D's Notebook

Tag: soccer (Page 1 of 9)

Weekend Notes

July 1, 2024 /

Originally I planned on taking this week off. We have family coming in on Wednesday, holiday activities the rest of the week, and a busy two days before all that. But plenty happened over the weekend and I have a couple other posts nearly ready to go, so looks like we’ll slide into the holiday on a nearly normal schedule.

NBA Draft

What a weird-ass year. L had a workout Wednesday night so I wasn’t able to watch much of the first round live. I did sit through most of the second round Thursday to track the two Jayhawks.

I say it was a weird draft because in the various NBA podcasts I listen to, there were wild swings in opinion on what the analysts thought of almost every picks and trade. One person would love Houston taking Reid Shepherd at #3. Another couldn’t believe the pick and sees Shepherd, at best, as a backup for the next 10 years. Same for Memphis taking Zach Edey. One guy thought it was an amazing, possibly season-changing, pick. Another isn’t convinced Edey can play in the NBA for more than five minutes a half. Select just about any first round pick and you can find the same range in opinion.

Super bummed that Johnny Furphy had to to sit through the first round. He allegedly got good intel that he would go in the first 30 picks. The NBA thought that, too, thus extending the invitation to the green room Wednesday. By all accounts he likely would have returned to KU had he known he was not going to be a first rounder, which is the true bummer because I think he would have been a fantastic college player in year two.

Now it is cool that he ended up with the Pacers. As of this moment I’m not sure where he fits in, both because of his youth and need to get stronger, and the Pacers current roster construction. He has G-League For A Year written all over him, then maybe he can carve out a role with the big club in the ’25–26 season. Unless Kevin Pritchard has some more moves ahead which will open up an opportunity to play in Indy this year.

I also felt bad for Kevin McCullar. New York might be the ideal franchise for him, if/once he gets healthy, as Coach Tibbs loves guys who are dogs on defense. But this is a player who was generally regarded as one of the best in college basketball and a top 10 pick back in December. Then a stupid injury, and then injuries, derailed his season, KU’s season, and his draft hopes. Because of his size and defensive prowess, he will catch on somewhere. It will take a lot longer to make the money he seemed to have already banked six months ago, though.

I laughed at how like 90% of the guys interviewed after they were drafted mentioned how they were versatile. Saying it doesn’t always make it so, but it’s clear their agents got that buzzword in their heads before they started the draft prep process.

Bronny…I’m so torn on all of it. I don’t think he’s an NBA player right now, and believe there’s a 0% chance he would have been drafted this year were he not LeBron’s son. If the Lakers are smart, he won’t spend a day in the NBA this year – unless they get eliminated from playoff contention and call him up for the last game or something – and he can work on his game without the full spotlight on him. But the Lakers aren’t always a smart organization, at least when it comes to giving LeBron what he desires. I think LBJ legitimately wants Bronny to earn a spot on his own. But if the team is struggling in February, there’s going to be pressure to add Bronny over an established trade target. I hope it all works out for Bronny. He seems like a good kid and has handled the process well. There’s just an enormous amount of pressure on him to succeed.

I do think it is kind of garbage that agent Rich Paul was allegedly calling other teams and telling them not to draft Bronny, threatening that he would play in Australia if they did. Mostly because I don’t think anyone else really wanted to draft him. There were much better guys to take second round flyers on, and LBJ has expressed no interest in playing anywhere other than LA. I thought it was less about nepotism or entitlement than making Bronny seem better than he actually is.

I still think not drafting dudes because they are 22–23–24 years old is dumb. Sure, they may not have the ceilings that 19–20 year olds have. But you can also often plug them into roles a lot easier than those kids that are still learning. Teams that want to win now should never pass on a guy that can step in from day one and be a rotational player.

Kid Hoops

2–2 week last week to end the summer for CHS, leaving them at 13–7 for June. Which isn’t bad considering their roster.

It was a tough week for L. She got beat up physically in games and verbally by her coach and a couple teammates. This is moratorium week in Indiana. The time off comes at the perfect moment.

There were clear lessons for her from a month of varsity-level ball. She needs to get tougher and not shy away from contact. Improve her ball handling and passing a lot. Keep working on her shot. Not let her coach yelling at her get inside her head.

In reality just about all of her teammates have glaring holes in their games. Everyone needs the two-to-three more inches in height she could really use. Everyone could stand to shoot better. She’s a 5’6”-ish sophomore who will play a lot of minutes some games, and likely really struggle in some other games. That’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Between Thursday night’s games there was a little break and she was out shooting with teammates, having fun, and she kept drilling shots. I told her on the way home she needs to find a way to translate that freeness from the moments when she’s messing around into games. If she can do that, it covers up for a lot of flaws.

She had two, one-hour private lessons last week, and a two-hour practice with her travel team Sunday. I’m sure she’ll want to get up early and shoot at least a couple days over the week off. The grind never ends.

Euro Sport

Man, what an embarrassing Euro 24 for the Italians. Can’t score, not talented enough to muddy up the games and hope for a 1–0 win anymore. Almost as embarrassing for the English, who are extraordinarily lucky to be moving on to the quarterfinals. Spain looks phenomenal. Such a shame they will face Germany in Friday’s quarterfinal.

I bought a Peacock subscription Friday night and was up early Saturday to start watching this year’s Tour de France. A completely amazing first stage, which featured the most total climbs ever in an opening day.

The winner of the last two tours, Jonas Vingegaard, suffered a horrific crash in April and almost didn’t enter this year’s Tour. But he’s looked totally healthy through two days. We’ll see if he can keep it up over another 19 days of racing.

Tadej Pogacar, the winner in ’20 and ’21, is the heavy favorite and was in yellow to start today’s race, but four other riders, including Vingegaard, were tied with him for overall time.

Keep checking this space for Tour updates I’m sure you are all very interested in.

Sports Notes

August 8, 2023 /

After just a week it’s already time for some more sports notes.

Big 12/Realignment

I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week’s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again.

First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn’t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven’t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don’t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he’s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they’ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure.

What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference.

Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever.

