D's Notebook

Tag: Kansas Jayhawks (Page 1 of 37)

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.

Weekend Notes

October 7, 2024 /

A busy, warm, disappointing, and significant weekend.

FNL + Party

Friday was a big night for a couple reasons. First, L was having friends over to celebrate her birthday. Seven girls, including her middle school buddy who goes to the rival high school, gathered at our house after school. They are a good group and fun to be around. They are mostly sassy and confident and silly, and while they usually congregate away from us, when we have to interact with them they always make me laugh.

Once S got home we ran them over to Marion University, which was hosting the big Center Grove vs Cathedral game. This was class 6A #5 vs #7. CG came in at 4–2, CHS 3–2. CG had won three in a row in the series and have dominated it over the past decade. In a change, it was moved from the final week of the season to week eight this year for some reason.

It was a wild game.

CHS scored on the first play of the game, a 64 yard run.
Trailing 10–0, CG had an 80-yard TD run.
CHS answered with a 74-yard TD pass.
CG led 30–27 at halftime, and eventually 45–35 with about six minutes to play.
The game ended with this sequence in the final five minutes:
Cathedral touchdown.
Cathedral successful onside kick.
Cathedral touchdown.
Center Grove interception.
Cathedral punt.
Center Grove interception.
Game over.

Huge win for the Irish. Normally you would say these teams are on a collision course for a rematch in semistate. CHS is going to have trouble getting past Lawrence North, who is 7–0 and destroyed #2 Warren Central this week, in sectionals though. They would also likely have to beat #1 Brownsburg between sectionals and Center Grove, and they’ve already lost to them. Anything is possible I guess.

The only bummer to the night was apparently there weren’t a ton of CHS kids at the game. Marion is on the opposite side of the city from school. Since CHS kids come from literally everywhere – something like 80 middle schools are represented in L’s class – you would think that wouldn’t be an issue. Especially for the Center Grove game, which is always huge. But I guess it was an issue. Anyway, L texted us at halftime that they wanted to leave because “no one is here” and it was boring. So the girls were eating cake and ice cream at our house when the Irish made their furious comeback. I kept listening and let them know the result.

Kids, man. Kids.

Royals

Man, so close to stealing game one in New York. Yes, there was a curious, at best, replay call that didn’t go the Royals way that directly let to the winning run for the Yanks. Bobby Witt Jr. got no love from the home plate ump in the 9th. Bummers.

What truly sucked was the Royals pitchers walking 80 Yankees batters. The fifth inning was really when the Royals lost this game. That inning went walk-single-walk-walk-foul out-fielder’s choice-walk. Two runs scored, both on bases loaded walks.

You don’t expect to lose in Yankees Stadium because you walked in more runs than you allowed on homers.

The Royals are a resilient bunch, though, and I think the loss will get them more re-focused than discouraged. Hopefully the pitchers are a little more locked in Monday while the hitters can keep generating runs.

Oh, and this ALDS schedule is nuts. Three days off in a five-game series? When these teams played a five-game ALCS in 1980, games one-through-three were played on consecutive days. And that was with a night game on Thursday in Kansas City and a night game Friday in New York. Since the Royals swept that series, I don’t know if an off-day was scheduled before either game four or five. But in 2024, there are scheduled off days between games one and two, two and three, and four and five if needed. Dumb.

KU

Same old same old. A disastrous end to the first half. A lead in the fourth quarter. The inability to stop the opponent when it mattered most. A fifth loss in a row.

Lawrence radio guy Derek Johnson posted this amazing stat on Twitter after the game: In each of their losses, at some point in the second half KU has had at least a 74% win probability. Add those up, and the odds of going 0–5 over that stretch is 0.01%, or about 1 in 10,000. Yet KU found a way to do it. Never say we can’t do amazing things in football season!

I think that stat also points out the truth to this season, something I pointed out last week. KU got just about every break possible last year. This year, though? No breaks. Or when they get a break, they find a way to fuck it up.

The offense and OC Jeff Grimes have taken the bulk of the criticism this year. The offense was fine Saturday. Yes, there were a few bad choices, notably in the two three-and-outs after KU forced turnovers because of hopelessly conservative play calling. One first down late in the second quarter and Arizona State never gets a chance to tie the game going into halftime. Jalon Daniels, who might have had his best game of the year, rushed a throw to a wide open Quentin Skinner that cost KU four points in a four-point loss.

Those aside, Saturday was on the defense. Yes, they forced two turnovers and blocked a field goal. But there were, yet again, massive holes for ASU to exploit all night. Almost no pressure on the quarterback. KU got destroyed at the line on running plays and gave up 313 yards rushing! Not technically on the defense, but they also gave up another long punt return to a player who should have been tackled seconds after fielding the ball by one of three players.

I know they were missing one defensive captain the entire game, and Cobee Bryant left the game late with what appeared to be a bad injury. That doesn’t excuse how bad the D looked as a whole, and has looked all season.

