D's Notebook

Tag: NFL (Page 3 of 10)

Weekend Notes

September 18, 2023 /

HS Football

Two games again this weekend.

Friday night Cathedral played at the public school down the street. Both girls had some friends over before the game and we walked to the stadium. First play of the night CHS snapped the ball over the quarterback’s head, he chased but could not cover, and North Central took over in Irish territory. Not a promising start.

North Central was winless and it showed, as they went nowhere and gave the ball back to CHS, who methodically ran up a 49–0 lead before halftime. A penalty on the final play of the game gave NC an untimed snap, and they got the ball into the end zone to lose 49–6.

I’ve gone to four of the first five games this season (L has been to all five) and each of them has been on a perfect evening for football. CHS is out of state the next two weeks. We’ll see if the weather holds when we return to games in October.

Saturday I took L to the freshman game so she could take pictures. NC took the lead twice on huge kickoff returns that set up short possessions. Each time Cathedral answered with a 70+ yard TD run. The Irish pulled away in the second half to win 34–21. Very entertaining.

I stood near the dads of a couple of the players, who had a game-long commentary going. I’m thinking I should just live blog what they say some week as it is hilarious.

Oh, and L handed her phone to a friend to take a picture of her with some football player after the game. Then she saw the kid twice more over the weekend. Good grief…

College Football

Surely it is a sign of how far KU football has come that Jayhawk fans were pissed off about Saturday’s result. I mean, the program went something like a decade without winning a road game once. So even if needlessly close and nervous, getting out of Reno 3–0 should be what we’re focusing on, right? When you struggle with a team that got blasted by an FCS team the previous week, it’s going to mess with your head.

The worst part of the game wasn’t that KU played poorly, or that I don’t have CBS Sports Network and had to listen to the game, or that I’m not crazy about KU’s radio announcers. No, the worst part was that it began at 10:30 Eastern, and since victory wasn’t assured until there was under a minute to play, that meant I went to bed after 2:00 AM Sunday. Several of my buddies checked out at halftime, which was probably the smart move. I was wiped out on Sunday. I had Colorado State-Colorado muted on the TV so I was entertained. Just wish the game had started at a more reasonable time.

Saturday was also M’s first game in the stands for UC, as they played Miami (OH). The schools have the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, and I was amazed to learn that despite winning 16-straight in the series, UC only led by one win.

M got fantastic seats and I was constantly looking for her in the crowd shots. Never saw her though.

Miami played great and held a lead into the fourth quarter until the Bearcats jumped ahead. Miami tied it and then UC had a makable field goal to win the game late that Miami blocked to send the game to overtime.

In OT Miami scored first, then picked off a pass in the end zone to get the W. Now the series is tied 60–60–7. Two of M’s best friends go to Miami. I bet those girls were way nicer about breaking a long losing streak than I would have been in the same situation. We talked to M Sunday and she said it was a lot of fun, until the very end.

Colts

Another Sunday of doing work for relatives meant I missed most of the Colts game. I was tracking the score and saw the Colts were up 14–3, then 21–3. I also noticed that Gardner Minshew was playing. That was strange.

When I got home and looked up what happened I learned that Anthony Richardson had gone nuts early, smacked his head on the turf, played two more series, and then reported concussion symptoms and sat out the rest of the game. Hmmmm.

You can’t get too excited about beating up on the Texans – who tried their hardest to come back in the fourth quarter – yet it’s still promising that the Colts apparently looked really good with Richardson in. Now comes the worry of when he’ll play again and if he’s now in the “every big hit might cause a new concussion” zone. Which is a bad place to be.

KU Hoops

This is not good. Very not good. There were some rumbles of displeasure/disbelief when Bill Self took on Arterio Morris, given he played last year with a domestic abuse charge pending in Texas, but no general outcry. I would expect even Teflon Bill is going to get some serious heat about Morris as more comes out about this case.

Assorted Other Notes

We got the girls’ car back from the repair shop on Wednesday, about a week earlier than expected, which was awesome. It looks nearly perfect, so no complaints.

One of our senate seats is opening up here in Indiana next year, so the rats are scrambling to get their names out there early. The last two Sundays NFL games have been flooded with ads from all the “self-made outsiders” who will be in the Republican primary next spring. Throw in a very nasty Indianapolis mayoral race in this fall’s election, and I’m already having to mute commercial breaks. Really looking forward to 2024.

Speaking of commercials, I saw my first Christmas ad on Saturday. That was September 16 for those of you who don’t own calendars.

While on the subject of getting an early start on the holidays, S and I were at Target on Thursday and bought two full-size, posable skeletons for the front porch. We got a lot of looks as we wheeled them through the store and parking lot. We’ve given them some accessories and have a couple more things coming. Once we get everything situated the way we like I’ll share a picture.

Tuesday Notes

September 12, 2023 /

I have some assorted items that have been sitting around for a week or two that aren’t big enough for their own post. So you get back-to-back Notes entries.

Kid Hoops

L is in her third week of basketball workouts at CHS. The first two weeks were before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. She’s been getting up before 5:00 on those days. My alarm is set for 5:19 but I generally hear her banging around and wake up well before that. We are out the door around 5:35. I don’t mind that, but I also don’t love it.

This week they added a Monday night workout to the schedule. That will continue until the third week of October when official practice can begins, which I assume will be every day.

L said they’ve gone well. A lot of scrimmaging and basic shooting drills so far. This week they are supposed to pick up the intensity a little and start working on a lot of defensive drills. She’s also supposed to get a survey where she assesses her own play and then goes over it with the coaches.

For what it’s worth she’s been hanging out more with older girls from basketball than with her fellow freshmen, and we’ve been giving her shit about that. Two weeks ago she went to the football game with freshmen and she yelled at us, “See, I hang out with freshmen too!”

Her first travel tryout for next year was this past Sunday. There were nearly 100 girls there for all the high school teams. I talked to her coach from the past two years and he said the organization has been poaching good teams from other programs, which accounts for some of the numbers. I don’t think that will have an impact on L since she won’t be on an elite team. It made for a pretty packed gym, though.

Swimming

I’ve been swimming a lot for the past six weeks, give or take.

I can hear you. “No shit, dumbass. You have a pool. Why wouldn’t you be swimming?”

I’m not talking about just getting in the pool and splashing/floating around like I normally do. I’m talking about swimming laps and turning it into a workout.

I’ve never done this in my life. Mostly because I’m not a great swimmer and never had the courage to get into the pool at the Y and bang out some laps.

Fortunately the swimmable part of our pool is only about 30 feet long and it’s not too complicated to turn into a lap pool. After a few weeks of doing it maybe once a week for about 10 minutes, since mid-August I’ve been doing it 3–5 times a week for closer to 20 minutes. I’m not going to pretend this is some awesome workout. I swim one way without taking a breath, pause to suck in some oxygen, then head the other way. I’ll do this four or five times, take a minute break, then repeat. Each time I finish my Apple Watch tells me I’ve set a new record. Even starting from zero, I’ll take that as a sign that I’m headed in the right direction.

