Three-fifths of our family spent the weekend in Ohio. You want details? I got details!
Kid Hoops
L and I went to Cincinnati for the final travel tournament of the year. We’ve never done well in these events but were looking forward to one last shot to prove ourselves on the national stage. We had six games, so I’ll keep the breakdowns brief.
We played Friday and Saturday at the event’s main gym, a building in Hamilton, OH that had 30-ish courts. It was big and nice and as the final stop on Under Armour’s summer circuit, there were some elite high school teams and lots of college coaches around. We peaked into the side where most of the high schoolers were and a few courts were packed with coaches watching. More on that in a bit.
Luckily our first game was Friday afternoon so we got up at a normal time, packed, and drove two hours straight to the gym.
Game One, Friday
Lost to a team from New York by 11. We were down 16 at halftime, trailed by as many as 20, but cut it to seven with about 5:00 to play. They pushed it back up to 15 then we went on another run that included two 3’s by L, the second cutting the deficit to six with 1:00 left. We couldn’t get any closer. This team ended up winning our age group, beating a team from Indy that features one of L’s friends in overtime.
Game Two, Friday
We played a team from Cincinnati and, again, fell behind early. This time it was something like 11–3 before we went on a 20–4 run and were never threatened. We led by 15 with about a minute to play but got sloppy and won by just nine.
Game Three, Saturday
To wrap up pool play we took on a squad from Nashville. Hey, once again we started slow, down 9–0 to start. But we battled back and were up by three at the half. We led by five midway through the second half, had two good looks to stretch it further that missed, and then went cold. Thanks to 3–4 free throws after a personal and technical foul, we tied it at 44. But they smoked us from there and we lost by nine.
Game Four, Sunday
Into bracket play. We were feeling good as the other three teams from our division had already won their opening games, all by double figures. After finishing third in our division we took on the #4 team from another division. They were from Canada. They were awkward and not very good. But they were so awkward that they kept getting in the way and our girls could not shake them. It was a 2–5 point game for the first 26 minutes until we finally put some baskets together and won by 15.
Game Five, Sunday
Semifinal time, against a team from Dayton. These girls were absolute bruisers who took us out of everything we wanted to do. We played solid D, too, so it was a brutal slog of a game. We were down four at halftime, went on an 8–0 run to open the second half, then gave it right back and played from behind the rest of the half. It was just a two-point game in the final minute but we never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. We had to foul and ended up losing by five.
I said it was physical. One of our girls took an elbow in the face that drew blood…and she was called for a foul. The next play the same Dayton girl threw her to the ground…and again we got called for a foul. Not these refs’ best day. Also one of them apparently had to drop a deuce at halftime, as the girls stood around waiting for 10 minutes until he slowly walked back to the court. Then apparently he got into it with the other ref, telling him that he “fucking sucks.” They both sucked but I give this guy extra umbrage. He called L for a travel that was not a travel, wiping out her only basket of the game, so it was personal for me.
Game Six, Monday.
Third-place game, against those Cincinnati girls we beat Friday. As a bonus, in addition to our tallest, most athletic girl who we were missing all week, we lost two other girls for this game. One had to leave for a funeral, the other got strep and went home early. That left us with one sub against a team with 10 players.
They pounded us pretty good, and from the jump. The lead got up to 20 once, we cut it to 10 twice in the second half, but generally played terrible and could never match their effort or physicality. The final was 50–35 but it didn’t feel that close.
As for L, she scored 32 points for the weekend. Which sounds decent until you consider she had 15 of those in our first game again the New York team. That might have been her best game of the summer, as she scored 11 during our comeback attempt. She could never get it going in the other games, although she scored six against the Canadians. She was ok on D but was often limited by more physical guards shoving her on offense. Like playing in the varsity games in June showed, as much as working on shooting and ball handling, she needs to get stronger to compete at the high school level. She slept all the way home and was super sore when she got up this morning.
My favorite moments of hers from the weekend? When she hit the 3 to cut the NY game to six she was right in front of us and she screamed when it went in. She played her ass off in this game, and it was cool to see it pay off with good results. In the Nashville game she had an awesome blow-by hoop and earned a foul to give us the lead, although she missed the free throw. And in the Dayton game, she fouled a girl pretty hard, knocking her over. She immediately helped the girl up and checked on her. After the game they hugged. I asked what that was all about and she after the foul they talked the entire game, the girl starting it by saying no one had ever asked if she was ok after a hard foul before.
I’m proud of L for being a good teammate and hard worker, and especially proud when she has really good games. But I love that she usually handles herself really well and does things like that. There are a lot of shitty, immature, insecure players in these games, and it would be easy to follow their lead.
That was a sad way to end our travel season. It was a pretty good year. We won three tournaments and lost two championship games by one point, once in double overtime. This weekend was the only time we didn’t either play for the championship or lose to the eventual champ.