I read a theory this week that the transitional recruiting class between Les Miles and Lance Leipold, which was ranked in the 110s nationally, is what is killing this team. There are a ton of seniors of various types, a lot of freshmen and true sophomores, but not many of those third year players who maybe aren’t ready to start, but have been in the system and can come in briefly to spell the starters when needed.

I have no idea if that explains KU’s defensive woes or not. I am starting to think last year’s performance was a fluke. DC Brian Borland should definitely be under as much pressure as Grimes, because he hasn’t found a way to scheme around talent issues.

I genuinely hated sports late Saturday night. The Royals and KU games overlapped some. I had the Royals on the TV, KU on the MacBook. It was harder to follow both than my attempts to listen to CHS and watch tennis or football earlier this year. Higher stakes, I guess. KU and the Royals both scored at about the same time once, which was fun. The Yankees scored the go-ahead run at nearly the same moment Arizona State tied the game going into halftime, which was not fun.

Oh, a couple of my KU buddies and I had talked about going to this game a while back. We didn’t go forward because, for some reason, tickets even on Southwest were over $500. I was glad we chose to stay home. Not just because of the loss, but also because it was 106° at kickoff. I read somewhere this was the hottest temperature at kickoff for an ASU game this century. And, (in)famously, whatever Sun Devil Stadium is called these days has all aluminum bleacher seating. I can’t believe the game was nearly sold out.

Colts

No Anthony Richardson or Johnathan Taylor, plus a couple key defensive injuries. An offensive lineman breaks his leg during the game. And the Colts hadn’t won in Jacksonville in 11 years.

So no surprise that after giving up their third ridiculously long touchdown of the game, they trailed by 14 late. I went outside to water some plants, figuring my weekend didn’t need any more sports disappointment.

A few minutes later I noticed S looking at the window trying to get my attention. I strolled over and glanced inside at the TV and saw the Colts were kicking a PAT to tie. Apparently Joe Flacco and Alec Pierce did their best to save the day, but the Jags kicked a field goal to win at about the same point in the clock as where Arizona State beat KU. Perfect.

I don’t think the Colts are terrible. But they are definitely on the bottom half of the mediocre middle of the NFL. That middle is so big that any team in that group can beat any other, so the Colts might still manage six or seven wins. I wonder if they would be better served to start thinking about the draft and focusing on getting the best pick possible. Which means as tempting as it will be to keep starting Flacco when AR is healthy, you have to focus on both developing Richardson and determining if he is the man going forward. You can’t delay that question another year while you’re chasing a Wild Card spot with Flacco.

LB

Some milestones for B girl #3.

She turned 16 Thursday.

Saturday we got her travel basketball assignment for next year. She’s with the same coach she’s been with. It does suck that we’ve lost two more of her best friends she’s played with the last three years. We might steal one of those girls back but we’re not confident. Travel ball at the high school level is brutal when it comes to roster building. You have very little say in who you get, as teams higher in the pecking order can “steal” girls if they need them. That happened to one of her besties, and from what I’ve heard from that girl’s mom, she does not want to play with the team that picked her. L is hopeful they can get her switched back to our team, but I’m doubtful.

L is still suffering from the lingering effects of mono, but will try to go back to preseason practice this week. She feels mentally bad about missing two weeks, but also feels physically bad any time she breaks a sweat. Knock on wood I don’t get a call at 6:30 AM Tuesday that she’s sick at practice, or just can’t continue and needs to get picked up.

Sunday she passed her driving test. She’s been doing a great job with her practicing, so there wasn’t much doubt. Her instructor even said “Piece of cake” when they returned. She can officially get her license on Jan. 1, although she’ll obviously have to wait another day.

Weather

A gorgeous, warm weekend to wrap up an unseasonably warm week. Saturday I hardly watched any football during the day, partially because I knew I would be watching both the Royals and Jayhawks at night. But also because I wanted to sit outside and read and enjoy the beautiful day.

All last week they were saying this week would be much different. It is cooling off a little; we’ll be down in the upper 40s for a few mornings. But days will still be in the low 70s, slowly warming back to the low 80s by the weekend. These are the days you have to hold on to because even when they are mild, the Midwest winters will suck the life out of you.

Weekend Notes

September 30, 2024 /

Another weekend in the books. This one had some familiar elements, yet was still quite different than other recent weekends.

Helene

The biggest event of the weekend was the remnants of Hurricane Helene kind of ruining our weekend. That’s overstating things. Other people had far worse weekends than we did because of the weather. But it was cloudy, breezy, and muggy at best all weekend. Off-and-on drizzle all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then about five hours of pretty intense rain and wind Friday evening as the biggest waves from the storm blew through between 5:00 and 10:00 PM.