My hope is the weather stays warm enough that with the occasional boost from the pool heater I can keep doing this for about another month to continue to build some endurance. Then we’ll see if I’m courageous enough to transfer it over to the Y and swim public laps. I’m a little frightened of both the rules of etiquette at the pool and needing to stop and rest way more often than the other people swimming.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying a different workout that reduces the stress on my always aching joints. And might as well keep using the pool as long as it’s open.

Pickleball

I also played pickleball for the first time ever last week. I picked it up pretty quickly had a great time. It was quite the workout. I’m sure it being a hot, humid night helped. I went with my old neighbor to the church where he’s a pastor. They converted an unused basketball court into two pickleball courts last year. We had seven guys last week, so a nice rotation that allowed you to sit out a game and cool off when you lost.

Not sure if I’m going to turn into one of those Pickleball People, although I have added that group’s weekly meeting to my calendar. And I bought my own racquet? paddle? this week.

I’m sure I’ll keep you updates on my exploits should they continue.

College Recruiting

You may remember me mentioning Marcus Adams Jr. about a month ago in my summary of KU’s summer. He was the recruit from California who reclassified into the senior class in April and committed to KU. When he announced that he would be a Jayhawk, he admitted the reason he picked KU over UCLA was because KU’s NIL program paid better.

From the time he committed there was a lot of weirdness about his situation. There were rumors he might actually go pro instead of enroll at KU. He took longer than the other new recruits to arrive on campus, but that was chalked up to the California academic calendar. Upon his arrival, there were almost immediate rumors that he was struggling in pickup games, and worry among the coaches that because he played at a lower level of high school ball, his game wasn’t ready for a Power 5 conference. As those rumors began popping up KU was suddenly recruiting another long wing who could play this coming year (Johnny Furphy).

Adams lasted about a month in Lawrence before announcing he was leaving. He landed at Gonzaga, but three weeks after committing there changed his mind again. Now he is enrolled at BYU. For a kid who thought Lawrence, KS was “too country,” I’m excited to hear about his experience at a school run by the Mormons.

My point isn’t to throw shade at Adams, which far too many have done. Recruiting is a hard deal and kids who are 17/18 are placed under tremendous pressure in the process. They don’t always end up making the best decisions. Which is why I think one-time free transfers are important.

No, I want to throw shade at the people around Adams. When he did interviews while at KU he seemed super young. There was always a deer in headlights quality to him. I don’t want to say immature, because I have no idea what his behavior was like. It just seemed like he wasn’t super comfortable in that moment. Which is fine, not every freshman can relax when someone sticks a camera in their face.

But given how he’s committed to three schools in something like five months, I’m beginning to wonder if he, in fact, is not mature enough for the moment. I feel like the people around him should have known this going in. One of the pressures on high school athletes is to get their pro clock running as quickly as possible, and often that pressure comes more from their handlers than themselves.

Maybe Marcus Adams is going to be fine, both athletically and emotionally at BYU and my points are silly. The evidence so far, though, suggests that maybe the people who are helping to guide him through this process should have spent more time evaluating his maturity level than his game, and kept him in high school one more year so he was better prepared to select the place to spend his college years. There are worse things than waiting a year to start making money off sports. Especially if that year of waiting improves your odds of long-term success.

NFL

One final note about the NFL, and Monday Night Football. What a bananas game! I was out picking up L so missed Aaron Rodgers destroying his ankle or achilles or whatever. I just saw all the Tweets saying it was the most Jets thing ever.

And then the freaking Jets came back from 10 down to win the game in overtime, forcing four turnovers, making one of the greatest catches you will ever see, and getting a walk-off, punt return TD. Nuts.

The Football Gods have been punishing the Jets, for some reason, ever since they won Super Bowl III. This seemed like the year when they might finally shake that off. They have a fearsome defense that is going to fuck up a lot of teams. Even if Rodgers couldn’t play at an MVP level anymore, he was still an above-average QB, which might have been enough to win 2–3 games in January with that D. Now? This whole season is going to be a gigantic tease for Jets fans. I almost feel sorry for them.

Weekend Notes

September 11, 2023 /

A lot of sports and stuff to get through from the past weekend.

HS Football

Weirdest game of the season for Cathedral, against rival Bishop Chatard. It was CYO Night + Homecoming + Chatard, so the stadium was packed. We got there an hour early and still had to park in the overflow section a couple blocks away.

The Irish started hot, jumping out to a 21–0 lead in the first quarter, and it looked like it would be a repeat of the past three years, all blowout CHS wins.

But Chatard steadied themselves and controlled the second quarter, cutting the deficit to 21–10 at the break.

The weird thing was the lights on the visiting side of the field were not working. As CHS went through the halftime homecoming festivities, we noticed the Chatard side was completely clearing out. As soon as the homecoming king and queen were announced, official word came that the game was being postponed until Saturday morning, and would move to Chatard.

(Reminder for you non-Indy folks, CHS does not have their own football stadium. In recent years they’ve stuck to Arlington Middle School, which is about a mile from campus. The stadium is old, isn’t well maintained, and most fans have to park in a very sketchy strip mall. The other option is to drive 20 minutes downtown to play at Tech High School, which has a much nicer field but it is, again, 20 minutes away. Something is always going wrong at the Arlington stadium. This time it was the power not working for half of the lights.)

L wanted to go to the freshman game Saturday so we did not return to the varsity game. Good choice. On Cathedral’s four second half possessions, they threw two interceptions and turned the ball over on downs twice, while Chatard scored on their first possession after resuming and then threw a 39-yard TD pass with a minute left to break their four-game losing streak in the series. The kid who caught the winning pass did not play Friday night because he was in the concussion protocol, but Saturday was the first day he was eligible to return. Pretty good timing. My girls all thought I was joking when I told them the final score. By the computer rankings, CHS was a 19-point favorite.

Familiar issues for CHS. Their offensive line can’t block. They have a D1 quarterback, four really good receivers, and a junior running back who has the potential to be great. But they can’t give the QB time to throw or open holes for running plays. The D-line struggles as well, and the secondary is the weakest I can recall in my five years of going to games. Since schools don’t hand out rosters anymore I don’t know if CHS is young or just not very good. Whatever it is, they’re wasting the skill players.

Next week they play hapless North Central, right up the block from our house. Unless they get their shit together, that might be their last winnable game of the regular season.

KU Football

I again missed the first half of the KU game while watching CHS. Allow me to reiterate that playing college football on Friday nights is dumb. Although it you have to do it, it better be on ESPN/ESPN2 so you at least get the benefit of people being able to watch it easily along with guaranteed coverage on Sportscenter.

Apparently I missed the best part of the game. As we were leaving Arlington I couldn’t find the KU feed on Sirius, so listened to the Illinois halftime show and they were raving about Jason Daniels. 28–7 seemed like a good start.

By the time I got home the second half had just begun and I had to watch nervously as Illinois tried to come back and the referees tried to steal the game.