After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There’s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn’t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn’t wreck the conference.

In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves?

I don’t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it’s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary.

I’ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don’t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point.

I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special.

KU Hoops

I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU.

I’m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games.

He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he’s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We’ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris’ eligibility comes into jeopardy.

I watched most of KU’s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1] You can’t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won’t dive in too deep to my observations.

It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12.

Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn’t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team’s.

And if anyone can consistently hit 3’s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable.

On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don’t look like they’ve been shooting the 8000 3’s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday.

These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2] What it all means is just speculation.

One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3’s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter.

Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday.

He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren’t as honest with him, and understood it since “you never really know how kids are going to turn out.” But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, “I don’t have to say anything. He knows.” Hilarious.

When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, “Yeah, he’s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.”

Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, “I’m not sure we can say that on the radio.”

Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, “Sorry about the curse word.” I was rolling. Buddy is the best.

Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, “We coming, Self! We coming!”

It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio.

I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3] I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn’t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player.

The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There’s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week’s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there’s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday’s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter.

How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don’t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy.

Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers’ offer sheet for him a year ago.

I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn’t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly.

USWNT/World Cup

Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women’s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game.

I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision.

I’ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I’ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I’ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas.

Royals

Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they’ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn’t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise’s longest since 2017.

  1. Props to KU for coming up with a way, last minute, to show the games. The single cam on the sideline wasn’t perfect, but was better than a lot of high school single-cam streams I’ve watched.  ↩
  2. It was clear in the two Bahamas games that the refs were making calls late to keep the games close. KU got dinged in for a few bad calls in the game they won Saturday, and benefited from a couple terrible calls when they were losing Monday. Self seemed surprised by the calls, but perhaps international refs try to make the end of exhibitions more interesting, or give coaches a chance to practice more late game stuff.  ↩
  3. If you don’t know your Indy geography, and why would most of you, we live in Washington Township and North Central is one block from our house. Pretty far from the Bahamas.  ↩

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 8, 2023 /

This weekend was certainly slower than the previous one. Doesn’t mean we didn’t pack a few things into it, one of them rather momentous.

On the Road

The family checked off another big milestone when C passed her driver’s test and got her license on Saturday.

It has been a bit of a struggle with her; she was first eligible to get her license the week of Thanksgiving but wasn’t close to either being ready or having enough hours behind the wheel then. She was very anxious about the entire process and it was a chore to get her into the car on a regular basis. Where M was one of those kids who couldn’t wait to get her license, C was part of that cohort that saw no great motivation to get hers ASAP.

As recently as January I was worried that she would ever get it. She wasn’t driving very often, and when she did wasn’t making much progress in her skills. In March something clicked and it all came together, her ability improving quite a bit and those normal, new driver mistakes getting fewer and fewer. She still made me very nervous, or even yell at her, at least once per drive. The other moments were much better, though.

It is tough to grab a weekend test time around here and last weekend was the first chance to get one on the books once we thought she was ready. On the way to her test some other young driver pulled right in front of her in a roundabout. She braked correctly but just sat there. I reached over and punched the horn so the kid knew about his mistake. “Use your horn if you need to, babe.”

When we got to the BMV the test guy was walking out with a lady. They were gone for about half an hour, so C had an idea of how long the test would take. After she left I nervously tried to read, without much success. I checked her location every few minutes to see where they were. After only about 15 minutes I noticed they were only a few blocks away. As they passed the BMV I said a silent prayer, “Please keep going. Please keep going.” But they turned back into the lot.

Damn. That seemed way too quick and I wondered if she had done one of the automatic fail errors. When she walked back in she had a blank look on her face that I couldn’t read. The tester waved me over to his station and when I got there she whispered, “I don’t think I made any mistakes but he didn’t say anything.”

Seconds later he said, “Well, you passed.” Come on, dude, we don’t need to drag it out. Tell the kid how they did right away!

The only bummer was C didn’t realize that she would be taking a new picture and freaked out a little because she wasn’t prepped for one. The nice lady helping us with that part of the process told her she can come back and amend her license with a new picture down the road. I guess that means we’ll be paying for another license but since she thinks she looks like a criminal in the picture she took Saturday I guess that’s worth it.

We immediately violated all the rules by letting her drive a friend to dinner Saturday. I was, again, nervously tracking her location but she made it there and back fine.

Two teen drivers in the house now. Which means the first fight about who gets to use the car isn’t too far down the road.

Kid Hoops

A 1–2 weekend for L’s team, and we were fortunate to get that win.

In our first game we trailed by 14 early and were getting pummeled by their big girl. This girl was ginormous. I’m guessing 6’3”+ and very wide. She wasn’t super athletic but had a bunch of old-school post moves, long arms that helped her get any rebound, and she was blocking every shot in the lane. I know she scored 24. I’m guessing she was very close to a triple double with blocks.

Our girls made a run early in the second half to make it a game and it bounced between a 2–6 point deficit most of the half. We hit a couple threes and took a four point lead late. That got down to one with about 40 seconds left, us inbounding at half court.

One of the super annoying things about travel basketball is that the rules are never the same tournament-to-tournament. Some weeks you play 14 minute halves, others 16. Occasionally 20 minutes with a running clock. Some weeks it takes five fouls to foul out, others six.

This week you didn’t start shooting free throws until there were 10 team fouls. The other team only had six at this point. Despite our struggles with their pressure, their coach decided to start fouling intentionally. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Four straight times until we went to the line.

This was super dumb. I can’t stress this enough. One of the worst coaching gaffes I’ve seen.

On three of those inbound passes we almost turned it over. If the coach had told them to trap first and then foul, they likely would have been able to get a steal. On one play I guarantee the ref would have called our girl for traveling but since the coach was screaming at him to call the foul he did. She was so worried about getting us to the line that she didn’t give her team a chance to play defense. If they get a stop they could go down, run a good play for their big girl, probably get a basket or put her at the line (she was 4–5 from the line), and then force us to get a shot up.

Oh, she only had six players. One of them fouled out in this sequence.

