D's Notebook

Tag: weather (Page 1 of 11)

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2024 /

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

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

HS Football

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

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

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

KU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

College Football

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

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

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

Colts

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

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

Twitter During Games

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

Royals

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

Fever

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

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

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

Weather

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

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

Weekend Notes

September 9, 2024 /

Another weekend jam-packed with sports dominating my attention.

Personally, it was a tough weekend for football. Cathedral lost Friday night against Cincinnati St. Xavier in the closing seconds of their game, 35–31. KU lost to Illinois despite dominating on defense and having an unstoppable running game they, for some reason, went away from. M’s Bearcats blew a big lead and lost. And the Colts failed to get a win on opening day for the 11th consecutive season.

Well, S’s Hoosiers did put up 77 points Friday. But she doesn’t follow them, so she doesn’t get any credit for the W.

Amazingly the CHS game got my most attention out of all of those games. I listened to the entire thing on the radio. It was back-and-forth all night until the Irish let the Bombers go 65 yards in about a minute with no timeouts to get the win. St. X’s quarterback in Chase Herbstreit, son of a certain media personality. I didn’t get the impression he’s a big time recruit, but he played great in the biggest moments Friday.

We had people over Saturday evening so I was only able to sneak peeks at the KU game rather than give it my full attention. Every time I looked up it seemed like something was going wrong for the Jayhawks. A penalty that wiped out a touchdown. An interception. Giving up a big completion on third down. It was a super bummer to lose. Diving into the numbers, this was a game they could have easily won, probably should have won, with lots of areas to build on. The defense was very good. The O-line great. Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw nearly unstoppable.

It is definitely concerning that Jalon Daniels made so many mistakes. Not sure if he’s pressing, his body is compromised and will never be what it once was, he’s struggling to mesh with the new offensive coordinator, or something else is going on. I also think it’s too early to bail on the OC. It sure seems like he wasn’t taking advantage of a clear advantage he had, though.

Hey, being bummed about KU losing a close road game to a Power 4 team is new territory. I’m not going to get too worked up over it. I don’t think the ceiling is as high as we were hoping, though.

Hey, that Northern Illinois win over Notre Dame was fun! Not just because Notre Dame lost, although that is always amusing. Nor because we watched the closing minutes with a friend who went to Notre Dame. No, the way NIU coach Thomas Hammock reacted to the win was the greatest sporting moment of the weekend. Sports are awesome.

And Sunday was a gorgeous day so I watched the Colts game on the outside TV while doing various clean-up tasks from our Saturday gathering. It was pretty much what I expected from the Colts. Anthony Richardson made three or four straight ridiculous throws. He made about as many terrible/confusing/infuriating throws, including missing a wide-open AD Mitchell for a sure touchdown. That is who he is right now. I don’t know that he’s ever going to be a great pro, but he will always be interesting. The offensive line, which rebounded last year from a poor ’22, looked old and slow. The run D, allegedly a strength, got gouged all day. And the thing Colts fans have been complaining about all summer, the defensive backfield, confirmed all those concerns.

Eleven straight years without a win on opening day seems impossible, right?

I know it’s early, and we shouldn’t make too many snap judgements. But I did not like the new NFL kickoff rules. Of course, in the three games I watched, nothing much happened on kickoffs. I know returns were way up around the league, including one touchdown. Some analysts remain bullish on the dynamic kickoff concept. It seems to me like, after giving up a few big returns, coaches will start kicking the ball into/out of the end zone and willingly let the opponent start at the 30 instead of risking the long return.

Just like last week, I also sprinkled in a lot of US Open action, following the Royals big sweep of the Twins online, and watching parts of the Fever games both Friday and Sunday. The Royals have a six-game cushion for the final playoff spot! The Fever’s five-game winning streak came to an end Friday, but they rebounded with an overtime win Sunday. Caitlin Clark had 23 and 8 assists Friday, 26 and 12 Sunday.