We were very lucky. Our power blinked a few times Friday night, but never fully went out. Which is a miracle given that the line that feeds our house runs through dozens of old trees that are growing into/against it. I was sure at least part of the line had pulled loose at one point, as we kept getting little waves of partial outages. But we made it through. Lots of people around us lost their power for much longer than a few seconds.

We desperately needed the rain, so that was welcome. TV said we were somewhere between an inch and inch-and-a-half of rain for the storm. Normally when we get any significant rain our sump pit in the basement will make lots of noise as it fills and the pump ejects the collected water. It had been so dry here none of the rain made it to the pit and our basement remained eerily quiet.

Driving and walking around Saturday and Sunday there were tons of big trees and limbs down in our part of the city. Lots of power crews working to repair lines. We just had one small branch come down in our yard, along with lots of leaves. Again, very lucky.

We have friends who were not so fortunate.

Parents of one of S’s best friends live on Anna Maria island. We spent our first day of spring break this year at their house while we were waiting for our rental to open. Friday night they had water waist-deep inside their house. Our friend lost contact with them overnight, and she was freaking out. Fortunately cell service came back up Friday morning and they were safe. However, they likely lost everything they own inside the house.

S also found video of the place in Siesta Key where we are going for spring break this coming year. It took a lot of water damage. It is a high rise, so we are hoping our rooms aren’t on the first floor and got through without any damage.

She also has an old friend in Asheville, NC which is apparently in terrible shape because of flooding. S sent her a text and got a response, but no real word on how they are doing.

High School Football

Cathedral picked a great week to have a bye. I’m sure the coaches weren’t thrilled to have a hole in their schedule, but they were able to avoid having to deal with the weather.

Most games here Friday were postponed to Saturday. But some foolish schools decided to play. The worst of the storm was going through right during game times Friday. At their peak, the winds were gusting to around 70 MPH. Oddly there was no lightning associated with the storm, so most games that started just kept on going through the worst of it. A couple games kicked off then stopped when the power went out.

Although the Irish were off, I did have football plans for the night. Our friend Coach H was bringing his team to play NC, the school across the street from us. That game was moved to Saturday morning, so I walked over and watched with Mrs. H. Poor NC entered on a 32-game losing streak. Coach H’s guys did their job and easily extended that streak to 33 games. It was fun to catch up with Mrs. Coach.

The Jayhawks

As the season continues to go down the toilet, I can step back a bit and react from a distance. Noticing things like it’s interesting how you can be mad about one thing during a game, then afterwards realize you should be mad about something else completely.

During the loss to TCU Saturday, most KU fans were steaming about a series of replay reviews and calls/no-calls that went against KU. All were very close, but in the heat of the moment they all seemed horribly wrong.

After the game, though, it was clear KU didn’t lose that game because of the refs. They lost, mostly, because on three massive plays, they missed a total of 187 tackles. They let what is basically a fullback run a punt back over 80 yards for a touchdown. They had the TCU QB dead in the backfield only to let him slip away and complete a pass that not only secured a massive first down, but turned into another score when tackles were missed on the back half of the play.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes is taking most of the ire of KU fans because his offense seems unimaginative and predictable while former OC Andy Kotelnicki took his super-fun offense to Penn State and is doing amazing things. And Grimes deserves that ire. His offense is dumb and his play calling at times infuriating. Not giving the ball to the best running back in school history one time when you have first and goal inside the five is just stupid.

But the defensive coaches need to take their share of the blame. They haven’t figured out a way to either get consistent pressure on the quarterback or cover receivers downfield. There are far too many big holes for receivers to get open and run freely. On top of that, this team tackles terribly. It’s like they don’t practice it.

Last year’s defense often played bend-but-don’t-break football. This year they break early and often. They had three take-aways Saturday, and should have had at least one more. And still gave up 38 points.

Honestly, I think you can summarize this year compared to last like this: last year, KU got nearly every break. This year, the Jayhawks are getting none. Watching games, you always expect something to go wrong. I think the players feel that, too. Which means things can get rougher as they lose faith. You know what I always say about KU football and things getting worse…

Colts

Hey the Colts with an impressive win, dropping 27 on the allegedly fearsome Pittsburgh defense. Twenty of those points coming after Anthony Richardson, shockingly, left the game with an injury. Old man Joe Flacco can still fling it. The defense was incredible early and made a couple huge plays late to hold off the rallying Steelers.

Again, I refuse to judge Richardson until the end of the year. But, man, he threw a couple more just incredible balls in the first two drives of the game. Then he got destroyed on two different QB runs and had to leave the game. Will Levis was the other option for the Colts to draft a year ago, and he looks like a disaster at this point, so I think AR was the right choice. It feels like he’s always, always, always going to be a massive risk-reward player, though. He’s got some Joel Embiid in him where even when he does the right thing, he manages to get some total freak injury. But, again, I’m not judging him yet.