When we finally went to the line we missed – of course, we shot like 25% from the line for the weekend – but we got a stop and steal on the other end, then they fouled us again. Which was that player’s sixth foul. They played the last 30 seconds of the game with four players because their coach was super dumb.

We again missed the free throw but got the rebound, scored to go up three, and survived a last-gasp three to get the win.

Thank you, Ohio coach!

We got smoked by some very athletic girls from Wisconsin in pool game two. They led by 24 at one point, we got it down to seven late, but lost by 14.

Then in our bracket game we lost by 10. Again, we trailed by 20 by whittled it down to four. Our girls loved digging holes and then trying to get out of them.

A pretty crappy weekend for L. She hit a 3 right before the halftime buzzer of the first game – that’s her thing now – but rolled her bad ankle about 30 seconds into the second half and didn’t play again. She rolled it on her own, didn’t trip over anyone else or do it as a result of contact. Even with the light brace she was wearing she immediately went down and hobbled off at the next dead ball.

Not a lot of swelling but it is very sore and now we have to figure out how long to hold her out to give it a chance to heal. She wanted to play Sunday but I told her if she rolled it again, she was not only putting the next two weekends in doubt, but would put all her June activities with CHS in jeopardy.

We tried to get her a Steph Curry-approved brace Sunday, but the one we brought home seems defective so I have to return it and find another. We’re also going to keep her in a light brace at all times and do some home rehab once her pain level goes down. I badly sprained my right ankle my sophomore year of high school and it was never the same. I hope she hasn’t inherited my bad ankles along with my bad eyes.

Kid Soccer

I believe I mentioned that L signed up to play on the St P’s soccer team, which is an eighth grade tradition. Between her previous ankle issues, the weather, and basketball conflicts, she was only able to play in two games.

In the first she had one chance to score but took a terrible shot – with the outside of her right foot from the left side – from way too far away from the goal. A dad near me asked, jokingly, “What kind of shot was that?”

“A shot by a kid that hasn’t played soccer in four years,” was my response.

In their final game last week she had another good chance to score, took a great shot from the right side…and one of her teammates ran in the way of it and blocked it for the defense. I’m not sure that it had a chance to go in but it would have made it on-goal.

After the game we were parked by the St O coach and she came over and asked L, “Do you play travel? You’re a really good player.” That pumped up her ego more. She seriously told me two weeks ago she thought she could make the CHS team. I laughed at her and said, “Maybe if you quit basketball and play soccer all summer.” Then I reminded her that she told me her team was trash (it was) and not to get too excited about dominating practice.

Oh well, she had fun playing one more time even if she wasn’t the same player she was back when soccer was her thing.

Pool Season

We finally shook that cold spell and the girls were in the pool a couple times over the weekend. M had friends over Friday night and two of the local nephews took advantage of it on Sunday. I hate to jinx it but if it stays as warm as the next 10 days look, we might be able to keep the heater off except for that quick boost right before the weekends when people are coming over.

Now it will probably be in the 30s next week…

Weekend Sports Notes

December 19, 2022 /

What a weekend of sports at all levels!

Hoo, Hoo, Who?

I was unable to watch the Indiana-Kansas game live, which was a major bummer, because it was another first-rate ass kicking. One so comprehensive that I’m left wondering if IU really isn’t that good and, thus, us KU fans shouldn’t overreact to the win.

Regardless, as a Jayhawk living in Hoosier-land, that was a fun ass game.

I was following the score from L’s games, but because I’m a superstitious idiot, I decided I would only check the score every 15 minutes of real time so I could focus on her games. Which, of course, meant I was constantly checking my watch to see if I could look. Again, I am an idiot.

Several of the parents on her team are Purdue fans and told me they were big KU fans for the day. They messed with me by dramatically pulling out their phones, checking the score, then looking at me and shaking their heads like it wasn’t going well for the Jayhawks. I would respond by telling them, “It was 21–6 five minutes ago, it can’t be that bad.”

I did get a little concerned when I saw IU got it down to 10 early in the second half. But my next glance showed KU up by 18, and as we walked out of the gym I saw the 22-point win was final.

I watched the recording as soon as we got home and was pretty happy with how things went. It’s one game, but it seems like Bill Self has already found a way to work within the limitations of this year’s roster to make them a bitch to play. Usually that doesn’t happen until early February. Having two absolute defensive studs on the perimeter sure makes everything a lot easier. But the development of KJ Adams has been outstanding and incredibly important. Three weeks ago we were thinking, “How can we get one of the freshmen bigs to take his minutes?” Now the freshmen can barely get on the court, and it’s because KJ has become a legit threat on both ends.

I don’t know if his recent play is sustainable, and he will not matchup well against some teams. But there’s no reason he should not be getting the bulk of the minutes at the five spot right now.

I do have to throw an Old Man Rant in. Apparently only about half of the KU student tickets were claimed for the marquee non-conference game of the year? I know finals are over and many students have gone home. And student attendance around the country just isn’t what it used to be.

But, “Back in my day”™ we hung around an extra day or two when Indiana came to Lawrence in 1993, or came back when North Carolina State or some other good team would play in Allen in January before classes resumed.[1] I have a few IU friends who went to the game and while I’m eager to hear about their experiences (weird how very few of my them or my local IU friends have reached out since about 10 minutes after the game began), I’m frankly going to be a little embarrassed that there were empty seats for the biggest game of the non-con season.

Or maybe I’ll tell them that kids didn’t show up because IU has been bad/mediocre for so long they don’t realize this was supposed to be a big game!

cLots

OMG! When I sat down to watch the KU game, the Colts had just taken an improbable 33–0 lead over the Vikings. What a world!

When I was done with the Jayhawks and switched from the DVR to live TV, the Colts game was headed to overtime.

What a disaster, yet a perfect way to put a symbolic end to this dumpster fire of a season, and really era, of Colts football.

Burn it all down and start all over again.

Youth Hoops

It was bracket weekend for L’s team. They won their semifinal by six. They were ahead 9–0 early and blew that. Led by eight multiple times in the second half but kept giving it up. It was not a pretty 28 minutes of basketball.