Saturday morning I ran L over to CHS so she could go to the JV football game. I ran some errands and then hung out in the parking lot rather than go in. I had left my season sports pass at home and didn’t want to pay $5 for a game I didn’t care about. She had fun, although the JV also took an L to St. X.

About that gathering, we had several of S’s high school pals over Saturday evening. It was a fantastic fall evening, in the low 60s/high 50s. Perfect for sitting outside with a fire going while enjoying beverages, food, and good company. We had the pool heated and open, but that was mostly for looks. We were hoping someone might get nutty and jump in but no one drank enough to try it out. I’m sure our neighbors appreciated that. I actually felt pretty good Sunday morning, which was not my expectation.

Football is fully back. The baseball playoffs are close. The US Open, a marker of seasonal transition, is complete. This morning is our third straight with temps in the 40s. I actually wore pants a couple times over the weekend. It will be close to 90 in another 48 hours, so fall is not fully here yet. But it is close.

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 3, 2024 /

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

KU Football

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

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

HS Football

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

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

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

Weather

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

US Open

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

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

Royals

Crap on a stick.

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

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

Fever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

College Football

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

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

Family Time

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

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

August 26, 2024 /

This weekend seemed pretty chill to me. There were enough things going on to justify a blog post, though. Let’s see how many words I can stretch this alleged slow weekend into.

Friday Night Lights

High school football started in Indiana last week. In a shocking upset, it was a perfectly pleasant night. That will change this week, though.

That wasn’t the only upset of the night. Number 10 Cathedral pounded #1 and defending 6A state champs Ben Davis 24–6.

I did not have high hopes for CHS coming into the season. They remain in class 6A, two up from their natural class. While they have some really good skill players – mostly the starting running back and a couple receivers – along with a much improved offensive line and solid defense, they have one glaring hole: quarterback. For the first time in seven years they do not have a kid who is one of the best QBs in the city behind center. This year’s starter is a junior from St. P’s who was listed as 5’7”, 150 on last year’s roster. I think both of those measurements might have been stretches, too. When he got in for mop-up duty as a sophomore, he mostly handed off.

Throw that kid against a schedule that features the pre-season #1, #2, #3, and #4 teams in 6A, along with #2 and #10 in 4A, plus a top 15 team overall in Ohio, and you understand why I had some reservations.

Naturally the Irish were up 24–0 before the Giants ran a tipped pass back 100 yards for their only score of the game.

I was only able to listen to the second half, when CHS was already up 17–0, but they sounded pretty solid, controlling the game on both sides of the ball.

Both of our girls went. They both left early.

The Irish’s reward for breaking a 15-game losing streak to Ben Davis?[1] A game against Brownsburg, the likely new #1 team after both Ben Davis and Center Grove lost in week one. BHS beat CHS convincingly the past two regular seasons on very hot nights, so we’ll see.

Greek Fest

Why wasn’t I either at the game or listening during the first half? S and I went to Indy Greek Fest for the first time in 15 years or so. It was an annual outing the first few years we lived here, but once we had more than two kids, we decided it was too much of a hassle.

Good food and people watching. One of S’s partners is Greek and was working the dessert hall, so we got to harass him a bit.

Other highlights were watching some dude in front of us get fed up with the slow traffic to get to the parking lot and literally drive through someone’s yard to turn around. I’m not talking about a couple wheels up on the curb that kind of slipped into the grass. I’m talking about driving his entire car through the middle of this yard to get to their driveway and spin around. Ass.

Also, when we were leaving we noticed the car next to us had a club on their steering wheel. You remember The Club, right?

To be clear, Greek Fest was at a huge, fancy, relatively new church in one of the highest income zip codes of the entire area. After we left we drove through one of the neighborhoods where many of the homes go for high seven and even eight figures. But this person was worried someone was going to steal their car. And it wasn’t like a nice car, it was some ‘90s Oldsmo-buick.

I probably just answered the mystery: this was clearly some super old Greek lady who has been locking her car up for 40 years and doesn’t see any reason to stop because her friend Nikki’s car got stolen once at a church event and you never know…

Girls Nights Out

C and L had big weekends, at least on the social tip. They each had sleepovers both nights, C hosting one and going out for the other, while L slept away from home both nights.