Oh, would you be surprised that there were a series of incredibly inconsistent calls by the refs in this game? They both helped and hurt the Colts. Between this and the KU game, I’m about done with football refs. Looking forward to basketball refs ruining my life in about a month.

Royals

The Kansas City Royals are in the playoffs! One year after losing 106 games. What a turnaround, and totally unexpected. I would have been thrilled if they got close to .500 this year. If not for a bad September, the R’s would have been well over 90 wins in 2024.

That stumble to the finish doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for the Wild Card series with Baltimore. But the playoffs are all about pitching and the Royals have three solid starters, when they are on, plus the bullpen has been terrific for the last month or so. If they can just find a way to string together some hits again they have every chance to advance. A Royals-Yankees divisional series would be fun for us old folks.

I expect these playoffs to be much less stressful for me than the Royals’ runs in 2014 and 2015. I’m less invested now, the games move quicker, I drink less than I did a decade ago, and I have lower expectations. I still need to add sunflower seeds to my shopping list so I can recreate some of the magic from those two Octobers.

Weekend Notes

September 23, 2024 /

Another full-ish weekend, with most of our attention focused on the corrupt and disgraceful arena of sports. Sports suck.

Family

Let’s flip our normal order, though, and kick it off with family chat. M came home for the weekend. It was her first visit of the semester and nice to have her in the house for about 48 hours. She had no plans and mostly chilled on our couch while doing homework or taking naps. I told her to let me know if she was missing any specific meals and I would make them for dinner, but she never got around to picking something and/or we had other things going on, so she didn’t get any good home cooking. Which is kind of a bummer. That was always a highlight of trips home for me. This was also her first time coming-and-leaving on her own. When she left Sunday afternoon, S noted how it was nice that one of us wouldn’t spend the next five hours driving to Cincinnati, helping her get settled, then coming right back. Indeed.

Her classes are going well. Much harder than freshman year, since she’s in the business school now, but she’s working through it. Crazily, she showed me how she has her next two-and-a-half years completely planned out. Thanks to all the hours she took with her from high school, she can both spend a semester abroad and then do a co-op without taking any classes another semester and still graduate on time. We are also about to sign a lease for where she will live the next two years. Seems like she just started college and now we are about to lock up her housing up to graduation.

C had a quiet weekend, until she got sick Sunday night. She is home with me today. Fun.

L had a tryout for next year’s travel ball team yesterday. We think she’ll end up on the same team, or at least with the same coach and the same core players, she has been on. So this was more a required show your face type thing. She is really hoping that her old coach is allowed to keep the team together, because she didn’t feel very good yesterday either, and didn’t think she played very well.

High School Football

One reason we couldn’t do anything special for dinner for M Friday was that it was CHS’ homecoming, and the girls basketball team had a tailgate. S and I went and ate pizza and hung out with the girls and other parents for about 90 minutes. We came home after to hang with M. It was hot, the game was at Butler so our season passes didn’t work, and we knew it would be a blowout – CHS beat the school across the street from our house 53–13 – so we didn’t see any reason to stay.

That proved to be even smarter when our first rain in two weeks rolled in midway through the second half. There was lightning, of course, and the game got halted for about an hour. L was there with friends and they left to get ice cream then hang out at a friend’s house.

Jayhawks

This is why, as a KU fan, I should never, ever, ever have expectations when football season rolls around. In 44 years of being a KU fan, conditions have been right to have serious hopes, I’m talking potential conference championship game rather than just go to a bowl game, exactly twice in my life. Both times those expectations got blown out of the water before the season was even halfway finished.

This time it was allowing West Virginia to score 15 points in about 3:30 of game time in the fourth quarter. The defense was terrible, our two alleged all-conference cornerbacks getting roasted all day while the line couldn’t tackle anyone. Jalon Daniels struggled. Shocker. The play calling was odd, again. Yet the Jayhawks were up 11 with under 5:00 to play on the road, after a two-hour weather delay no less. Then they blew it.

While there was plenty to be mad about, and this game pretty much ruined my entire day since it took over five hours to complete and then I was pissed for the remainder of the night, all the attention goes to a couple coaching decisions. First, taking a delay of game penalty right before the weather delay and turning a 4th and 2 into 4th and 7 was idiotic. Especially when our punter hadn’t exactly been kicking the shit out of the ball. Then running to the short-side on the biggest play of the day, when a first down might ice the game, was criminal. As one West Virginia writer pointed out:

Kansas for the last hour: Succeeds for chunks of yards every time they run a speed option.
Kansas on the biggest 3rd down of the game: Let’s try something else.

Maddening.

Jalon missed some more throws that suggested to me he’s compensating for injury/weakness in his body. But the coaching staff had an entire summer to game plan around that, and apparently didn’t. Then they make dumb calls in the game’s biggest moments.