She’s been sick off-and-on for weeks and was still trying to recover. She struggled with her stamina and legs the entire game. In the break before the championship game she kind of went and laid down, hoping to rebound.

She seemed to feel better and played a bit better in the second game. It looked like we were going to get run off the court early, but we kept it close and somehow took a six-point lead late in the game. Then gave up a 8–1 run to lose by one.

Kind of a bummer but they were the better team and our girls were all kind of checked out. They haven’t practiced much and it seems like the coach is having a hard time connecting with the players. Hopefully that improves when we start the winter session in January.

World Cup Final

OMG!!!!! That was one of the greatest games of any kind I’ve ever watched. The swings of momentum and emotion were stunning and draining. Lionel Messi finally gets the (totally unfair) World Cup monkey off his back. At the same time Kylian Mbappé shows that he is the heir to the Greatest Player in the World throne with a freaking hat trick in the championship game, including one of the greatest shots you’ll ever see. A couple of absolutely ridiculous near-goals at the end of regulation and extra time nearly gave each team the win. And then the thoroughly gut-wrenching process that are championship deciding penalty kicks.

That was an awesome way to spend three hours Sunday morning. I was pulling for both Messi and France, so I both won and lost. I can’t imagine if I truly cared who won how exhausting that match would have been. I thought the national championship game last April was stressful…

  1. Kids, North Carolina State was once a premier game on your non-conference schedules.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

December 12, 2022 /

Border Dud

Last year, when Kansas and Missouri played basketball for the first time in nearly ten years, I wrote this:

That’s the good news for MU: things change quickly in college hoops these days. They could add some solid transfers and the young guys who were overmatched on Saturday may be much more comfortable and confident next December. KU could be on probation and have lost a ton of talent. 2021’s embarrassment could lead to an ass kicking BY Mizzou in 2022.

Shows how much I know.

Although Missouri coming in at 9–0 seemed to promise a more competitive game, it was not to be.

It took KU about four minutes longer than last year, but it was again over and ugly pretty early. The final score was nine points closer than last year, so I guess that’s a sign of progress for Mizzou?

It was KU’s best performance of the year, but it’s tough to say it was a turning point in their season. Because Mizzou flat-out stunk Saturday. Well, the team did. The crowd was excellent and I’m sure the game day vibe in Columbia was outstanding.

The Tigers were undefeated, albeit against a pretty terrible schedule. They led the nation in scoring and in steals. Yet I kept thinking, “OK, new coach, a bunch of transfers, weak schedule. They might be better, but no way they have a chance to win, right?”

And then all the computer numbers suggested a narrow KU win. Consensus was in the 2–4 point range.

I wasn’t nervous, but all the KU fans online who were nervous were making me nervous.

Which was silly.

It was an ideal matchup for KU. DaJuan Harris does not turn the ball over under normal circumstances. Playing in his hometown, he was ultra cautious, taking 2–3 seconds longer to attack their pressure to bait them into giving him angles to probe. Mizzou’s lack of height was the perfect front line for KJ Adams to feast on, and he turned in the best game of his career. Mizzou’s half-court pressure kept leaving KU wings wide-open for jump shots. And when the Tigers decided to guard the perimeter, that left Adams and Kevin McCullar free to fly to the rim for uncontested dunks.

I’ll admit I laughed out loud when Mizzou ran a KU out-of-bounds lob play – the one that Ochai Agbaji murdered a TCU dude on last year – but threw the pass about a foot too high and it turned into a dunk the other way for McCullar.

I thought it was very interesting how Bill Self coached the game. It felt more like a late February game, where he was committed to his top seven players. Ernest Udeh played a minute or two in the first half. MJ Rice played one. Cam Martin played his first ever minutes as a Jayhawk midway through the second half, got blocked, didn’t close-out on a shooter, and was immediately subbed out. Other than that, it was the starters, Bobby Pettiford, and Joe Yesufu. Self was not about to give guys he doesn’t trust minutes in Columbia.[1]

It was fun, pounding Mizzou for a second-straight year. KU played well. But did that game prepare them for Indiana next week? Or Texas, Texas Tech, and Baylor down the road? Maybe from a crowd noise standpoint, but certainly not from a level of play perspective.

For Mizzou I don’t know how much you can judge the team based on Saturday. As I said, new coach, a lot of transfers, and the first time playing a high-level opponent. It was a lot to ask. I’m sure Tiger fans are disappointed, but it’s so early in the Dennis Gates era that you can’t take much from it. It sucks (for them) that it was against KU, but based on what I saw, this was bound to happen as the Tigers move into the conference season.[2] I think the area of concern is how the team seemed to give up at a couple points. They looked thoroughly disinterested for several stretches. If not for KU sloppiness, the Jayhawks probably hang well over 100 on them. I thought it was curious Gates pretty much refused to back out of their pressure, but maybe he was taking the long view and thinking, “Well, it’s not working today, but this is how we want to play, so we need to keep doing it.” In the end, it doesn’t matter if you lose by 15 or 30. Especially when the line was only KU –3.5.[3]

Other pedantic notes:

  • I get that the game was officially part of the “SEC on ESPN” package. But why did we need a grainy, low-resolution, static camera aimed at a small section of the Mizzou student section? Why not just shoot it, occasionally, with one of those fancy, HD cameras that the rest of the game is shot in? How did seeing part of the students on the equivalent of a Nest camera enhance anyone’s enjoyment of the game? Once again, ESPN trying too hard to give the viewing audience something they did not ask for.
  • ESPN said that KU had won 8 of 9 and three consecutive games in the series. Apparently they were counting the Hurricane relief scrimmage in the fall of 2017? Because Mizzou beat the Jayhawks three games ago. I mean they even showed highlights of that game. Or perhaps ESPN had already chalked up Saturday as a win for KU?
  • The lead announcer also made a couple notable, factual mistakes. Since it was a rivalry game I’m contractually obligated to say those were because he’s a Mizzou alum, not because of any slips of the tongue.
  • Hearing the Rock Chalk Chant in Columbia, MO was pretty dope.
  • I do not understand why Adidas made the stripes on the sides of KU’s uniforms white, when red would look so much better. Especially since they would be a call back to the uniforms worn by the 2008 national champs.

