he played with his first two seasons on that end of the court. David Coit is probably going to get bullied in some games, but against Howard he used his quickness and tenacity to make life miserable for whoever he was guarding.

At first glance, this would appear to be Bill Self’s best ever transfer class. Zeke Mayo led the team in scoring last night. Rylan Griffen hit a couple shots, made some nice passes, played decent D. Coit might be the steal of the class. Moore should play significant minutes when he gets healthy. And AJ Storr, considered the gem of the class, looked more comfortable than he did in the exhibition games. I bet his performance is going to be up-and-down all season. If he figures it out, he could be the player that turns KU into an unstoppable force.

The most fascinating thing about this team to me is how Self put it together. Normally he recruits transfers as being the missing piece. That’s certainly how he sold Kevin McCullar on the program two years ago, and Dickinson last year. But this year the math is different. He wanted to get deeper, faster, and to bring in more shooters. I don’t think he told any of the transfers that they were the savior. Rather, he challenged them to come to KU, to improve their games while also integrating themselves into the deepest roster in the country, all with the goal of becoming the best team in the country in March rather than chasing stats to impress scouts. Each of those transfers will likely play fewer minutes and score fewer points than they did last year. Yes, the KU NIL money is nice. But so is having a chance to win the national championship, something only Griffen came close to when he helped Alabama get to the Final Four.

As a part of that, Self clearly has to change the way he manages the team. He’s always been a coach who tightened the roster as the season progressed. Unless a bunch of these guys start sucking, he can’t remove three of them from the rotation. I think we will see a lot of different lineups this year, with minutes varying game-to-game depending on how guys are playing and who the opponent is. Harris, Dickinson, and KJ Adams won’t be asked to stay on the court for 38 minutes because there is no one behind them.

I don’t think we will get to the point in February where, unless the team is in foul trouble, only eight guys are playing. Self asked the players to change to be a part of something bigger. I think/hope he made that same commitment.

It was one game against an over-matched opponent. We can’t read too much into it. Things get a lot realer Friday against North Carolina. And next week against Michigan State. And in three weeks against Duke. And then against Creighton. I’m guessing KU looks incredible in one of those games, totally out-of-sorts in one, and a mixture of those extremes in the others. The goal is to lessen that variance and have this team locked in when we get to March, when all that depth and experience will pay off.

  1. See the Riley Kugel saga, for example.  ↩

Sports (Mostly Hoops) Notes

October 31, 2024 /

A few sports thoughts, mostly about basketball.

KU Hoops

Much better performance Tuesday in the second exhibition contest against Washburn. Of course, they better have looked better against a D2 team. Hitting shots is always a good thing, and KU actually seems to have multiple shooters this year. They ran a little more of what you expect to see on the offensive end than they did against Arkansas. My man Flory Bidunga is going to really good, maybe as soon as next year.

Assuming Hunter Dickenson is 100% next week, the only thing this team seems to be lacking is an attacking wing who can finish. AJ Storr has that potential, but I haven’t seen it yet. Freshman Rakease Passmore definitely has that in his DNA, he just needs to learn how to apply it better. I think he is going to be one of those players who gets a little better every year and, suddenly, when he’s a senior, is an All Conference level performer.

I still need to do an accounting of KU’s crazy off-season. Maybe I’ll crank that out next week.

Pacers

It was far more nerve-wracking than it needed to be, but the Pacers got a big win over Boston last night. They had leads of both 24 and 21 points in the second half before completely falling apart and allowing the Celtics to force overtime. Pascal Siakam hit what felt like a season-saving 3 that clinched the win. 2–3 feels miles better than 1–4. Bennedict Mathurin also had an incredible game, scoring 30 off the bench. He might be making the leap, but I’m not sure he isn’t best suited to being the first reserve wing instead of moving back into the starting lineup.

Something is officially up with Tyrese Haliburton. His shot looks terrible. His defense is somehow worse than it was last year. There has to be a physical explanation.

High School Hoops

L’s new season is about to begin. CHS had a scrimmage last night against a pretty bad team. The Irish won the five-quarter event by a combined score somewhere in the range of 56–9. The score reset each quarter and I didn’t write each one down, so that’s a guess.

The coach hasn’t announced official rosters yet, but L did not get a varsity number on picture day. She was the tenth girl off the bench in the final varsity quarter last night, then played the first half of both JV quarters. She’s not super thrilled with how that worked out, but I think it’s the best thing for her long-term development. She needs to play to get better. That wouldn’t happen if she was #8 or #9 on varsity, just getting a few minutes here-and-there, often when someone ahead of her messed up and the coach needed to yell at them before sending them back onto the court.