Just like the only other time I had big expectations going into the season – 2009 – this season has quickly gone to shit. Now, the Illinois loss doesn’t look so bad after they won at Nebraska this week. And the remaining schedule is still relatively weak. Given how KU’s best players – aside from Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw – and coaching staff have performed through the first four games, I don’t have much confidence things will improve. And next year we will roll out a team filled with freshmen and sophomores who haven’t played much…

Again, with Kansas football, it can, and almost always will, get worse. Can’t wait to see what this week brings.

Other College Games

Well, it’s started. All the weird, new conference games that a year ago would have been awesome non-con games. USC traveling to Michigan, for a tremendous game that went down to the final seconds. Tennessee going into Norman and slapping Oklahoma around, which was cathartic to this Big 12 fan. The games were good, but the vides were odd.

I read this weekend how UEFA adjusted how they schedule the Champions League this year, requiring the best teams to play more games against other strong teams. It is starting to feel like college football should do something like that. Just get rid of conferences and throw all the names into buckets based on preseason rankings, and try to make balanced schedules from that.

Here’s a wild bonus idea: Keep the schedules geographically logical, too. Nah, that’s crazy talk. Why would we want schools to play most of their games against rivals from neighboring states?

Colts

Hey, at least the Colts won! Not that they looked good doing it and didn’t try to give the game back to Chicago like three times.

Quarterbacks

Jalon Daniels has seven interceptions. Anthony Richardson has six. I’m falling out of love with the forward pass.

Fever

Like a lot of Indianapolis, at 3:00 eastern I switched from the ugly Colts game over to watch the Fever open their playoff series with the Connecticut Sun. That went well for one quarter, then it turned into a rout. The Sun kept big defenders on Caitlin Clark and made her life hell. CC and Kelsey Mitchell combining to shoot 4–23 from 3 did not help. We’ll see if they can regroup and adjust for game two and get the series back for the finale in Indy. The Sun have handled the Fever pretty easily all season, but it would be cool to steal game two and have the deciding game back here.

Royals

Man, you think KU had a bad week, go check out what the Royals did. Six straight losses. At home. A 13–1 collective shellacking to the Giants over the weekend. Now somehow tied with Detroit, DETROIT, for the second/third Wild Card spots with Minnesota just a game back, and Seattle a game behind the Twins. Detroit closes the season with three against the pitiful White Sox, so they have effectively locked up one of those two spots.

A week ago the Royals had a five-game cushion over the seventh place spot, with a 99% chance of making the postseason. This morning that percentage has dropped to 69% (per Fangraphs). If Minnesota wasn’t nearly as cold as the Royals those odds would be even lower.

Maybe the bats will wake up this week. Or the pitching will do enough to get the R’s to the playoffs and then the bats will wake up. Sure doesn’t look promising this morning.

Weather

Mother Nature finally flipped the switch Sunday and our heat wave broke. Rain moved in midday Sunday, with heavier showers in the evening, and the temps have dropped 10–15 degrees from where they had been. The forecast has highs in the mid-upper 70s with cool nights. Just about perfect.

We put the Halloween decorations out Saturday. The holidays are getting close.

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2024 /

As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio. Sadly, more yelling than I expected. For the most part that worked out ok, although there were moments that big things were happening in each game at the same time and it was tough to keep track of what was going on where. It was also very confusing for S, who was facing away from the TV and didn’t always understand what was causing my outburst when the radio announcers were fairly quiet.

There was plenty of dumbness over the weekend, with some cool stuff sprinkled in. Let’s get to it.

HS Football

On the radio was Cathedral’s visit to arch rival Bishop Chatard, ranked either #1 or #2 in 4A, depending on the poll. CHS had won eight of the last ten in the series, but last year was one of those losses in the weird, split game that started on Friday (and CHS led 21–0 early) then ended with BC making a comeback Saturday morning after the game was halted because of a power outage Friday.

No worries this year. CHS jumped out 14–0 and never let up, winning 30–7. It could/should have been an even bigger win. The Irish had three touchdowns, including a 66-yard pass, called back because of penalties. Two of those turned into 10 points anyway. The kicker missed a makable field goal, then put what would have been a school-record 51-yard field goal off the crossbar at the halftime horn. Still, always satisfying to beat the rival, especially for the girls who have friends there. L went to the JV game on Saturday, another W for the Irish.

The CHS radio guys were hilarious. Both analysts played for the Irish, one graduating about 20 years ago, the other over 50 years ago. They were a little fired up for the rivalry game. They thought each penalty that wiped out a TD was garbage. They show more uncalled holds than usual. By the fourth quarter they were screaming at the refs from the press box. And this was in a game their team was winning! I was entertained.

KU

Welp, so much for all the big plans for this year.