Astute readers might recall that L had a long period where the only two things that caused anxiety in her were thunderstorms and sleepovers. So she didn’t successfully sleepover anywhere, not even with family, for like seven years or something. She made a conscious effort to host a couple in 8th grade, and finally worked up the courage to try a few at other friends’ homes. And now she did two in two nights! Of course she was totally wrecked when she got home Sunday, so I don’t know if she actually sleeps or not. She doesn’t call home at 2:00 AM asking to get picked up, which is the key to S and me.

Rush

As for daughter #1, last week was rush at UC. M was very busy all week long, as this was a huge class of prospective new members, or whatever they call them these days. She told us mid-week there were two girls she was “obsessed with,” which made us both laugh and roll our eyes. She is such a sorority girl sometimes…

Anyway, we talked Saturday and she said both of those girls made the house’s final cut, and she was hoping they would both end up being her Littles.

She ended up going one-for-two. One girl picked another sorority, but the other committed/signed/pledged to M’s house. Her new little is from California, at UC to study interior design, which seems pretty interesting.

The best part of all of this was reading captions on M’s various posts and watching S’s reactions. If you know S, you know that despite being in a sorority when she was in college, she is kind of the opposite of a sorority girl. I think it horrifies her a little how into it M is. There’s been talk of screenshotting some of these posts to mock M with later.

All in good fun, of course. We are thrilled that M has found a community that she loves being a part of so much, and that fits her personality so well.

Classes at UC start today.

Weather

I mocked people last week who were already talking about fall. It was indeed truly gorgeous here. We had the air turned off and the windows open all week. A few nights it was so chilly we had to close the windows. The pool never got below 87, so on a few of my swims the water was 20 degrees warmer than the air temp.

As I knew would happen, summer is roaring back. It got above 90 both days this weekend. We already have heat warnings in place for Tuesday, with the heat index expected to approach 110°. Yowsa.

Better Tuesday than Monday. Fingers crossed, candles lit, rabbit feet rubbed, doing everything I can to avoid jinxing it, I will hopefully be spending tonight doing something very cool that I can share tomorrow.

  1. Tied for longest consecutive loss streak to a team in school history. The last CHS win against BD was in 1987.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 19, 2024 /

An Unexpected Trip

What started as a boring, uneventful weekend ending up being surprisingly fun.

S worked full time all weekend, filling in for a hospitalist who is on maternity leave. She had like 1000 babies to see,[1] so was at the hospital until 5:00 Saturday, nearly as long Sunday. Because of that and the girls being tired after their first full week of school, we just sat around and did nothing on Saturday. I read. I swam. I watched some TV. I napped. And repeat.

Saturday evening I was monitoring the Royals-Reds game while doing some other stuff around the house. I knew my buddy O-Dawg, who I lived with for a year after college and now lives in Cincinnati, was at the game. When Dairon Blanco hit his second home run of the game, I texted O. His response:

“i got a ticket 4 u 4 tmrw”

Um, ok.

Totally out of the blue, at 7:30 the night before the game. Classic O-Dawg.

I had a couple things on the calendar for Sunday, but quickly made some adjustments, cleared it with S, and told him I would be down.

So Sunday morning I hopped on I–74 to see the Royals in person for the second time this season.

It rained off-and-on during the drive, which was an omen. I made very good time and had to wait about 30 minutes for O, his daughter, and her boyfriend to meet me at Great American Ball Park. Twice in that half hour it lightly rained.

O arrived, we got to our seats, which were terrific – section 129, row T, even the pitcher’s mound behind the Reds’ dugout – and started catching up.

We tailgated together at last fall’s Iowa State – UC game, but hadn’t really caught up in over a decade. My readers who know O won’t be surprised to learn he hasn’t changed much. It was tough to truly have a conversation because he was constantly spilling stories out. So you just sit back and listen and laugh and try to have something to say when he takes a breath.