We have two really good freshmen who jumped over L, and then one junior who has missed two years because of injuries is back and took another slot in the varsity rotation. That junior is still very rusty, and makes some bad mistakes at times. But she also has great instincts and made a couple incredible passes last night. L thinks she should be ahead of her, but I understand why the older girl got the nod.

We had a talk about how it was ok to be disappointed at not making the first varsity roster, and how she needed to use that as motivation to keep improving, to stay focused, and to show the coach that she made a mistake. The coach has also said she expects the rosters to be a lot more fluid this year than in the past, with the middle seven-or-so girls taking turns floating back-and-forth between JV and varsity depending on how they are playing, opponent, etc. It would have been really cool to make varsity as a sophomore out of preseason camp. She’ll still get her shot.

The good news is I think our JV will be better than last year. The top six are all sophomores who have played together a lot, really get along, and have fun while playing. Last night they were doing things like back-cutting defenders that they never did last year. Between the higher reps and a more fun JV experience, hopefully L gets over her initial disappointment and remembers this is a game that she only gets to play for three more years.

They start the regular season next Friday night. We have a terrible schedule in terms of travel this year, so I’ll be spending lots of time in the car the next three months.

Bonus Colts Content

I’m still a little surprised, but the Colts did it: they benched Anthony Richardson for Joe Flacco, with initial indications that it is not a temporary move.

As you would expect, the move has sent tongues wagging here in Indy. Richardson’s numbers have been truly terrible, and that is what the casual fan sees. Checking himself out of the game Sunday because he was gassed was the final straw.

But as Steven Ruiz showed on The Ringer, Richardson’s numbers aren’t as bad as they seem. He’s been extraordinarily unlucky in almost every measurable metric. Yes, he makes some really bad throws. But he also has the highest receiver drop rate in the league. I pointed out earlier this year that something about his passes seems hard to catch. The QB’s job is to put it on the receivers’ hands, though, and his are letting him down more than any other QB in the league. He also has the highest rate of being hit as he is throwing, and percentage of accurate passes defended.

Not all of that is statistical noise. Sometimes he takes too long to make a throw, thus the pressure. Sometimes he make passes that are on the money, but to a target that is covered and thus should not have been thrown.

The trap with a prospect like Richardson is that he HAS to play, no matter how bad the initial results are. He had limited reps in college, where he could physically overwhelm people and didn’t have to worry about doing the little things right. Adjusting to the NFL is difficult for almost every quarterback. It is even tougher when in addition to coping with the speed and skill level, more complex defenses, rules differences, etc., the prospect is also trying to learn the basics of the position.

The Colts have been on a treadmill of quarterback mediocrity since Andrew Luck retired. Drafting Richardson at #4 two years ago was a gamble on a once-in-a-generation physical talent turning into a long-term solution behind center. I totally get chasing a playoff run this year, especially when the roster is filled with guys in their primes who may not be around in three, four, five years if/when Richardson figures it out. But I’m also with Ruiz in that benching Richardson puts the bigger plan in jeopardy.

Bonus World Series Comment

I’m glad the Yankees lost. Especially in such a brutal fashion.

L and I stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings after her scrimmage last night to grab some food. For some reason despite there being a million TVs, we could barely see either the Pacers or World Series games. We could see, however, a TV that had MLB Network on, which was running its George Brett special. Right at the point when it covered the three straight losses to the Yankees in the ALCS. Hate that franchise.

Weekend Notes

October 28, 2024 /

These summaries are usually heavy on the sports. After a weekend like the one just passed, that is problematic. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, good happened for teams I follow over the past three days. Just a reminder that sports are terrible and I’m dumb for letting them hold such large sway over my life and mood. You people who waltz blissfully through your days without being affected by the result of a game have it right.

So, I’ll try to keep these brief.

KU Hoops Exhibition

No Hunter Dickinson, no Rylen Griffen, no Shak Moore. So you couldn’t expect too much facing a hungry Arkansas team in John Calipari’s first competitive appearance as the Hogs’ head coach. You know what, though? It would have been nice if the guys who did play didn’t, mostly, play like ass. If juniors and seniors weren’t totally out-played by freshmen and sophomores. If this more athletic lineup that could shoot actually looked athletic and hit some shots.

You can’t read too much into these exhibitions, especially when KU’s roster was limited and there was the added significance that this one had to the home crowd. And, honestly, I think Bill Self wanted the team to play poorly so he can show them how far they need to go. I guess we’ll find out in two weeks against North Carolina whether the message was received.

KU Football

Lucy + Charlie Brown = the KU football experience.