OK, it wasn’t the field refs so much as the replay official. The targeting call on Austin Booker was terrible. There was no way you could definitively determine if he hit the Illinois QB with the crown of his helmet, especially when making such a call leads to an ejection and suspension for Booker. Then the same person somehow confirmed a spot that was clearly wrong by two yards as KU was trying to clinch the game late in the fourth quarter. When the impartial ESPN announcers are incredulous about calls you have to assume it was an Illinois alum doing the reviews.[1]

I’m obviously kidding but since I didn’t see the best part of the game I can’t dive into those details and am left to overreact about those two calls.

Bottom line was JD looked great, the offense was crisp in the first half, the defense was doing some nice things before they lost focus/got tired in the second half, and KU won a game everyone was worried about fairly easily. I saw that KU is now something like 42–117 all time against the Big 10. Maybe this was the win that turns all that history around!

I did not like the uniforms. I have it when schools that don’t have black as a primary color decide to bust out black uniforms. This isn’t 1995. Now make those same uniforms blue and I would have been totally onboard. I guess the players loved them, which is all that matters. The uniform gurus agree with me.

NFL

I was only able to watch isolated portions of opening weekend of the NFL. The Colts looked competent for stretches of their game against Jacksonville before things fell apart in the fourth quarter. Anthony Richardson getting blasted and having to leave the game was not good, although he claimed afterwards that he was fine. He was terrific in the first half – 16–20 passing including two drops, 30+ yards rushing – but was largely ineffective in the second until his final drive. That will be the story of the year so no need to get worked up about either aspect of it.

Props to the Colts for keeping the Lucas Oil stadium roof closed on an absolutely perfect day. It’s a running joke around here how much we paid for a retractable roof for how rarely it actually gets opened for a Colts game. I guess 78 and sunny was too oppressive for the fans and players.

The Cowboys looked awesome Sunday night. I apologize to Lions fans for not taking them seriously. Green Bay fans need to calm down and save it for after the play a real NFL team. I’m officially declining my honorary homer status for the Bengals, but reserve the right to reclaim it when they play better. My Niners pick is looking good after 60 minutes of football.

US Open

We watched almost every one of Coco Gauff’s matches, from her opener against the frustrating German Laura Siegemund, to the final when she captured her first Grand Slam title. What a delightful two weeks. Not only is she a terrific tennis player, she is more composed and thoughtful than I’ve ever been. And she’s only 19!

There were so many great moments over her run, but my favorite may have been how she was sobbing after she hit the winner that clinched the championship match. Most players cry tears of some kind when they win a Grand Slam. Something about hers seemed different. Teen tennis prodigies are always a dicey long-term bet. Coco sure seems like the real deal.

One of my other favorite recurring moments of the tournament was all these divas (of both genders) who for some reason scream at their coaches and support teams when they lose a point. You’re the one with the racquet and on the court, asshole. Take some responsibility.

FIBA World Cup

Speaking of assholes, I didn’t get too worked up about the US losing the third-place game to Canada. I did get worked up about them letting Dillon Brooks score 39 points. DILLON BROOKS. No one on the US roster should be allowed to play international ball again. Although he probably thinks he’s an All NBA caliber player now, which could lead to all kinds of hilarious bad play this coming year. Kind of a shame he’ll be wasted in Houston and not torpedoing some actual contender when he goes 3–27 in a playoff game.

I didn’t get up to watch the third-place game and it was over before I woke up Sunday. I did watch most of the other US games during the tournament that were on at more decent times. The real goal was to qualify for the Olympics, which they accomplished. With a flawed roster. Now roll out the A team next year to grab the gold medal.

It was super interesting to watch how the US struggled with the format of FIBA basketball. The court is slightly smaller. The ball a touch different. There are no illegal defense rules. Refs call some fouls very differently than in the NBA. The games also move quicker.[2] Combine all that and the US never seemed comfortable.

It’s not just that the rest of the world has gotten a lot better. The international teams generally have a core that has been together for years, where the US throws a different lineup out there each time they play in the World Cup or Olympics. When you have a LeBron or KD or Kobe anchoring things you can paper over a lot of those little issues. When you have a bunch of nice but not great players there is not much room for error. It’s also interesting that of the top five players in the world right now, only one is an American, and he wasn’t playing in this tournament.[3]

One thing about the US team did bother me. It seemed like they were always looking to throw the toughest pass possible rather than the easiest. I blame it on them wanting to try to match the 1992 Dream Team’s flair. They need to understand that Germany in 2023 is way better than it was in 1992. Just do the simple things and win the game. If you’re up by 20 in the closing minutes, then you can start throwing behind-the-back passes. Oh, and maybe pick someone for the team capable of getting a rebound.

BREAKING NEWS: This morning LeBron said he’s in for next summer’s Olympics. That’s great and all but not sure he’s what the US needs.

PJ

It was an utterly amazing night for an outdoor concert Sunday evening. Warm as the sun set, cool but not yet chilly as darkness descended.

Sadly Pearl Jam postponed their Indianapolis show because of an illness in the band. They say they will reschedule and tickets will be honored at that show. There are only four more nights on this tour and Eddie Vedder starts a solo tour on September 30, so it seems like it will be in the next couple weeks, maybe? I hope whenever it is that the weather is as great as it was Sunday.

  1. Cobee Bryant’s targeting foul? Yeah, that was 100% a legit penalty.  ↩
  2. One minute time outs are the best invention ever. The NBA and NCAA would never go to those – too much lost ad revenue – but they sure speed up the pace of the game.  ↩
  3. I would say that’s Steph Curry, although Jayson Tatum was All NBA first team last year.  ↩

NFL Predictions

September 7, 2023 /

As I skimmed the site’s archives over the summer, I realized I’ve gotten away from the half-assed NFL predictions that used to be a staple this time of year. That is mostly because I was busy with kid sports and the beginning of the NFL season often snuck up on me. And because I loathe how the NFL offseason dominates sports media and largely tune it out, not checking back in until the games begin.

Both to honor the heritage of this site and because I listened to a few NFL preview pods this week, I’m going to jump back in and offer some extra half-assed NFL predictions.

AFC

East

Lots of people seem down on the Bills after their struggles to match the hype they entered last season with. I’m going to chalk a lot of that, along with their early playoff exit, to injuries. Plus I don’t trust the other teams in the division. Buffalo

North

Maybe the best and most intriguing division in the game. One injury to a key player could tip the entire thing. Since I’m a partial Bengals homer now, I’m going with Joe Burrow and his crew. Cincinnati

South

Ugh. The Colts should really suck this year. Every preview I’ve either listened to or read, though, suggests that at least Anthony Richardson is going to be interesting enough to watch their games. He’s going to have amazing moments and look completely overwhelmed at times. Often within the same drive. I suppose the question is whether the organization can shake its recent dysfunction and build around him as he (hopefully) turns into a star, or is he destined to be a Must Watch QB stranded on a terrible team his entire career?