Time to bring on the Hoosiers.

World Cup / Grant Wahl

Tremendous World Cup quarterfinals Friday and Saturday. The Holland-Argentina game was absolute bananas, with controversy, some first-class pettiness/bad blood, an all-time tying goal, and then a ridiculous penalty shootout. I wish we could have those teams play again.

Morocco being the first African side to reach the semifinals is great. They defeated Portugal on a beautiful goal.

France knocking off England was a great game as well. Shame they had to meet in the quarters. More like Harry Kane’t, amirite? That was terrible, I know.

The most shocking news of the weekend was the death of American soccer writer Grant Wahl. Only 48. At first his death seemed highly suspicious as he has consistently been critical of the Qatari government. While details that he had been unhealthy for a week or so have come out, I’m not sure we should just assume it was natural. I mean, I hope it was, which seems like a terrible thing to say. But that is preferable to the darker alternatives.

I’ve been following Wahl since the late ‘90s I guess, whenever he started writing about soccer for Sports Illustrated. Later he became their top college basketball writer. At some point I learned he was from Kansas City. When SI began putting more content online, he did a periodic mailbag on SI’s site. Once, after he did a very good feature on Nick Collison, I sent him an email not with a question but just saying that I enjoyed his work in general, that piece in particular, and was glad to see someone from my generation from KC making it big. He responded with a nice note of thanks within like 45 minutes. Forever fan after that. A year or so later I sent in a regular question that he included in the mailbag. In 2008, he wrote the cover story about KU’s national title game victory over Memphis. I don’t think he actually coined the phrase Mario’s Miracle, but he got some credit for it.

As he transitioned into soccer full-time, I continued to follow him closely, mostly on Twitter. He was an invaluable source of information, and a constant booster for the sport. Based on the outpouring of grief from other writers, he was a really, really, really good person, too.

Just a terrible loss for his wife and family, obviously. A huge loss for American soccer fans and anyone who enjoys outstanding sports writing.

Grant went to Princeton, but his mom was a Jayhawk. Something that bled into his Tweets on occasion.

  1. I think Mizzou’s lack of size contributed to that. Udeh, Zuby Ejiofor, and the other young bigs aren’t experienced enough to chase small guys on the perimeter so they were not getting minutes Saturday unless absolutely necessary. Ironically getting KJ off the court might have been MU’s best hope.  ↩
  2. Their up-coming schedule is no joke. UCF in Miami (-ish), Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas. Things will get real really fast.  ↩
  3. I love to tell stories about how I didn’t really understand how prevalent gambling was on college campuses until I went to games in Columbia. One of my favorites was being in the room of a friend of a friend on a KU-MU football game day and the phone ringing off the hook as the resident took bets. At one point he said, “I think I need to stop taking bets so I can actually root for the Tigers.” Kind of ironic that sports gambling is legal in Kansas but not Missouri now.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 5, 2022 /

A fairly quiet weekend for our family. A couple folks are still trying to get their sleep schedules back to normal. Me? I’ve been sleeping awesome all week. I probably just jinxed myself to a week of insomnia…

College Football Bowls and Playoffs

I must be getting old. The stupid little “controversy” that took over my Twitter feed Friday about Missouri allegedly not wanting to play Kansas in a bowl game annoyed me to no end. I didn’t care what the truth was, who actually said what, who was right and who was wrong, I just wanted it to stop. I was away from Twitter for maybe an hour and came back to nearly 200 new Tweets, and most were about this dumb topic.

I say I’m getting old because not too long ago this kind of thing would have gotten me super fired up. But to 51-year-old me, it seemed like a total waste of time and I was disappointed that so many KU folks I follow were going all-in on it. Maybe I would feel different if I lived in the midst of the rivalry but I just wanted my Twitter timeline to calm down.

I have no idea if the Liberty Bowl is a good destination or a bad one, or if Arkansas is a good matchup or a bad one. I just know KU is playing in a bowl and that’s all that matters. Bitches.

Glad TCU didn’t get screwed for losing an overtime game, although I have to admit I’m shocked they weren’t in fact screwed. Then again, maybe they deserved to get screwed for running two really dumb plays when K-State could not stop Max Duggan if they tried. Someone should hire me as a coach.

Really looking forward to the Michigan-Ohio State national championship game and all the hype that will come with it.

Kid Hoops

L was back on the court with her Cathedral team Saturday for two games. They won both games while we were traveling. Apparently she is the problem, because they got waxed twice again this weekend.

She looked like a kid who hadn’t played in two weeks in the first game, not doing much of anything until late. She looked better in game two but they still got smoked.

The second game was against a team, the Wildcats, that beat her travel team by 40 last fall when they hit something like 123 3’s. Her travel coach’s middle school team played those girls right before us Saturday. They also lost, but had a lead late and only lost by five. They only gave up one or two 3’s the entire game.

Our game? The Wildcats hit six 3’s in the first half, then three more in the second half. Maybe L is the problem for that, too.

The tournament is this coming week. Hopefully we get matched with some teams we can not lose by 20 to.

World Cup

The US World Cup run came to an end Saturday in a resounding 3–1 loss to Holland. Well, resounding on the scoreboard. The US actually looked very solid much of the game. They just have no stone-cold goal scorers up top.

The big accomplishment this year was just qualifying for the World Cup after missing the last one. This is a really talented, super young roster. With the next World Cup being (partially) hosted in the US and the experience gained in Qatar, there really should be expectations on the squad four years from now. With the tournament expanding (again) for the next cycle, I have no idea what the knock out stages will be like. But I think a realistic expectation will be for the Americans to make it out of group play and win at least one knock out game next time.

I can’t wait for next Saturday’s quarterfinal between France and England. That just might be the game of the tournament, and the winner will still need two more wins to raise the Cup. It feels like France is a little better but England’s defense is so damn good they may be able to slow the French side down.