A dropped touchdown pass. Fielding a kickoff at the one yard line and stepping out of bounds, followed immediately by a safety and then a Kansas State touchdown thanks to a short field. A missed PAT. Not being able to get a first down in the closing moments, K-State kicking a long-ass field goal, then not being able to recognize/deal with the Wildcats blitzing on every down of KU’s final possession. Then, the saddest moment in recent KU football history: Jalon Daniels fumbling while valiantly-if-hopelessly scrambling to try to keep the game alive.

All of this was 100% predictable to anyone who has been a KU football fan for decades. In fact, we should start printing BINGO cards of random stupid shit just to track the impressive ways the Jayhawks find to blow games.

Of course what really sucks about all of this is Saturday’s game was right there to win. Change any two of those moments above, the Jayhawks break their 15-year losing streak to the Cats and maybe save their season. But it’s KU football and, well, you know…

That weird, winning percentage list of KU’s losses this year now shows that a team has a roughly one in 50,000 chance to go 0–6 based on the Jayhawks’ highest win probability moment in each game. Wild. And infuriating. KU has now lost by six, three, four, eleven, four, and two points.

Colts

Sunday might be the moment that broke the Anthony Richardson experiment, at least temporarily. It started with the usual stuff. A gorgeous, 69-yard TD pass squeezed in between over a dozen bad balls (He was 2–15 pasing in the first half). Easy throw after easy throw bungled, with the occasional beautiful ball downfield mixed in.

Then, in the midst of a key drive in the third quarter, after scrambling madly on consecutive plays, Richardson tapped his helmet and went to the sidelines before a third down play. Oh no, another injury.

But, wait, he wasn’t injured. He was just exhausted after running for his life on consecutive plays. So he checked himself out of the game.

Yeah, this is not going to go over well with Colts fans.

It didn’t matter that Richardson returned on the next series and threw three of the prettiest balls you will ever see, one broken up on a great play, the second dropped, the third caught and initially ruled a touchdown before review put the ball at the one. Folks here are going to see the wild inconsistency and add taking himself off the field like a middle schooler and lose whatever patience they had with Richardson.

The Colts have been losing close games. The playoffs should be in reach. Joe Flacco may not have the long-term upside AR has, but he also doesn’t miss the easy throws and make the huge mistakes the starter makes. Eventually the Colts will make the switch, it will likely be too late, they’ll punt the Richardson referendum down the road another year, and the front office will be facing some serious heat over their jobs in the winter.

The Colts have now lost by three, three, four, and two points.

Pacers

Whoa.

Destroyed by the Knicks Friday night. Not a surprise. You knew New York would be out for blood after last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, in which the Pacers anhiliated them on their home court in game seven. Tyrese Haliburton scoring more than zero points would have been nice.

Then losing to Philadelphia, who was playing without both Joel Embiid and Paul George, at home Sunday. That’s a much bigger deal than losing to the Knicks in a revenge game. We had family over so I missed almost all of this one. Hali missed two free throws that would have tied the game late in overtime. He’s not off to a great start.

I am officially Concerned about the Pacers. They travel to Orlando tonight, not a team you want to face when you are struggling. Then they get Boston, at New Orleans, at Dallas. They better tighten shit up quick.

Fever Coaching Change

This isn’t necessarily a bad moment for me personally, but the Fever announced Sunday morning that they were not bringing coach Christie Sides back next year. She got a lot of heat early in the season, when the team looked disorganized and confused. But then she got a lot of credit when the team rounded into form and made a playoff run.

Normally I would think her dismissal had to do with player dissatisfaction.

However, the Fever hired a new president and GM since the team exited the playoffs. Because of that, I think this is more just a philosophy deal, a disconnect between Sides and her new bosses. Like half the league has fired their coaches in the past month, which seems a little weird.

IU

Oh, I guess I owe S’s Hoosiers some props. They destroyed Nebraska a week ago, while we were in Colorado, and that was the first moment I thought they were legit. Saturday, after hosting ESPN Game Day for the first time, they took care of Washington to go to 8–0 and sit tied for first in the Big Ten. An absolutely astounding turnaround. And in the perfect year, with the expanded playoff.

They travel to Michigan State this week, host Michigan next week, then have a bye before they go to Ohio State. Two-and-one and a home playoff game is very much in play.

Big Moments

It is sad that the two best sports moments of my weekend came from teams I don’t really care about.

Freddie Freeman’s 10th inning, walk-off, grand slam homer in game one of the World Series was an incredible moment. I was thankful I switched over just in time to see it live. Glad it happened to the Yankees, too.