As for the division, both Tennessee and Jacksonville have strong selling points. Culture in Nashville, youth in Jax. Yet both teams have huge holes that have some people squinting and suggesting that if the Colts can protect Richardson, bring back Jonathan Taylor in week five, and keep the defense healthy, they could actually steal the division. Yikes. I like Trevor Lawrence’s potential the most, so I’ll take Jacksonville.

West

Kansas City until Mahomes can’t throw.

Wild Cards

There are a lot of good teams in the AFC. But once you get past the top three, they all have serious questions. Can Tua stay healthy? Is Aaron Rodgers washed up or revitalized? Can the Ravens still stop people? Was that late season-run by the Steelers legit? Can Sean Payton really fix the Broncos? What new ways will the Chargers find to squander their potential? I’ll take Pittsburgh and New York.

Oh, wait, I just remembered there are three Wild Card teams now. Shit. Throw in San Diego just because their eventual loss will be highly entertaining.

NFC

East

If Washington were better, this would match the AFC North for overall strength. Lots of people are jumping on the Cowboys’ bandwagon, but I can’t possibly trust that franchise not to fuck it up somehow. Philadelphia was clearly the best team in the NFC last year. No reason they won’t win the division again this year.

North

All the love for the Lions is cute. Get back to me when they’ve won a meaningful game. I think Minnesota holds off Green Bay.

South

Man, what is it with the South divisions? They both suck. New Orleans I guess?

West

The Niners are a weird team, man. They might have the best, most complete roster in the game. With one glaring exception: quarterback. They always seem to have a couple huge injuries, too. I still trust them more than I trust Geno Smith to repeat last year’s performance. San Francisco

Wild Cards

Dallas, New York, and Green Bay

Playoffs!

AFC

Buffalo over New York
Pittsburgh over Jacksonville
Cincinnati over San Diego

Kansas City over Pittsburgh
Cincinnati over Buffalo

Kansas City over Cincinnati

NFC

Dallas over New Orleans
New York over Green Bay
San Francisco over Minnesota

Philadelphia over Dallas
San Francisco over New York

San Francisco over Philadelphia

Super Bowl

Niners get another chance at the Chiefs. Their defense slows Mahomes down, but when forced to play the entire game with some quarterback they signed in November – Carson Wentz!?!? – they can’t put any points on the board. Kansas City 24, San Francisco 9, and the Chiefs officially enter dynasty territory.

As always, never, ever take use these to make actual bets.

Sports Notes

August 1, 2023 /

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

Tour de France

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

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

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

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

KU Hoops

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

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

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

Pacers

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

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

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

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

Royals

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

Colts

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

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

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

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

USWNT/World Cup

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

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

May 1, 2023 /

A big weekend full of big events.

Prom

The big event of the weekend was M’s final CHS prom. It was quite the stressful week leading up to the dance. There was way more drama in her friend group this year than last.

There was one breakup last week, another of her friends is dumping her boyfriend this week, and another girl has been a bit of a wank which has caused some rifts in their core group. Not all of her friends were originally invited to the same pre-party, which caused some more static. And then one kid invited the entire class – 220-some kids – to his house for an afterparty. He does not have a huge lake house with lots of property like the kid who hosted last year, so everyone just assumed it was going to be a disaster and not last very long before the cops showed up.

Oh, and the weather forecast sucked for Saturday.

Throw in all the normal pre-prom stresses, and M was wound pretty tight last week. On Wednesday she let out a big sigh and told us she just wanted it to all be over. We told her to do her best to relax, to control the things she could control, and focus on having the best time she possible.

You know what? Almost everything turned out just fine Saturday.

It was sunny and 75 when her three friends who were getting ready at our house arrived. We had the pool open, a few of our trees had some really good color, and it looked like we might get some great pictures. They got ready, gathered, I snapped two photos, and just before the third there was a big crack of thunder and rain started falling. I got a great shot of their faces all breaking when they heard the thunder.

We hustled them under the porch roof and got more pics, then they left for the pre-party, with us shortly behind. The hosts were gracious enough to open the party up to just about everyone so there were plenty of chances for more pics. In the 30 minutes between leaving our house and S and I getting there, it rained, hailed, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Suddenly it was a wet, chilly night. Although with so many people crowded together it wasn’t that bad. The kids would have been roasting had it still been sunny and in the 70s.

We took more pics then left for dinner with friends. All of us monitored our kids’ locations closely until they arrived at the Children’s Museum for the dance. Then we relaxed a bit. Or at least until we got home, when it came time to monitor their after-the-dance activities.

M was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there all night. The after party actually went well. I drifted in-and-out of sleep on the couch until 2:00 when I saw she was at her friend’s house where she was spending the night.

I didn’t see her until Sunday afternoon. She said it was a good night. Some drama in the evening but not as much as she had feared. She went with a friend and they had fun. One of her buddies who she had a little static with last week pulled her aside and thanked her for being honest with her, and they have a picture together with big smiles, so that worked out.

I guess it is easier to have fun when expectations are low, but it seemed like everything turned out about as well as it could have.

Kid Hoops

After a week off L’s team was back to tournament play with morning games both days about 30 minutes east of Indy.

Saturday we split two, losing by 22 and winning by 32. We were only down four in the first game with 2:00 left in the first half before giving up a 12–0 run. The lead quickly surpassed 20 in the second half and we had a running clock for the rest of the game. These girls were good: long, athletic, and could shoot. Pretty much the kind of team we always lose to. They hit a ton of 3’s; at least seven in the first half alone. We missed at least 10 free throws which could have at least made it respectable. We heard this team had lost by 10 to the girls that beat us twice two weeks ago.

L was solid in both games, scoring 6 and 8 and playing really good D in game two.

Sunday we were back at 8:00 AM for bracket play. We trailed 12–8 about four minutes into our semifinal. This team was giving us fits on defense but didn’t seem to have much on offense. After we hit a 3 to take the lead we finished the half on a 14–2 run and had a running clock most of the second half. L scored six but was 0–3 from the line. I believe she went 2–7 from the line for the weekend, the only makes coming when she hit 2–3 after getting fouled on a 3 attempt.

Onto the title game against the team that beat us Saturday. Just like the tournament two weeks ago, the rematch was a much better game.

Our girls game out super fired up and led 12–8 before giving up a 12–0 run. We were down 8 at halftime, but were limiting their three-point looks. L was face-guarding their best shooter – who hit six on us Saturday – and she didn’t take a 3 in the first half.

We slowly clawed back in the second half and briefly took a one-point lead at 36–35, only to give up an 11–2 run.

Again we clawed back. We were getting great, open looks from 3 and decent looks inside but kept missing. Yet we chipped away.

With under a minute left, down two, L got the ball on the left wing and didn’t hesitate, draining a three to give us the lead. But we gave up four-straight points and were down three with 2.9 seconds left, inbounding under the far basket. Our coach called a timeout to set something up. Which seemed a little hopeless since we had struggled against their pressure and surely they would press, right?