I would have written a lot more about this game had I taken a crack at it Friday. Some seriously dumb coaching decisions. Any hopes that Jeff Grimes would step right in for Andy Kotelnicki have been dashed. I mean, how you don’t give Devin Neal, who averaged almost six yards a carry on the night and is averaging nine yards a carry for the season, the ball on second and two and instead throw a pass that has not worked all night when another touchdown likely wins the game is beyond me. The KU offense, which would get all kinds of run on football Twitter the past couple years for how innovative and fun it was, is now boring and can’t adjust. Hiring Grimes is the first big mistake of Lance Leipold’s time in Lawrence. I feel like he could have grabbed some OC from a Texas high school and got better results.

Aside from one exceptionally dumb play by the defense that could have ended the game – the fumble they kicked around for 30 seconds before UNLV fell on it – they were, mostly, amazing. Especially the front seven, which was not expected to be a strength. Two weeks in a row they’ve controlled the game and been let down by the offense/coaches.

Losing a contest that, after the game, the analytics gave the Jayhawks an 83% chance to win seems dumb even for a program with as much dumbness in its history as KU has. Something about the entire team seems off. The last two years it seemed more like a Mangino-era team that rarely did things to beat themselves. Through three games they seem sloppier and less disciplined than the past two years. That is true from the coaches through the players. Not what I expected from a head coach wound as tight as Leipold.

The headline has to be Jalon Daniels, though. Clearly he’s compromised. Whether it is physical, mental, a matter of meshing with Grimes, or some combination of those three, it’s not working. Bad throw after bad throw. Terrible decisions. Seeming confused rather than playing with the joy he used to take the field with. Maybe he can be fixed/salvaged/cajoled into better football, but it needs to happen quick if that is a genuine possibility.

There was a lot of call on Twitter to bring in Cole Ballard. Friday didn’t seem like the time to do that. If things go sideways in Morgantown this week, it might be time to give JD a break.

You would have thought it was a KU basketball loss for how long the angry, post-game texts flew around after this one.

Technically, a lot of the big goals for this season are still possible. They could still make the Big 12 championship game if the offense gets fixed in the next, gulp, five days. At this point I’m more worried about finding five more wins and going to another crappy bowl than any of that. After blowing two winnable games, I don’t have a lot of confidence those W’s are on the remaining schedule. Playing the Big 12 home games at Arrowhead always had a measure of risk. If this team falls apart and no one is there – aside from the entire state of Iowa when the Clones come to town – it will make this season seem even worse. Remember, with Kansas football, things can always get worse.

We all know timeouts in college are too long. But KU called a timeout with under 2:00 to play in the game Friday just to stop the clock. It was a standard, FOUR MINUTE time out. Just fucking terrible. Even in the NFL, which will cram as many ads into a game as they can, they limit those late game TOs to 30 seconds or a minute.

College Football

I didn’t watch much ball on Saturday as I found few of the games compelling. The game I watched most was Cincinnati-Miami. M made the 45 minute trip to Oxford to hang out with friends but did not have a ticket. She did get to go to a party with one of her best friends and said she had a great time and enjoyed all Oxford has to offer. Nice win for her Bearcats.

The Victory Bell rivalry is tied for the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, but this was the last game scheduled to be played on campus, and the 2026 game at the Bengals’ stadium is the last one currently scheduled. When I talked to M on Sunday I tried to explain why – UC wants the games at the Bengals’ field instead of having to go to Oxford, Miami wanted to hang onto those home games, joining the Big 12 changed UC’s scheduling priorities, etc – but she thought most of those reasons were dumb. I’m with her.

S and I went out for an early dinner and got to see part of Notre Dame’s destruction of Purdue. I guess the Irish got re-focused after the Northern Illinois loss.

Colts

So the Colts might be a bad team. A really bad team. GM Chris Ballard insisted the defense would be solid this year, especially against the run. Then the Colts gave up over 250 yards rushing in the first half against a team starting a backup QB that was only going to pass if he had to. Seems dumb not to load up the box and force him to pass. And that was before two defensive linemen got hurt. I refuse to hold Anthony Richardson’s dumbness against him until next year. But something about his passes seems hard to catch, because his receivers dropped a ton of balls that hit their hands. Weird. Those drops make his poor decision making on other passes hurt even worse. And still the Colts had a chance until the final gun. They were fortunate the final score wasn’t more indicative how big a beat down this was.

The Cowboys, Lions, and Ravens all lost at home. The Niners lost. Aside from the Chiefs, who nearly lost at home, do you trust a single team in this league? I’m starting to think the uneven play is a function of teams barely playing starters in the preseason and the added week to the regular season making teams/players more cautious in how they handle injuries. But that’s crazy talk, right?

Twitter During Games

It is funny to look back on your feed at how people react to specific plays. When KU ran that stupid screen pass on second and two in the fourth quarter? People were pissed. And remained pissed well after the game ended. Same in the Colts game. There was a rather curious play call on a third down – something that happened several times during the game – and Colts Twitter, to the extent I follow it, blew up. My favorite was one of our young, local weather ladies getting involved. “What was that play call????” It shows how far we’ve come as a society where it’s not a surprise at all when a young woman has a football take, and it’s 100% legit.