Oh, and the French uniforms have been INCREDIBLE this year. The deep navy blue with gold lettering and numbers? <Very French Chef’s Kiss>

Colts

Or Clots, I should say. Thank goodness I went to bed at the end of the third quarter last night. Giving up 33 points in a single quarter in the NFL is hard to do, and yet the Colts, err Clots, managed to do it. All those people who were crowing after the win in week one of the Jeff Saturday experiment are awfully quiet after three-straight losses.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an NFL player age as fast as Matt Ryan. I swear playing for this Colts team has taken like five years off his life. It’s been fascinating to listen to Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth describe his play the last two weeks. Both seem utterly flummoxed by how bad he looks. There has to be a physical issue with him, because when he has a chance to settle in and throw, his passes are never crisp and often fall short and way off-line. I guess an injury is bound to happen when you have zero mobility and are running for your life three of every four drop-backs.

Looking ahead it seems like the Colts are falling apart at a very strange time in the NFL’s perpetual evolution. Smaller, more mobile college quarterbacks are beginning to gain a foothold, as NFL offenses adjust to maximize their skills. The Joe Burrows and Trevor Lawrences aside, I’m not sure we are sure what an NFL QB looks like anymore. I keep hearing Bryce Young listed as one of the top two QBs in next spring’s draft. He’s short, small, and seems like everything the NFL shied away from just a few years ago. To me he looks like a guy who won’t stand up to getting hit a lot by NFL defenders.

What makes it tough for the Colts is they will not be in that Bryce Young/CJ Stroud part of the draft. They have to find a new, young quarterback this offseason. Right now they are projected to draft ninth. Who do you take at that point? Do you take a chance on a guy who looks like a traditional NFL QB, with a big body with a big arm? Or one of these smaller, more modern guys and you put him behind one of the worst offensive lines in the game and wish him luck staying healthy?

The Colts were extraordinarily lucky to get Peyton Manning and then Andrew Luck in consecutive “Must Draft a QB” moments. This time comes with a much higher level of difficulty in many ways.

Oh, and one local columnist is calling this morning for the Colts to go after Jim Harbaugh this offseason. I’m not sure that’s the right guy for this moment in the franchise’s arc. Unless he has some kind of special mojo that can bring a decent quarterback with him.

Weekend Sports Notes

January 31, 2022 /

Well, for most of my friends, this was a sports weekend to forget.

KU

I picked a very good night to have dinner plans that interfered with me watching the KU game. Thus I was able to not see a minute of KU getting whacked by Kentucky. We left right around tip off and by the time we got to our destination, the lead was already big enough that I was saved the awkwardness of checking my phone throughout dinner.

Without visual knowledge of what happened, I can’t really break it down. But I am concerned my little line last week, intended to be a throwaway, about Bill Self’s off-season transfer haul being a waste, seems more true than ever. Kentucky was a much more athletic team, and KU couldn’t hang. Remy Martin played 15 minutes, Joe Yesufu 5. Which means Self is basically running the same team out there that didn’t belong on the same court as USC last March.

There’s still a lot of basketball to be played, so it’s not worth worrying about March when we still have a day left in January. But a team that seemed like one of the best in the country six weeks ago, with plenty of room for growth, now seems like just another in a large group of decent teams with no real Final Four chances.

Fortunately KU gets a chance to bounce back by playing…(checks schedule)…at Iowa State, Baylor, and Texas over the next week. Oh damn!

NFL

I’ll tread lightly here, since I have a large Chiefs-fan contingent in my reader base. The AFC title game result was…surprising. I missed the early part of the game and was only half-watching as the Chiefs stretched the lead to 21–3. No need to watch the rest, I thought, as we straightened up after having some family guests over the weekend. Next time I walked by the TV the Bengals had the lead and I had no idea how.

From Twitter I gather the Chiefs defense did enough to win but, amazingly, it was the offense that let them down. That is also surprising.

My bigger takeaway is how this weekend might have officially turned the page for quarterback generations in the NFL. Peyton has been gone a few years. Brees left last year. Brady is leaving, maybe? If Rodgers continues to play he likely has just a brief time left in his career. Russell Wilson seems like he’s on the back-half of his career. In that group you have the quarterbacks who have dominated the game over the past 20 years.

On the other side of the generational divide, Patrick Mahomes has already ascended. Josh Allen sure seemed to this year. Joe Burrow is the swaggiest QB since Joe Namath and just got to the Super Bowl in his second year in the league, after blowing out his knee his rookie year. Those three play in different AFC divisions, meaning they will battle for a long time as long as they remain healthy. I would also add Lamar Jackson, who is doing things that no one thought possible for a quarterback in the NFL. Kyler Murray is just outside that group, but is such a unique talent that if he can learn to harness it for 20-some games he could easily move into that group. What a treat for football fans!

What is this bullshit rolling Michael Buffer out to “announce” the kickoff two-straight weeks? Is it 1997?

The Niners-Rams game wasn’t quite as fun as their last meeting, but still enjoyable as a neutral. So many just stupid plays that affected the result. So much over-coaching. I was hoping for a three-OT game as the teams traded stupid play after stupid play.

Props to Jimmy G for likely ending his career in the most Jimmy G manner possible. Carson Wentz probably shed a tear if he was watching, thinking Jimmy made a great play.

USMNT Soccer

During much of the Bengals-Chiefs game, I was actually watching more of the US-Canada men’s World Cup qualifier. Without diving into pay channels, it was only available on Telemundo, so in Spanish, in standard definition. Which was weird. Made weirder by being played in some glorified college stadium on a narrow, artificial turf field in Ontario.

I missed the opening Canada goal but watched with great frustration as the US mostly dominated the game, yet couldn’t put a tying goal in. They had a brilliant chance late in the first half when Weston McKennie had a beautiful header that the Canada goalie knocked away at the last possible moment. It was a brilliant save, made even more impressive since the goalie looked like some dude they randomly picked up before the game in a nearby park.

That was the story of the entire game: the US dominated possession but could not get good shots on goal. And when they managed a decent shot, the goalie was always there.