For the first inning or so it was exactly what you would expect from an afternoon game in Cincinnati. We were wiping the sweat from our heads as our necks got crispy. Then the rain moved in, escalating from sprinkles to a decent downpour in the bottom of the second inning. That burst turned into a 45 minute delay. Once the game re-started, it felt more like football weather, cool and blustery. It rained again in the 7th, complete with some thunder and a warning that we should leave our seats, but the umpires never stopped the game. That was nearly disastrous as, with the Royals up 4–0, Sam Long loaded the bases and gave up a run when he clearly had no grip on the ball, but Lucas Erceg came in and shut the door to preserve the lead.

Then the clouds moved out, the sun reappeared, and it turned into a nearly perfect day. The Royals scoring four in the ninth to stretch the lead to 8–1, and 28–3 for the series, was the cherry on top.

There was one more cherry on top for the day, though. M’s rush prep activities wrapped up at 3:00 so I was able to go pick her up for dinner together. We went to a very tasty pizza place right off campus. Her “work week” went well. She is already losing her voice. “We yelled so much this week!” I’m not sure why they were yelling so much when they were just getting trained and practicing for rush, which starts tomorrow. Anyway, work week went well, she and her suitemates get along great, all the girls on their floor are getting along, and it’s been a good first week on campus.

Great seats. Great time with a guy I lived with for a year but haven’t seen much on a consistent basis in over 20 years. Great win/weekend for the Royals. Great dinner with my daughter. Great that the driver that had just passed me got pulled over by the state police officer who is always lurking near Batesville. Always slow down around Batesville, folks.

Fall Feelings

I think it’s funny how as soon as the kids go back to school you start thinking of fall. When we still have half of August left, plus summer weather these days seem to stretch deep into October.

I’ve already been thinking about fall wardrobe choices. Octoberfest beers have started replacing summer ones. Pumpkin Spice is emerging from its slumber to take over store shelves. People are spending too much time talking about preseason football.

I even heard a local weatherman talking about how fall weather was just around the corner. He was kind of right as we’ve had a few very cool mornings and will have a couple more this week. But we also just came off a stretch of days where if it wasn’t close to 90, the heat index was. And, again, astronomical summer has over a month left.

I know the end of summer kind of sucks, as we get beaten down by the heat, our lawns get crispy, and we are looking forward to the relief of fall and all the fun things that come with that time of year. I try to hold on to summer, though. Sure, fall is great. But right after fall there will be long months when we are stuck inside by the cold and we will long for days when we complained about it being hot and humid.

  1. Or closer to 30.  ↩

Dog-ish Days

July 18, 2024 /

The Dog Days of Summer are supposed to come later, say very late July into the early weeks of August. That gap when the heat really kicks in, the newness of summer activities has faded, and boredom starts to kick in.

But, I realized this week, they really should arrive sooner since kids go back to school a lot earlier than our generation did. Which might explain why things seem kind of dead around our house and I’m lacking in blogging material.

C did knock out her senior pics last night. That was a little dicey. A cold front was supposed to slide through late in the afternoon, bringing cooler weather with it.[1] But, as the front passed, it was also likely to kick off some storms. Right around picture time. Uh oh…

She lucked out, though. There were some storms in the area, but they avoided the locations she had picked. The temperature did bump up to 90 late in the afternoon, and a breeze kicked in behind the front. But neither was troublesome for pics. It sounds like all went very well, and she and S came home in good spirits. You can never be sure with that kid in high-stress moments, so that was a huge relief. And it was the first big item checked off her senior year list.

L and I are off to Louisville Saturday-through-Monday for her last tournament, so no Weekend Notes post until Tuesday. M is off to St. Louis this weekend for a national leadership conference for her sorority. Wish us all safe travels.

  1. It was 60 this morning when I woke up and might drop into the 50s tonight.  ↩

Weekend Notes

June 24, 2024 /

We had a very boring weekend.

S worked both days, filling in for a hospitalist who is on maternity leave.

The girls all spent time with friends.

I read, watched some shows, swam.