The girl taking the inbound faked a short pass, L cut from across the court at the midcourt stripe, the inbounder tossed a perfect pass just over the D, L caught it, took a dribble, threw up a running 3…and it banked in! Pandemonium! Poor kid thought she won the game, not tied it, and was a little bummed when she realized we were going to overtime. She lost her shit for a minute.

I’m not a videoing parent, and took some grief from the others when I didn’t capture it. Lucky one of our players brought a sister and her friend, and they did video it. I tried to include it here but can’t get it to embed properly. Trust me, it was fun!

Also worth noting she was supposed to pass to the girl in the corner, but decided not to.

In OT we were down two, with the ball, and time running out. One of our girls lost the ball while driving, the girl who threw the inbounds pass to Lia grabbed it and tossed it up. It rattled in just as the buzzer sounded. Double OT!

Despite being a championship game, tournament rules dictated the second OT be sudden death. We lost the tip, but held on D and had a run-out. We pitched the ball into the front court and had a 3-on–2 break. The ref up with the break suddenly blew his whistle and everyone looked around confused. The ball was nowhere near a defender, so there hadn’t been a foul. He pointed to the scorer’s table and yelled, “Start the clock!”

Only problem was the other ref had told the clock operator not to start the clock on the tip since the period was sudden death. We had been on the wrong end of a couple close calls late in the game and pretty much our entire side of the stands let this guy have it. Our calmest parent said she wanted to go punch him when the game was over.

Naturally after the re-start, we turned the ball over, that same ref called a very soft foul 40 feet from the basket, and they hit the first free throw to win.

A real bummer ending to a great performance by our girls. I get the need to keep games moving, but in a championship game, there shouldn’t be sudden death OT. Especially when both teams are in the bonus and either a soft foul or a player making a hustle play who gets a little too aggressive can determine the outcome.

L played her ass off. She scored 14, including a really tough layup late in the second half against their tallest player (who hacked her pretty good but got away with it). She had five turnovers but twice immediately stole it back. Once she made a terribly soft pass they picked off, then she stole it right back, drove the lane and tossed a perfect pass to a cutter for a layup. She locked down that shooter, who didn’t hit a 3 when L was on her in the entire game. And she hit two of the biggest shots of the game. She was mad about the result but pleased with her play as she limped to the car afterward.

If we could just get the team to play as hard in pool play games as they do in championship games…

Sunday night we capped off the weekend with the callout meeting for CHS basketball. She now has a rough idea of what her summer training with her future high school teammates will be like. She’s taking two summer classes. Throw in basketball workouts and homegirl is going to be bizzzzz-y this June.

NFL Draft

I’m long on record as hating the NFL Draft. It’s the most over-hyped event in sports, and sucks far too much air out of the sports media complex for far too long.

That said, I was more interested in this year’s draft than any other I can recall. That was, obviously, because the Colts were drafting at the four spot and there was a lot of confusion about how those first four picks would go.

I think I turned the TV on about ten ’til eight and was immediately annoyed. I should have known the entire thing would be an over-the-top, completely manufactured NFL/ESPN event. Sure enough in the maybe 20 minutes between when I tuned in and Carolina finally made their first pick, I got good and pissed off. Can we just get to the selections? The show is going to take four hours anyway, why do we need to stretch out the beginning?

As for the Colts’ pick, I honestly don’t think there was a sure-thing pick among the four top QB candidates. I was relieved Carolina took Bryce Young, as I worry about his size. Which means he’s going to be great. I liked CJ Stroud, but I wonder about his upside vs being a game manager who doesn’t really elevate a team. So Anthony Richardson was kind of my guy, although I give him like a 25% chance of turning into a franchise-level QB for the next decade. At least he’s an interesting pick. At least he has insane upside. I can deal with the chance that he is a complete bust and this pick sets the franchise back another 4–5 years because it is not a dull pick. If you shoot for the moon and whatnot.

Because I can’t stand that shit, I only glanced at two draft summaries. One gave the Colts an A+ for their overall draft. The other had it ranked as the second-best group. These grades are always suspect, as you never know how an athlete will transition to the pro game, if their bodies will hold up, etc. But it seemed like a good weekend for the Colts, and could be great if Richardson turns into a legit dude.

Weather

Continues to suck. Sunday was especially terrible. We got back from basketball around 1:00. It was dreary and chilly with occasional sprinkles. We had been home about 10 minutes when the skies turned pitch black, it started pouring, and there was small hail. Fifteen minutes later a glorious sun burst through. This cycle repeated all afternoon, with the temps slowly dropping each cycle.

Today it is only supposed to be 45. On May fucking first. With our pool available for swimming.

Weekend Notes

February 13, 2023 /

HS Hoops

I ended up going to the Cathedral game Friday night after C and a friend decided at the last minute that they wanted to go. Amazingly this is the first boys game I’ve attended in my four years as a CHS parent.

We only stayed for three quarters, as C’s back started acting up around halftime. We saw a very tense game in front of a packed gym. The #8 Irish were playing Fishers, who aren’t ranked but seem to have some good, young talent and gave Cathedral fits on defense all night.

Xavier Booker barely played because of foul trouble, and wasn’t very effective when he was in. Two other key CHS players struggled with fouls as well. Still, their backups went on a run before half and built an 8-point lead. Fishers countered with something like a 14–2 run to take the lead in the third. That spurt ended when they got a T for a player dunking after a foul was called at midcourt. The foul was legit but the T was a little suspect.

It flipped the entire game. CHS had a three point lead when we left, got it up to six, and survived three last minute 3-point attempts by FHS to win by three. I guess Booker had a nice alley-oop dunk after we left but didn’t do much else.

I was not super impressed by CHS. They have a lot of athletic talent but do not play together well, make bad decisions, and don’t take advantage of Booker, who likes to roam outside the lane rather than use his size inside. They have been missing their best shooter, who is another D1 recruit, for about a month. I’ve watched them on TV with him this year and they don’t play much smarter when he’s on the court.

They are now 15–4, with two of those losses to out-of-state teams. They kind of coasted last season and kicked it in when the tournament began, so maybe they’ll do the same this year. It sure helped that they had two guards now playing at D1 schools who could steady the team when things went sideways, and I think those guys not being on the roster hurts more than Booker’s development helps.

But I’m not a coach, what do I know.

Jayhawk Talk

Another slow start in a Saturday game. I’m not sure why these seem to plague KU so much, but you can pretty much count on it happening if they play at 11 or noon central.

Fortunately Oklahoma did not play nearly as well as they did a month ago in Lawrence and the Jayhawks used two huge runs to blow the Sooners out.

Ernest Udeh continued his remarkable development. He’s just doing simple stuff on offense. Screening, rolling hard, and dunking. I had to listen to part of the game on SiriusXM and the KU guys were calling him “Diet Doke” after his third dunk. Not sure he deserves to be compared to Udoka Azubuike quite yet. Smart coaches are going to begin pressuring him when he gets the ball in handoffs on the perimeter, because he clearly is not comfortable and passes it back as quickly as he can.