The game got nice and chippy late. Lots of pushing and mock, soccer player anger. The referee was great. He would come charging in from 30 yards away anytime there was a little dustup, blowing his whistle and waving his arms. The Canadian crowd was in a frenzy, as a win would both be Canada’s first over the US in a WC qualifier since 1980 and pretty much lock up their World Cup berth. They added a goal in the final minute of stoppage time as the US pressed forward and the place went nuts. If it wasn’t so annoying that the US had, once again, found a way to make getting to the World Cup entirely too difficult, it would have been awesome to watch.

I don’t follow the USMNT super closely. I do know they have their best crop of talent since those great teams of the early 2000s. They tend to play really well against Mexico, which is awesome. But they still throw too many duds up against teams they have way more talent than. For example, last week’s game against El Salvador. Played in freezing Columbus, OH, you would expect the US to win easily. They had to gut out a nervy 1–0 win. I watched most of the second half and they seemed so much better, but just can’t finish. I’m sure it is maddening to people that are really into the team.

They are still in a good spot to get to the World Cup next fall. But they could have wrapped up that spot by now and have only themselves to blame if it comes down to the last game or, worse, they have to go to a playoff to get in.

Early July Sports Notes

July 7, 2021 /

KU Hoops

It would be nice to say a dizzying three months of roster flux at Kansas came to an end Tuesday when Ochai Agbaji and Remy Martin both announced they were pulling their names from the NBA draft list and would be playing as Jayhawks in the coming season. But given how crazy college hoops is at the moment, can we be sure anything is locked in?

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume there will be no more roster changes between now and when KU plays Michigan State in November’s Champions Classic.

I just surprised myself by being able to immediately name all 14 players who are currently under scholarship to play next season.[1] I figured I would forget someone along the way. Which, honestly, is probably the second biggest story for the coming year: some kids are going to get forgotten.

We’ll get to that in a moment. The biggest story, obviously, is that KU’s likely starting lineup is pretty sick. Martin, Agbaji, Joseph Yesufu, Jalen Wilson, and David McCormack is a terrific top five with Christian Braun as a super sixth man.

Beyond those top six, there’s a backup for every spot on the floor. There is athleticism and length and shooting and defensive ability.

KU might be the deepest team in the country. At least on July 7, which if I’m correct, has zero bearing on games next November through March.

Lots of folks are super excited about this ultra-stacked lineup and already arguing that KU should be ranked no lower than #2.

Which is fine, I get it, and I, too, am excited about what’s to come in the ’21–22 season.

There will be plenty of time to go over potential starting lineups, what bench players get the most minutes, etc.

For now, though, what fascinates me most about this team is how Bill Self is handling all these bodies. How has he communicated with the guys already on the roster the thinking behind adding players. I’m sure DaJuan Harris wasn’t thrilled when Self brought in not one, not two, but three point guards.[2]

What did he say to guys like Cam Martin and Yesufu, who committed in April/May when he brought in more transfers in June that added more competition to already limited playing time?

Most of all, how has worked with the incoming freshmen and their families to prevent a mass exodus by them next spring after they sit on the bench for an entire season? Baring a rash of serious injuries, Zach Clemence seems to be the only freshman who has any path to even limited minutes this year.

I’ve won about 800 fewer games than Self, but my advice to him would be to get guys like Ben McLemore and Travis Releford, who sat out seasons because of academics or choice and saw their games blossom during their year of practice but no play, talk to those young guys and explain how this year can greatly benefit them if they remain patient.

So here, in July, I’m far more interested in the psychological angle of how Self will keep an absolutely stacked KU roster together through six months together than how that group matches up with Michigan State, Kentucky, Missouri, Baylor, Texas, Alabama, and the other teams the Jayhawks will play during the 2021–22 season.

Euro Sports

This has been a glorious few weeks for European sports, if you’re into that kind of thing. Theoretically, I am. Although in practice I have not watched as much as I should have.

In the European soccer championship, I watched a ton of early games but checked out last week when we had company. I tuned in for the final 10 minutes of extra time and penalties of Tuesday’s Italy-Spain semifinal. A treeeemendous atmosphere at Wembley Stadium, which seemed to be dominated by Italian fans.

Long time readers may recall that I’ve long been a fan of the Azzurri, so you would expect that I was happy with the win. Well, things have changed. One of Italy’s most notable players has made several either borderline or overt racist statements in recent years. While it’s not fair to damn the entire team for one player’s actions, he is a veteran and leader of the national team, and hasn’t gotten a lot of pushback from other Italian players for his comments.

So I was rooting for Spain? Well, not exactly. Someone on Twitter, having a similar dilemma as me, pointed out the Spanish coach has also made blatantly racist comments.

Sad that these days if you are a neutral fan, it might come down to which team has the fewest racists on it.

I would imagine today’s game between England and Denmark will be spectacular, and an England-Italy final be truly over-the-top as English fans get to cheer on their perpetually disappointing squad in person. To win their first trophy since 1966 on home soil would be epic.

Once upon a time Wimbledon was appointment viewing for me. I can’t get into to it too much these days. Too few Americans, too many random players with Russian-sounding names that all kind of blend together to me.

I have been watching a bit of the Tour de France each day. But that, too, is difficult because I’m not sure who to pull for. It was easier when you just followed Lance Armstrong and slowly figured out the race by the coverage of his performance. Look at where that got me.

I’m sure I could still dive into the media surrounding the event and really get into it. It’s easier to just casually watch and enjoy the magnificent visuals.

Oh, and the British Open is next week. That I will be getting up early to watch.

Royals

Man, they suck. I watched a game a few weeks back, maybe the second week of June, which they pissed away in glorious fashion, and haven’t watched a game since. I didn’t expect them to contend this year, but I did expect better than what they’ve given us. The fact every young pitcher has either regressed or fallen on their face makes it hard to believe contention is a year or two away. Pitching coach Cal Eldred might need to go.

NBA Finals

L and I have been watching moments of the playoffs, but rarely get locked in. It doesn’t help that so many games start relatively late for us in the Eastern time zone. We made it to halftime last night, watched a few minutes of the third quarter, and as Phoenix pulled away both bailed for bed. She wants the Suns to win, which I get since they are more fun to watch and loaded with great stories. I’d kind of like to see Giannis get a ring, but don’t have strong feelings for either team. I’d say I’m rooting for a great series, but when you can’t stay up to watch the whole game, what’s the point of even saying that?