Royals

The R’s took two of three in Pittsburgh, and really should have swept the woeful Pirates. Five games up for the final Wild Card spot with 12 games left. A better record over the last 10 games than both the team ahead of them and behind them in the WC race. 97% playoff odds. A clinched winning season. All summer I’ve been waiting for them to fall apart. It would really suck if they finally did it during this closing stretch.

Fever

Another Friday-Sunday weekend for the Fever. Friday they lost their second game in three nights to Las Vegas, this one much more competitive than the first. I checked on that game periodically but there was too much else going on for me to really follow it.

Sunday they closed their home schedule against Dallas. For some reason the game was only on locally on some third-tier station. One that, even on cable, looked piped in on some terrible, over-the-air antenna. The picture was all fuzzy and blurry. It was like trying to watch European soccer in the 1980s. Pretty sure this wouldn’t happen to the Pacers.

Anyway, for the third time this season the Fever and Wings played a tremendously exciting game, with the Fever winning by one, although Dallas hit an unguarded 3 at the buzzer. These teams tend to not play defense against each other, so it is back-and-forth, up-and-down the entire game. That win clinched sixth place for the Fever, and also guaranteed them at least a .500 season. Twenty wins two years after winning five. Not bad. Caitlin had a career-high 35 points Sunday, and broke the WNBA single season assist record Friday.[1] She also collected her sixth technical foul of the year Friday. Her teammates were keeping her away from the refs Sunday so she doesn’t get magic #7, which brings a one-game suspension with it. Maybe just stop complaining.

Weather

Still hot and dry here. I’ve been watering the grass a couple times a week for about a month. Despite that, our lawn got pretty crunchy over the past few days. We were hoping the hurricane remnants would bring us some rain last week, but that fizzled out in southern Indiana. No rain in the forecast, every day in the upper 80s. At least the pool is still open, and staying warm on its own.

  1. The WNBA schedule expanded to 40 games last year, so a lot of season records have been falling. They may add another four games next year, so throw out your record books.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 3, 2024 /

It was an action-packed weekend. At least for watching sports from the comfort of my house. Friday night in particular was kind of crazy. High school football on the radio. Indiana Fever and US Open on the TV. Royals-Astros Gameday coverage on the Mac. With bonus weather monitoring on every screen. I guess I’ll break things down by subject rather than day.

KU Football

A slow start turned into the blowout it was supposed to be Thursday night for KU. Not sure you can make any great assessments of the team given the opponent. I thought Jalon Daniels looked a little rusty, but I also don’t know how open the playbook was. It seemed like the coaching staff was doing some experimenting with the offensive line. A pick-six for Mello Dotson, likely not the last for this defensive backfield this season. Devin Neal scoring touchdowns, Luke Grimm catching passes. We’ll find out a lot more about the Jayhawks next week when they go to Illinois.

The first game at Children’s Mercy Park seemed to go just fine. Word from people who went is that it was a great atmosphere. The replay system not working early and likely costing KU two scores was kind of a bummer.

HS Football

A week after beating preseason #1 Ben Davis, #3 Cathedral got a reminder their schedule is still brutal, losing to #6 Brownsburg 30–14. They got there a rather odd way.

BHS jumped out to a 17–7 lead Friday night before lightning was spotted. Although the storm was 10 miles away, and moving away from the stadium, the game was delayed over an hour before a second series of storms popped up and officials decided to postpone the game until Saturday afternoon.

Things didn’t get much better in the resumed game. CHS was playing with their primary running back – who ran for 168 yards week one – hobbled Friday, then without him completely Saturday. L heard Sunday he’s probably having surgery and out for the year. Not sure if he was worth 16 points but I think he would have helped. If he is indeed out for an extended stretch, the Irish’s already brutal schedule looks even more formidable.

Weather

Last week was hot, sticky, and nasty. The heat index was up around 110 a couple days. Friday night three rounds of storms came through, and torrential rains and heavy winds blew the heat away. The humidity stuck around through Saturday. Then Sunday morning it was 52 and 100% pleasant. The extended forecast has a bunch of mornings like that, with a few even colder, and daytime highs mostly in the mid–70s with a few mid–80s sprinkled in. September is a truly glorious month.

US Open

I watched a ton of tennis last week and into the weekend. Week one of the Open might be the best week of tennis of the year, hell one of the best sports weeks of the entire year, with great matches in progress just about any time you turn on your TV from noon to midnight.

Weekend highlights were Frances Tiafoe’s two wins and both Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic losing early. It was a bummer that Coco Gauff went out early, but at least she lost to another American. In general it’s great to have several decent American players in both the women’s and men’s game at the moment. It sure makes for better crowds in New York.

Royals

Crap on a stick.