The real revelation was his defense. He was only credited with two blocks but I know he had at least one more and challenged several other shots. When Tanner Groves started throwing his old man fakes at Ernest, he just stood still, kept his arms straight up, and forced Groves to pass.

You can’t read too much into these late season surges by freshmen. He has put together several solid games in a row, though, and I think KU fans can safely assume he will be in the rotation going forward.

Former Villanova coach Jay Wright did the game for CBS, his second KU game this year. I really like him. He needs to polish his delivery some, but he gives really good insights. Some of that is based on just being a year removed from coaching and his familiarity with what both Bill Self and Porter Moser do. So far, though, he’s much better with Bill Raftery than Grant Hill was. It helps that he clearly really gets along and respects Self and enjoys watching KU play.

Kid Hoops

One game this Saturday, against a team we lost to by four three weeks ago. We were missing our best player, though, and you are never sure who else will show up. Plus L’s knees took a turn for the worse last week and she was going to be a step slow.

Oh, and the team we played had three girls they didn’t have in our first meeting. One of them is the daughter of a former NBA player. I wouldn’t say she’s a star, but she’s better than anyone we have. Another is the big girl L has played against in CYO ball for the last three years. Those two got pretty much every rebound all day. Their guards kept our offense from doing anything. We had three turnovers before we got the ball across the half court stripe for the first time.

In short, it was a disaster. We lost 57–16 and the game honestly wasn’t that close. The other team hit six 3’s (two of them banked in), didn’t miss a free throw, and while I wouldn’t say they were super gifted on offense, they played super smart and made the easy shots their offense gave them.

About that big girl from CYO. She just joined this team, which is through the Catholic high school in Hamilton County, two weeks ago. We had heard her parents were shopping her around, visiting three Catholic and two other private high schools asking the coaches if they would run their offenses around her.[1] This girl is over six feet tall – and has been since 5th grade – her mom had a chance to play in the WNBA and her dad did play in the NFL. But she’s stopped growing, can’t jump, and is slow. She is a beast on defense and rebounding in middle school age-group ball. I’m not sure she’s going to be a stud in high school.

The real key is she has a younger sister who will absolutely be a star. The parents and grandparents are royal pains, but I can see how you take Big Sis and deal with them to get the younger sister in three years.

L had two measly points and was pissed about her play after. I told her not to sweat it. She was playing on a bad knee, against a really good team, and with her usual weird mix of teammates. Chalk it up to a bad day and move on, hoping to do better next week.

Super Bowl

So close to a classic, ruined by a terrible last two minutes.

Listen, the holding call against the Eagles on the Chiefs’ game-winning drive likely did not change the KC’s final score. The Chiefs almost certainly would have made the field goal that won the game from a slightly longer distance.

The penalty did rob us of a potentially amazing ending. Philly would have had the ball one more time, with a chance for another lengthy drive to tie or win. The Chiefs defense, which had made some tremendous plays all night, would have one last chance to contain Jalen Hurts. Maybe the game ends in a whimper with the Eagles turning the ball over on downs. I like to think something special would have happened, one way or the other, had that flag not been thrown.

Instead we got a call that hadn’t been made all night, the Chiefs intentionally falling down at the one, and then letting the clock run down while everyone stood around doing nothing. It took all the drama out of what had been a really good game.

I guess that’s more a critique of how modern football is played in general than last night specifically.

I thought Rihanna’s halftime show was pretty flat. Part of that was the presentation. I bet that whole scene was amazing to watch in person. However, it felt like something was lost in the translation to TV. You couldn’t get the whole perspective of the physical layers or size of the performance. The color choices – bright reds and shocking whites – combined with big differences between light and dark in the stadium was too much for the dynamic range of Fox’s cameras. Most of the colors looked blown out and were hard to look at.

My biggest old man beef was how Rihanna lip synced so much of the show. Props to her for being up on those platforms; I have no idea how they weren’t swaying a lot more than they did. And for doing so while pregnant! But this is the Super Bowl. Show some life, belt out your biggest jams instead of casually riding in-and-out over the recorded track.

I’m sure the Fox News crowd how some other critiques of her performance.

Favorite commercials, in no particular order:
Will Ferrell for GM/Netflix
The Breaking Bad guys for Pop Corners
The Bud Light hold music ad
The Farmer’s Dog piece that apparently made everyone cry. I’m not a dog person so I just thought it was a nice piece.

  1. Petty, CYO sports rumors are the best.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 30, 2023 /

A lot of sports this weekend.

Kid Hoops

L’s team played one game Saturday night. They were matched up with a team that we think were all soccer players in a hoops league for winter conditioning. We play at least one of these teams a season. Sometimes these teams are really good.

This one was not.

It took awhile for our girls – only eight this week – to find their groove but eventually they got it going. They led 23–2 at halftime and won 40–9. Their coach said he was going to make them run for giving up nine. I think he was joking.

L had a great game. She scored 13, all on drives (plus 1–2 from the line). She also completely dominated the girl she was guarding, which happened to be one of S’s patients. L didn’t know that during the game but giggled when S told her afterward.

They were original supposed to play two Saturday, but their second game got moved to tonight for some reason.

KU

The losing streak is over! And it couldn’t have happened in a better setting, against a more worthy opponent.

Three weeks ago most people would have thought KU would destroy Kentucky. Then the Jayhawks hit their losing streak, the Cats seemed to finally figure their shit out, and I was hoping it wouldn’t turn into a replay of last year’s blowout in Allen.

It seemed like it was headed that way for about four minutes, when UK jumped out to an easy 9–4 lead that could/should have been a couple baskets bigger.

But the next 35-ish minutes were a masterclass in coaching by Bill Self. He limited Oscar Tshiebwe’s touches and the Jayhawks gang-rebounded to limit the toughest rebounder in the nation to only nine for the night. Self ran smart stuff on offense, moving the UK defense around to give KU open looks. And the Jayhawks did their jobs, with Jalen Wilson being his usual stud self, Kevin McCullar shaking off an ankle injury to dominate on the boards and hit the biggest shot of the game, while Gradey Dick battled and finally hit a huge three late.

Meanwhile John Calipari was too busy stomping his feet like a baby and screaming at the refs to tell his team to throw the ball to Oscar every possession. It was hilarious watching Jacob Toppin post up and turn it over while Oscar was sadly watching from the other side of the lane.

Seriously, Kentucky wins, maybe easily, if Oscar touches the ball five more times each half. KU could not stop him. But the Wildcats apparently aren’t well coached enough to recognize a huge mismatch and use it as the first option on every possession.

Self is now 3–1 in Rupp Arena, which is pretty damn impressive.

Thank goodness the losing streak is over. Not sure how I would have reacted to KU’s first four-game losing streak since, checks notes, I was in high school?!?!

Now it’s back to the Big 12 bloodbath, hopefully with a nice dose of confidence. Also saying prayers and lighting candles for McCullar’s ankle.