  1. The standard 13 plus super senior Mitch Lightfoot.  ↩
  2. Harris already redshirted once. Even under the new, super liberal roster rules, I don’t know if he can again.  ↩

On Packed Weekends and Golf

June 21, 2021 /

Decent weekend in our house.

I watched a lot of golf, thanks to the US Open being played on the West Coast. Which is always the best. The girls were even moderately interested since we stayed right off the course during our visit to San Diego two years ago.

I watched some Euro championship soccer. I watched some F1. L and I watched almost all of the crazy ass game seven between Brooklyn and Milwaukee (she bailed to go to bed late in the fourth quarter). We watched the closing minutes of the Atlanta-Philly game seven and laughed at Ben Simmons. “HOW IS HE SO BAD?” she yelled at the screen. Poor Joel…

I bought a book that is right up my alley and knocked out a big chunk of it while sitting by the pool Sunday.

I’ve also still been fighting this damn cold I’ve now had for almost four weeks. In fact Friday I felt worse than I had felt for a week. It seems like time and the Z-pack and lots of vitamins finally kicked in and I may have the cold on the ropes. Thanks to the cold I’ve been squeezing a lot of naps in, too.

Oh, and I turned 50.

No big deal.

Maybe one of you mathematicians out there can tell me what the odds are of me being born on Father’s Day and also turning 50 on Father’s Day? Seems kind of wacky to me but it seems to check out.

Ever since the calendar flipped to 2021 I’ve been contemplating this birthday, what it meant, and that kind of stuff.

I was excited to turn 30, because it meant I was an adult and people would take me seriously. And then my 30s were about maturing and creating. I got married. We had three kids. It was a busy time.

I was not super pumped about turning 40 because it was the first milestone that felt old-ish to me. Turns out my 40s were a decent run, and I wish I had entered them with a better perspective. Yeah, I’m a little creakier than I was a decade ago. I’ve got a few, thankfully minor, health issues to worry about. Looking back my 40s were all about raising my girls, helping them navigate the first years of their lives and reach the points where they developed their own personalities and interests and are either beginning or poised to begin making big choices for themselves.

Fifty, though? Man, it seems old. I can’t help but think of a line from a song by Buffalo Tom that struck me when they released it three years ago:

Now my time behind is greater than my time ahead

As much as I try not to dwell on it, I can’t help but consider that math often. I hope I have many years left, but it is very sobering to know that I’ve most likely lived somewhere around two-thirds of my life.

All those songs aging Baby Boomers put out in the ‘90s are starting to make sense to me.

I kid, I kid. All those songs still suck.

Thanks to all who sent birthday wishes to me over the weekend.

The ladies took me out for dinner Saturday to Harry & Izzy’s, where we enjoyed shrimp cocktail and I had a fine filet. My Old Fashioned was a little too sweet, but perhaps that was three weeks of various meds throwing off my taste buds. Sunday morning we got a variety of fancy French Toasts from a local breakfast place before I saw in or by the pool most of the afternoon.

All in all, not a bad weekend.

Golf

The US Open went from a snooze-fest to an absolute delight Sunday afternoon. I’m one of those who isn’t a huge fan of Torrey Pines. It’s too long, doesn’t ask enough questions of golfers, and doesn’t take advantage of the glorious property it occupies. For about 62 holes it produced a tournament that had a ton of players in the mix, but prevented anyone from doing much to create separation. I was 100% sure Bryson DeChambeau was going to get hot on the back nine, birdie and/or eagle a couple holes that everyone else was parring, and win by two. He had the lead on 10 and that looked like a pretty wise prediction.

And then all hell gloriously broke loose. Bryson shot a 44 on the back nine, and played a couple holes the way I might play them. I’m not a Bryson fan so this was thoroughly enjoyable. I literally cackled like a fool when he cold shanked a wedge and nearly took out some fans on the opposite side of the fairway. Could not have happened to a better guy.

I would have been fine with just about anyone but Bryson winning, but was rooting hardest for, in no particular order, Louis Oosthuizen, Rory McIlroy, and Jon Rahm. Rory faded, as he has been doing for a long time. Louis cracked under the pressure, as he seemingly always does. And it was Rahm who dropped in two absolutely clutch-ass putts on 17 and 18 to claim his first major. It was a well earned and deserved championship.

Rahm might have played the best round of his life two weeks ago, taking a six-shot lead after three rounds of the Memorial, only to learn he had tested positive for Covid and would not be able to play Sunday. This sparked just the kind of meaningful, reasoned, and nuanced dialogue you would expect on Twitter, talk radio, etc. Rahm handled it all wonderfully. He admitted he should have been vaccinated sooner – I believe he said he had only gotten his first shot a few days earlier after he was exposed to someone who was positive – said he understood the rules and protocols that the PGA had instituted, said he totally understood they were in place to protect others, and went along with them. He didn’t bitch or whine or blame others. He accepted responsibility AND advocated for others to get vaccinated. Unlike a lot of dickhead athletes who have taken a different line over the past couple weeks.

After he won the Open, Rahm said he’s a big believer in karma. He knew that something good would come from his bout with Covid. I like to think it was forcing him and others in golf like Phil Mickleson to advocate for vaccinations so we can move society forward. But if winning the US Open was part of that karmic payoff, I’m down.

I do feel gutted for poor Louis. Dude has the purest swing you could ever hope for and, by all accounts, cares a lot more about his family and his farm than golf. The knock has been that he doesn’t care enough about winning and, thus, has only won a single major while fading on Sundays time and again. You could see the pain in his eyes when he holed out on 18, realizing he had a chance to tie or even beat Rahm in regulation before his normally fluid swing betrayed him. He may not burn to win above all else like a lot of golfers, but make no mistake, Louis wants to win. He’s played very well this year. I hope he nabs another major before his skills begin to diminish.

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