Last Wednesday afternoon the Royals were tied for first place and were up on co-leaders Cleveland going into the seventh inning, nine outs away from a four-game sweep of the Guardians. Then the Royals melted down a little and they’ve yet to recover, losing six straight games. Three injuries during that span have not helped. At least they still have a cushion in the wild card race for the time being.

It’s been a bit of a charmed summer for the Royals, totally unexpected and built on out-of-nowhere quality starting pitching. The pitching has still been fine, at least the starters; it’s been the bats that have let them down over the past week. They were nearly no-hit Friday and have gone deep into other games with just one or two hits. Maybe, hopefully, surely the hitters can lock back in and they can hold on to one of those wild card spots to complete this surprise season.

Fever

I know I’m not alone in having watched more WNBA games this year than in the rest of my life combined. I now know exactly when the Fever are playing, and on what channel. Unlike other sports, which S doesn’t really pay attention to, for the Fever she gets kind of locked in. Ironically our basketball playing daughter will still just breeze through and watch a few minutes, but rarely sits down and watches long stretches with us.

Two more wins over the weekend for the hottest team in the league. The Fever are now over .500 for the first time in five years. Which sounds made up. Have they really been that bad, for that long? Again, since I never watched I don’t know if that is a real stat or not.

It’s been fun watching this team figure each other out since their disastrous start. Kelsey Mitchell is a revelation, and a perfect backcourt partner for Caitlin Clark. Aliyah Boston finally settled down and started playing like the former #1 pick she is. Lexi Hull is one of the most fun players to watch, and seemingly can’t miss a 3 since the Olympic break.

And, of course, there’s Clark. She was starting to get comfortable before the break, but has looked like a first team all league player since getting some time to both rest and work on her game. In those seven games she’s averaging 24.6 points, 5 rebounds, and nine assists. And that’s with her teammates still booting 3–4 passes a night, or blowing open layups.[1]

She’s added a floater. Her teammates are getting better at anticipating her crazy passes. She’s handling the physicality of the league better. She still makes a few horrible passes a game, but when she’s averaging almost nine assists a game, you’ll take those. And her outside shot still isn’t locked in. That will come next year. Any questions about her transition to the pro game have been answered.

The only real bummer to the Fever turning the corner is it has kept us from going to a game. Tickets were crazy expensive at the beginning of the season, as you would expect. I planned on waiting until the hype died down and the team fell deep into the bottom of the standings before trying to grab some for a weeknight game. So much for that. I was looking at tickets for tomorrow’s game and even upper level seats were going for $200 each. That seems excessive, especially when L isn’t super into watching. Although she would go if given the chance.

Oh, one other WNBA note. The yammering idiots on TV need to drop the whole Caitlin Clark vs Angel Reese thing and focus on the real issue: how stupid are the four teams other than Indiana and Chicago who passed on drafting Reese? She’s getting 20 boards a night over the past three weeks and leads the league in rebounding for the season. From watching Chicago Friday, it’s obvious that some of those numbers come because her coach leaves her on the court deep into blowouts to pad her numbers. But 20 rebounds is 20 rebounds.

The rookie of the year argument is pretty much over, as CC is both having a better and more impactful year while Chicago is dropping like a rock despite Reese’s play. That shouldn’t hide the fact that Reese is having a phenomenal rookie year of her own.

College Football

It’s always hard for me to dive in this first week of real college football action. There’s so much other stuff going on, both on TV and in real life, that it’s hard to lock in. I had plenty of games on but other than Notre Dame – Texas A&M didn’t get super focused on any of them.

That was a big win for the Irish. Notre Dame’s defense looks incredible. They have a cake schedule. They will be one of the top four teams in the playoff. The obvious joke is they will then lose to Alabama or whatever SEC runner-up they play in the first round. But that game will be in South Bend. In December. Surely Touchdown Jesus will scare up some lake effect snow, or at least nasty windchills, to aid the Irish.

Family Time

We didn’t do anything big family-wise for the holiday weekend. M stayed in Cincinnati. C and L went to the CHS game with friends Friday, but neither went back to the resumption on Saturday. L went to the gym with basketball friends Sunday. C went to the Pitbull concert Sunday night. We had the in-laws over for dinner Sunday, and three of the nephews over to swim on Monday. S and I went to dinner with friends Saturday.

I also found a little project for myself over the weekend. It scratches one of my biggest itches and will have a direct effect on some of my blog posts. I doubt most of you will be as interested in it as I am, but I’ll still share more details about it soon.

And with that, summer is over. Preseason training for school basketball started for L today, and I was up at 5:15 to get her to school on time. A perfect way for her to knock out some of her driving in the dark time!

  1. As the father of a lady baller, I will say the most frustrating part of the women’s game is how many layups are missed. That, more than any other area, is where the difference between men and women is glaring. It’s a lot harder to make a layup in traffic when you release the ball a foot/foot-and-a-half below the rim than within a few inches of it.  ↩
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