Other College Hoops

I watched a lot of the other Big 12-SEC games Saturday, in little chunks while switching around. I could not believe Oklahoma hammered Alabama by nearly 30. Seems a little flukey, like the Crimson Tide didn’t take OU seriously on a day OU was red hot. Still a legit-ass win.

Baylor-Arkansas was probably the most entertaining game of the day, although we had to leave before it ended.

Iowa State-Missouri, with Mizzou in their Norm Stewart era jerseys, made me think I was watching from my room in McCollum Hall in 1990 or 1991. I told my best Tiger and Clone fan friends that all we needed was Jay Randolph and “former Big 8 All American” Gary Thompson on the call and it would have been perfect.

BTW, I owe Mizzou fans an apology. I wasn’t trying to be snarky when I suggested they would fall apart after KU pounded them in December. It just seemed like an easy prediction, given MU hadn’t played anyone tough before KU, got worked over, and then had a brutal stretch of games immediately after. The Tigers have proven me wrong since then with a series of nice wins.

I laughed when I saw some bracket prediction last week that had MU playing Indiana in the first round, and both in KU’s bracket. It would be crazy for either a KU-MU or KU-IU rematch in the Sweet 16 in Kansas City. The Border War bonus game would obviously be a little more crazy.

It ended up being a nice day here, with the sun out and it approaching 50 – S and I even took about a 45 minute walk mid-afternoon – but the quality of the hooping would have been ideal for a more typically cold, snowy January day.

Pacers

The Pacers made big news last week by re-signing Myles Turner, who was going to be a free agent in the off season. Turner is playing the best basketball of his career, and the rumors popped up a few weeks ago that the Pacers made him a contract offer, which included a bunch of their free cap money for the remainder of this year, something no other team could do if they traded him. But when Tyrese Haliburton got injured two weeks ago and the team lost nine of ten,[1] it started to feel like they would again look to move Turner before the trade deadline.

I think this is a smart move. It’s only a two-year extension, so the Pacers aren’t hitching the franchise’s future onto a massive contract that could go bad in three years. Plus it gives Turner a chance to be a free agent after the next NBA national TV contract is signed and revenues take another jump. Win-win.

As long as Turner stays healthy, which is always the question with him.

Now the focus needs to be on finding a way to get a big wing onto the roster, either through a trade in the next two weeks, or more likely over the summer. The team has a great, young core of Haliburton, Turner, and Bennedict Mathurin with a bunch of other smallish wings. They should bundle that bench depth with some of their three first round picks this year into a package to get someone in the 6’8” range who can defend and score.

NFL

So Chiefs-Eagles in the Super Bowl. Not the matchup I wanted, but not like I had strong interests in the outcomes of the conference title games. I causally watched both games, often with the sound down while also consuming other media. I think M was upset that Joe Burrow lost. He is the first pro athlete she has ever expressed any independent interest in. I can’t imagine why.

I still have to constantly explain to people here, even ones I’ve know for years, how I’m not a Chiefs fan. It can be exhausting, let me tell you.

  1. Now ten of eleven.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 9, 2023 /

It’s back to semi-normal today. L returned to school after her Christmas break. M and C still have one more week of J-term, so they go in a little later and get out a little earlier. But all three have to get up in the mornings again.

Last week I had to get up to make sure C was up, so my alarm was 7:15 instead of my normal, school-day 6:55. Still, it was a little weird coming down this morning and finding the house dark instead of two Christmas trees already turned on filling the living room and front office with their soft light.

We took all the holiday decorations down Saturday. Since they went up earlier than normal and stayed up a little longer than normal, this was our most decorated Christmas ever.

We all have dentist appointments this afternoon, which wraps up a busy run of visits to health professionals over the past few weeks. I’ve been to the orthodontist three times, optometrist, sports medicine, MRI center, physical therapy, and had my annual physical.

I’m good, all that middle stuff was for C. She’s been having back pain for a few months, and even resting it plus a few visits to a chiropractor last fall didn’t help. Walking around in Italy was awful for her, and she was generally miserable at the end of each day, and progressively worse as the week went on. We finally got her in to a sports medicine doc three weeks ago. X-rays were clean but her MRI showed two interesting things. First, she has a bulging disk, the likely cause of her pain. Second, she is missing a vertebra and one set of ribs. That diagnosis got S into super medical research mode and she found about 4–5% of the general population has this issue. Weird!

The sports med doc said while there’s no research that would definitely tell us the bulging disk is directly tied to the lack of that vertebra, she also said it sure didn’t help. She also said it likely cost C an inch or two of height, which makes her topping out at 5’2” while her sisters both made it to 5’4”-ish make sense.[1] She took some teasing for that.

She started physical therapy last week and will do that for a month or so, with the hopes that helps her avoid anything more invasive to correct the issue.

Big 12 Hoops

Another crazy-ass weekend in the best conference in the country. Three teams are tied for first place at 3–0, all three getting there on the strength of two road wins. KU is not a huge surprise to be in that group. Kansas State and Iowa State, though? HUGE surprises. These were picked 8th and 9th in the preseason polls!

I think it’s too early to draw broad conclusions about any team. Especially in a conference like the Big 12. The Wildcats and Cyclones might be mid-tier teams a month from now. But they are off to great starts, and those road wins are huge bonuses in a conference that will likely be tightly bunched much of the season. 14–4 is always my default answer for what it takes to win the Big 12. Could this be the year that something like 12–6 guarantees you no worse than a tie?

More Jayhawks-centric talk later this week.

Pacers

The Indiana Pacers were expected to win right around 20 games this year. They just played their 41st game of the season, the exact midpoint of their schedule. After grabbing two more close wins this weekend, they stand at 23–18, good for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

It’s been a remarkable first half. They are hella fun to watch, as my friends in Cali might say. Tyrese Haliburton is a legit All Star, and plays with a joy that is infectious. Buddy Hield leads the league in 3-pointers made, connecting on nearly 20 more than the second-most prolific shooter. Rookie Bennedict Mathurin is going to be a star. Second-round pick Andrew Nembhard could be one of the steals of the draft, an ideal backup to Haliburton who can also play next to him. Aaron Nesmith is beginning to show why he was a lottery pick two years ago.

But the biggest surprise is Myles Turner, a player most expected to have been traded by now. Turner is playing the best, most complete, most inspired ball of his career. I’ve always thought he was a little immature and disinterested in doing the hard work it took to be a star. At least for now he seems fully invested. To the point where the Pacers have made him a contract extension offer, attempting to capitalize on the big chunk of salary cap space they still have open. Turner has, for now, said he’s not interested.

That will set up an interesting game of chicken. Can the Pacers really trade their second-best player when they are in the running for a playoff spot and far too good to have a realistic shot at the #1 pick if they suddenly decide to tank? Can Turner turn down more money than any other team will be able to give him next summer no matter how badly he wants to end up in LA?

A year ago I would say the sides will come together and find an agreeable extension before the trade deadline, and Turner will quickly get injured. He’s always getting injured, and it would be just the Pacers’ luck for that to happen after they lock him up.