Then Washington’s Hail Mary to beat Chicago Sunday was also fantastic. We had this game on, but with family over I could only keep one eye on it. Seemed kind of wild up until I was finally able to sit down and watch for the last minute or so, which took that wildness to another level. I legit screamed when Noah Brown caught the tipped ball for the win. Our neighbor is a Bears fan. I should check on him.

Halloween Fiestas

L and her man went to a party Friday night. She dressed as Catwoman, he as Batman. They were cute. They couldn’t stay long since she had practice early Saturday. I think they were both fine with that, as neither of them are into the party scene much at this point. I’m not a prude or anything, but I legit don’t understand how so many parents let high school kids go wild in their homes.

Saturday one of S’s sisters and her husband hosted their annual party, which is much more small kid centric than it used to be. Or at least our kids are bigger now so we’re not in the target audience of the gathering. We made an appearance, ate some chili, laughed at the little kids’ constumes, had a drink or two, then left when the pumpkin carving nonsense started. When our girls were the little ones that always seemed like when things went a little off the rails. A couple of our nephews were already trending towards problematic when we were walking out.

Weekend Notes

October 14, 2024 /

Kind of a quiet weekend for us on the personal tip. Plenty of other shit to review on this gloomy, chilly Monday morning.

Northern Lights

Since we live inside the city’s light dome, we weren’t able to just walk out and see Thursday’s northern lights. I was able to get a couple shots, using a long exposure, that showed a bit of the colors.

There were tons of amazing pictures from not too far from us. It definitely would have been worth my time to get off my ass and drive 30 minutes or so to get a bette naked eye view of them. But did I? Nope, despite seeing northern lights being on my bucket list.

Interesting Times At School

CHS parents got this text last Tuesday afternoon.

Screenshot

When the girls got home their eyes were big and they were talking fast. Apparently they were nearly in the midst of all the fun.

C said as they exited campus and headed west, they saw a car that had been pulled over by the police take off through the intersection she had just passed through to the east. Moments later they heard a bunch of loud noises as that car collided with several others that had just come off of campus. That proved these fools weren’t super criminals. Traffic around CHS during dismissal is a true nightmare. It can take you 15 minutes to travel a quarter mile if you hit the lights wrong. Yet these geniuses decided they were going to use that moment to evade cops.

A few of girls’ friends who were behind them got videos of first the car taking off, then the driver and his passenger sitting on the curb in handcuffs.

Word was they were arrested on drug and weapons charges. Awesome.

Two years ago M and C missed driving through an intersection by St P’s where there was a road-rage shooting by about five minutes. Now C and L missed get smacked by a criminal by literal seconds. They’ve obviously been saying their prayers, and/or their dead grandmas are looking out for them.

Royals

Well, it wasn’t unexpected, but after snatching game two in New York, the Royals couldn’t win either of the games at home and lost to the Yankees in four games. Another one-run loss and a two-run loss to end the season. It was pretty much all that was great about the Royals this year – the starting pitching with the bonus of an improved bullpen – and all that was not right – a woefully thin lineup that struggled to score to begin with, but had an even mightier challenge when Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez weren’t hitting.

The Yankees didn’t blow them out and the Royals didn’t embarrass themselves. Playoff baseball, especially the first two rounds, can be super flukey. That benefited the Royals in 2014. Their special blend of Royals Devil Magic did not make an appearance in this series.

Still, a surprisingly fun season. They got me at least partially interested in baseball after falling out of love with the sport because of how management handled the most recent labor stoppage.

It is probably too much to ask for the starters to be as good in 2025 as they were this year. The bullpen was bolstered late in the season and became a weapon, so pitching in general should continue to be a strength for the team. Now if management can go find a bat or two to plug the many holes in the lineup, we could be cooking with gas next year.

That said, surprisingly, the AL Central could be one of the most competitive in baseball next year. Cleveland is in the ALCS. Detroit had an amazing run late in the season and pushed Cleveland to the bring in the ALDS. The Twins fell apart late but entered the season as preseason favorites. In other words, even if the Royals make smart decisions to improve their roster for next year, there’s no guarantee it will be enough to return them to the playoffs.

KU

Hey, no Jayhawks loss this week! You never know, KU could always find a way to lose in a bye week.

It’s been kind of crazy to see how the teams that have beaten KU have done after knocking off the Jayhawks. Illinois is 5–1 and ranked. UNLV is also 5–1 despite their quarterback checking out. A week after beating KU, West Virginia went to Oklahoma State and destroyed the Cowboys before losing to Iowa State this week. Then Arizona State pulled a massive upset beating Utah this weekend. Only TCU has looked worse after beating the Jayhawks.