It was also this group’s last time all playing together as one team. In Indiana (and I assume in some other states), once you start high school you can only play travel ball with two teammates from your high school program. Although we have six different schools represented on our squad, we have four players from one school. So, at a minimum, we have to drop one of them before next March. That’s been a subject of whispered conversations all season. There’s no great answer to it. Even if we can keep eight of these girls together, a good player – and more importantly a nice kid/family – is going to be forced out.
There are other changes as we move forward to high school that add uncertainty, but I think the majority of this team – players and parents – would prefer to stay together at least one more year if the rules allowed it.
Tryouts for next year start in August, so we need to begin thinking about if we want to explore other programs as a hedge. The good news for L is that the varsity coach at CHS also coaches in her travel program. So we think L will have clearance to stay there. She doesn’t want to lose this good group of friends she’s made over the past two years, especially her closest friend who is going to a rival high school anyway.
Lodging
Once again we had a hotel fiasco. Despite its size, this was not a Play to Stay tournament, where registering automatically gets you access to blocks of rooms set aside for participants. Our coach also waited until three weeks ago to start looking into rooms. We all booked at a place together but a mom on our team, who is from Cincinnati, suggested we not stay there as it wasn’t in a great part of town. So another mom spent hours on the phone calling around, not finding any good alternatives that could take nine families.
Eventually our coach found an extended stay place in Mason, getting approval from Cincy mom that it was a nice area.
Then we arrived.
Yes, it was a nice area. Until we turned down the street where this place was. It seemed more aimed at folks having rough times than business travelers spending weeks in town. When we checked-in Friday night there were a series of pretty rough looking, but very friendly, people outside smoking weed. The pool looked murky. The inside of the hotel had seen better days. Fortunately the room L and I had was very clean, if reeking of a combination of Indian food and weed. A few of us parents sat by the pool and drank a couple beers while we watching the Friday evening traffic. It was interesting.
Saturday when we got back from our game, there were two fire trucks and an ambulance outside. Turned out they were there for one of the other buildings, and it was a false alarm. The firefighters acted pretty nonchalant, like they had been there many times.
Two of our families were staying at other places, one at a Marriott. We had all tried to stay there initially but it was booked full. A parent called Saturday afternoon and enough people were checking out Sunday that we could slide over there for our last night. Plus the parent already there had a code that got us a greatly reduced rate. Still, we had one more night in the dump.
We ordered pizza for dinner and the dad who took the boxes to the dumpster said he was 90% sure a bunch of dudes were smoking crack behind it. We noticed a lot of very down on their luck looking folks hanging around before the sun went down. Apparently the parking lot turned into a party after we retired for the night.
Whatever, we survived two nights there and happily checked in to the Marriott before our first game Sunday. That new place seemed like one of the hubs for the tournament. We ran into three of L’s friends from CHS, a couple girls we know that she played against in middle school, and another friend from St. P’s. L rode the elevator with an assistant coach from UCLA. And a few parents saw Kim Mulkey in all her bedazzled glory Monday morning.
Other activities
With two early games Saturday we had the afternoon and evening to kill. There was talk of going downtown – we were about 25 minutes outside the city – and going to the Reds game or wandering through the Over the Rhine area. Some people wanted to go to King’s Island. Not everyone wanted to do any of these things so we settled on spending time at Top Golf and Main Event. The girls had fun, the parents had a few drinks, and it worked out fine.
It’s always interesting traveling with a big group. Friday night we went to a restaurant right in the middle of the dinner rush. When we asked if they could seat a group of 18 – divided up however worked easiest for them – the poor girl working the hostess stand seemed overwhelmed. We only had to wait an hour, enough time to run to the hotel and back, and then she realized to ask us if we wanted to sit outside and be seated immediately. Which was fine as it was a gorgeous night. Then she seated us at tables with 15 seats so three of us had to find our own table, which confused the waiters for a moment. At least we got to eat.
M in Toledo
Thursday night M drove up to Toledo to spend the weekend with her future roommate at UC. They’ve met once before and have been talking a lot, but this was their first time spending entire days and nights together. A trial run for the next 9 ½ months. It went great.
M had a fantastic time and really got along with G and her family. There isn’t a ton to do in Toledo, but she met a lot of G’s high school friends and saw her local hangouts. They went to a Mudhens game, sat in the front row, and got a picture with the mascot. They saw the Barbie movie and loved it. All-in-all, they had a great time.
It was also her first extended car trip on her own. That made us a little nervous, especially since there were huge storms between here and Toledo Thursday. But she waited an extra 45 minutes to leave and managed to dodge them. She made it there and back safely.
They will move into their dorm room in 18 days. Oh, and M turns 19 today.
Double audible gulp.