I think the Pacers’ luck has changed, though. So I think they either re-sign him and he stays healthy, or they can’t agree to terms, he plays out the year, signs with another team over the summer and that inevitable injury pops up in training camp. Meanwhile the Pacers use all their cap space to plug some other holes and immediately turn back into the solid 40–50 win team they usually are.

cLots/NFL

What a finish to the regular season! The cLots began the season with that humiliating tie in Houston, one that required a furious comeback just to get to overtime. They ended it with an even bigger embarrassment, losing to the Texans at home in the final minute of the game. Houston had a 10-point lead three times, but the cLots rallied to take a seven-point lead late in the fourth quarter. The Texans, who should have been satisfied with the loss and the #1 pick in April’s draft, for some reason decided to play full-out, converting on fourth and 20+ two different times on their final drive, including the touchdown that cut the lead to one. Then they went for two and the win and got it.

Amazing!

In the process they allowed the Bears to jump them for the #1 pick. The Texans’ owner was on the sideline after the game and he seemed to be the only person not celebrating. A few hours later he fired coach Lovie Smith. I like to think Lovie and his players knew what was coming and the final drive was a big Eff You to ownership.

The L could be good for the cLots. The Bears don’t need a quarterback, so perhaps they will entertain flipping that pick for Indy’s #5. Or at least that’s what speculation is around here. The Bears can certainly use the top pick to select someone other than a QB, and the cLots will have to hope either they can get a decent candidate in their fifth slot, or focus on one of the teams between them and Houston to swap picks with.

***UPDATE***
I heard at least four times yesterday that the cLots’ pick will be #5. Turns out they snuck into #4 thanks to Denver’s win.

I don’t know. It sure feels like the cLots will be stuck at five, reach for someone who is not ready to be an NFL QB, and remain mediocre, at very best, for the foreseeable future.

Not that I’m convinced either Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud are sure-things. Maybe it’s better not to pick them.

  1. And L is still growing.  ↩

New Year’s Weekend Notes

January 3, 2023 /

Our holidays come to an end today. M and C go back to class tomorrow, although CHS is once again having a two-week J term filled with electives, so they don’t have “real” school for awhile. L has another week off but I will still have to start setting an alarm to make sure her sisters are awake tomorrow.

A rundown of how we ended 2022 and began 2023.

New Year’s Eve/The New Year

Our postponed Christmas Eve family gathering was rescheduled for this night. It was big, loud, a little crazy, but fun. It helped that it was about 50 degrees warmer than it had been a week earlier.

We were back at our house around 9:00 – except for M and C who went to friends’ homes to celebrate – played a couple games before L and her cousin and S and her sister petered out around 10:30. I stayed up to watch football (more on that below).

New Year’s Day was uneventful. Monday morning we woke to heavy fog and five deer milling about in our back yard. One of those fuckers got a little too close to our pool. That’s all we needed to start the year: a deer falling through the cover, tearing up the pool liner, and probably having to call for assistance to get its dumb ass out.

Our youngest nephew turned three Monday, and his family stopped by for birthday cupcakes.

In the evening the seven of us did an escape room thing. It was my first time doing one. A little weird, especially since we had one kid (take a guess which) being a little bossy and uncooperative. But we made it out with 13 minutes to spare.

My sister-in-law and niece were supposed to fly back to Denver around 10. Their plane was also coming from Denver and kept getting delayed because of the weather out there. It finally took off two hours late. I dropped them at IND around 11:45. Looks like they made it home after 2:30 Denver time. I bet it was fun to clear the snow from their car at that hour.

Our drive to the airport was very weird. We were again under a thick layer of fog. Moments after dropping them off a big storm rolled in. I spent about the first 15 minutes of my drive home on the interstate going no faster than 40 mph with my wipers on high and hazards flashing. There was intense, bright, blinding lightning that was a lot of fun when I was already struggling to see the road. Fortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic at midnight on a Tuesday morning, and I made it home safely.

With family visiting we didn’t get to taking down the Christmas decorations yet. I’ll pull the plug on the outdoor lights today and take them down if the rain clears out. But the inside tree will probably stay up until either Thursday, S’s home admin day, or next weekend. Don’t worry: the Christmas music was retired on Christmas Day!

KU Hoops

What a stupid, wonderful, infuriating, magnificent beginning to the Jayhawks’ Big 12 season. Playing like absolute dogs in the first half and letting a mediocre-shooting Oklahoma State squad light them up from outside to go down by 15 at the half. Followed by a brilliant eight minutes or so to eliminate that deficit and leave us with 12 minutes of knock-down, drag-out basketball that was probably a pretty good teaser for how this Big 12 season will be.

It was the third time in the 2022 calendar year that KU came back from 15 or more down at halftime. I guess they knew the football team came up just short Tuesday and needed to lock in one, last crazy comeback for the year.

Looking back, in 2022 KU hammered Villanova in the Final Four, beat North Carolina for the national championship, came back and beat Duke in the Champions Classic, destroyed what has turned out to be a pretty damn good Missouri team, hammered Indiana, and then had the two mega comebacks against Kansas State in November and Oklahoma State on Saturday. I saw a thing Monday that showed Quad 1 wins for the calendar year. KU had nine more than Baylor, which had the second-most in Division One.

Seems like a pretty good year. I have the shirts to prove it.

CFP

As soon as the KU game was over, I had to scramble to get ready for our New Year’s Eve gathering. Our hosts are not sports fans and do not have cable, which meant I was following the TCU-Michigan game on my phone. As was my sister-in-law whose husband is a Frog. Fortunately for him, he and their son were at the game. Looked like they had fun.

Really glad TCU is the school that got the Big 12’s first-ever CFP win. Not that I am a big Frog fan or anything, but it makes it better that it came after Oklahoma failing for years and Texas never getting there.

M was very astute and asked what I would do if it had been a KU Final Four game that was at the same time as a family gathering and I would not have access to a TV. I told her I would probably have skipped the event, which would have earned me a dirty look or two from S but really would have been better for everyone. No one in the family needs to be around me when I’m watching a stressful KU game. Hell, the girls were making fun of me for screaming during the OSU game Saturday. Can you imagine if it was a game in April?

I was able to watch most of Georgia-Ohio State, which was filled with wonderful momentum/mood swings. Ohio State’s potential game winning field goal sailed left just as the clock struck midnight here in the Eastern time zone. Our Christmas tree automatically turns off at 12:00 AM, so as the ball knuckled into the air, the lights clicked off behind me and the fireworks kicked in outside. It’s like it was all planned to happen that way.

Georgia-TCU should be an excellent game, and I’d be fine with either team winning. Just glad it won’t be Michigan or Ohio State, to be honest.

NFL

I was going to write something about how weird it still feels for there to be regular season games two weekends into January. But after what happened in Cincinnati last night, that feels wrong. I’m glad I wasn’t watching. I’m glad the teams seemed to show way more awareness and empathy than the NFL showed. And I’m really hoping that Damar Hamlin makes a recovery that allows him to live a meaningful life.

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