Mostly that doesn’t mean shit. Anyone who has watched KU this year has seen how flawed they are, both on the field and from a schematic/coaching perspective. Still, four of their losses have been by a single score. The TCU game was a single-score game until the closing minutes. As many issues as the Jayhawks have had, a few breaks here and there and they could easily be 5–1. While I think us KU fans would be waiting for reality to set in, we would feel a lot better about things.

This week brings Houston, and KU opens as favorites. Get a win and it doesn’t necessarily turn the season around, but it could at least change the vibes. Lose this one? Man, things will get ugly.

In totally unrelated news, Purdue fired their offensive coordinator last week. This week they went to Illinois. The ESPN boxscore was all messed up, but I believe they trailed by 27 in the second half before scoring 30 straight points to take the lead. They gave up a tying field goal at the final gun, then failed to convert a 2-point conversion and lost by one in OT. All from firing their OC. Hmmm….

CHS

Friday night Cathedral took on Southside Catholic rivals Roncalli. This was once one of the best rivalries in the city. Before the tournament success factor was introduced, the teams played in the same class and were often either in the same sectional or regional. In our first few years living here, they always face each other in the playoffs, and the score was usually something like 10–9 or 14–13. And Roncalli often won.

But Roncalli, aside from a 4A state title two years ago, has been kind of crappy since their legendary coach retired a while back. CHS beat them 42–0 last year. This year it wasn’t much better, a 35–6 Irish win. A CHS receiver made an insane catch for an 84-yard TD. He dropped two other sure touchdowns on easy balls. The only RHS points came on their final drive with a running clock and facing the CHS reserves.

The #5 Irish are now 5–2 with a big matchup at 7–1 #6 Warren Central to close out the regular season.

The sectional draw was last night. CHS gets the school across the street from us, who will be 0–9, to open. Then a likely matchup against presumptive 9–0 Lawrence North for the sectional crown. CHS has ended LN’s season the past two years.

Halloween Shit

Both the girls had friends over Saturday to carve pumpkins, eat fall foods, and have fun. Tough to get a shot of all the pumpkins but they look nice on our front porch.

Worth mentioning that L had a young man over she’s been hanging with for the past few weeks. He’s a nice kid. They were joined by another couple. Those four stuck to one part of our house while C and her group of ten-or-so seniors stayed in another part. Seemed like everyone had fun. Once things got going S and I kept to our room to stay the hell out of the way.

Closing Time

We closed the pool on Friday. It was sunny and 80° when the guys were shutting it down, the water still at 78° despite me not running the heater in a week. I think you call that perfect timing. Of course, the girls hadn’t been in the pool since August. I had been using it, but as I’ll share tomorrow, I haven’t been able to get in for a week or so, meaning we closed it a week late. Since I wasn’t running the heater I didn’t mind.

Then Sunday morning S and I first cleaned up the leftover pumpkin messes from the girls then stored away all the pool furniture and other summer goodies into the pool house for the winter. Our pool deck is now naked. Appropriately it was super breezy and gloomy while we were doing that, and 15° cooler than the day before. This week looks super fall-ish, although another warm-up is forecast for next weekend.

Colts

The Colts couldn’t get it done against pathetic Jacksonville a week ago, but did enough to win against the equally pathetic Titans this week. Man, Will Levis is fucking bad. Anthony Richardson, who sat out again, may end up being a bust. I’d rather have a dude that can only play every third game than Levis, who throws some of the worst balls I’ve ever seen. Maybe he figures the game out and turns into a solid QB eventually. But watching him Sunday, I was glad the Colts passed on drafting him a year ago.

The crazy thing about watching the Colts is that if they could ever get healthy, they really should have a plus offense. They have two really good receivers in Michael Pittman and Alec Pierce. Josh Downs showed Sunday that he might be better than those two. And AD Mitchell has loads of potential although he has a long way to go. Old Man Joe Flacco gets them the ball just enough to be dangerous. If you can keep Jonathan Taylor on the field, easier said than done, you have terrific balance. Of course, you can’t keep him on the field and there is no decent backup. The O-line has improved, even losing one starter for the season.

But that defense? Woof. They make just enough plays, especially against a shitty team like Tennessee, to make you think they might be decent. But they aren’t decent at all, even allowing for missing important players up front and being too thin on the back end.

Feels like a season that ends in 5–7 wins and puts them too deep into the draft to get a player that can immediately plug a gap next year.

Fall Break

It’s appropriate the weather has finally changed, as this week is the girls’ fall break. They are in school today and tomorrow, then off the rest of the week. We are traveling to Denver to visit our family out there. It looks like we will have a 20° temperature swing while we’re out there, too, so packing could be tricky. Obviously a lot more about this next week.

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