It was our first weekend in quite awhile where there weren’t multiple things on the calendar that we had to rush around to. It was a nice change-of-pace, as next weekend and the holiday week following will both be very busy.

Kid Hoops

A quick blurb about L’s most recent games. It was a 3–1 week, which was a little unexpected. One team sent their JV squad instead of varsity, giving our girls an unlikely win.

Thursday night CHS took on HSE, which should be a top five 4A team this coming year. HSE has a senior who is ranked in the top 70 in her class headed to IU, and a junior who is ranked in the top 50. The senior is listed at 6’4” but I don’t buy that, as she walked past me after the game and is definitely not taller than me. Despite her size, she’s more of an outside player, and she hit at least five 3s on her way to 25-ish points.

The highlight of the night for us was L having to guard both of those girls on a couple possessions. She got switched onto the IU girl once, and that girl drifted out to the corner to clear the lane for the other D1 kid to drive and score. The next possession she again went to the wing and got the ball. L challenged her, the girl passed away, and when a pass came back and went awry, L chased after it going for the steal. Big girl used her longer arms to grab the ball then blow by L for a layup. Later L had to guard the junior and got hung up on a screen and allowed another layup. She did about all she could and had no chance. Unless she grows another five inches that’s about the best she can hope for against D1 talent. She won’t have to guard many players as good as these two in the coming year, so it was a good experience.

I believe we are 11–5 for the summer with four games left.

Summer Vibes

When we left her games Thursday it was nearly 10 PM. The western sky was aglow with the last hints of daylight on the longest day of the year. That’s one of my favorite parts of summer. Not the long days themselves, but that final glimmer left in the sky in the 30 minutes or so after sunset.

When I was a kid that glow meant the drive-in feature movie was about to start. Or it was time to start chasing fireflies. Or that I had a few minutes of play left before it was time to go inside. Or when I was really young, that I had one last burst of energy before my body started to shut down for the night, often transferred to bed by a parent after collapsing on the couch or floor.

The best part of that final light of the day was that it meant the intense heat of the daylight hours was dissipating, at least a little. Nothing is better than a warm, summer night. I love how the heat that gets absorbed by pavement all day gently radiates long after the sun has disappeared. Walking across the pool deck barefoot at night, on concrete that would have burnt my soles six hours earlier, is one of the great pleasures of summer.

I’ve long been pro-cicada, even in those crazy, infestation years like 2022. Or this year, I guess, a couple hundred miles west of here. The weeks when the fireflies are still abundant and the annual cicadas start bucking their heads are the best weeks of summer.

Worth noting I heard my first cicadas of 2024 Sunday evening.

Speaking of best weeks, I was thinking about how I would rank the best weeks of the year, if the calendar was divided into three week segments.

The first three weeks of June would be awfully high on the list. Most years that means warm, but not yet oppressively hot, days. Humid, but that good, late spring humidity that doesn’t suck the soul from your body like July humidity does. Early June means everything about summer is still fresh and new. Picking berries, sweet corn, building up your tan, going to the pool every day and it still being exciting. My birthday.

What other three week chunks would garner votes?

That’s harder because the other contenders are all kind of sequential. The three weeks after Labor Day, when summer is fading but autumn hasn’t arrived. Any three weeks in October, when the transition of temperatures finally hits in the Midwest. Some three-week section of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the world is lit up and decorated.

I’ll tell you what three weeks would not be on the list, though: Any three weeks in August. Or January. Or February.

Fuck all of those weeks.

Anyway, we are about to leave one of my favorite times of the year. The heat dome has shifted away from us for the time being. The week ahead looks very nice, a make-up for last week being so brutally hot. If the weather cooperates and our evening schedule allows, I might get to bust out the Solo fire pit for the first time.

Weekend Notes

May 13, 2024 /

A nice weekend here in Indy. I know eventually it will come back to bite us in the ass, but this is like the fifth or sixth straight season here that has been terrific. It got warm early but didn’t turn into summer in April. We’ve had a few cooldowns but none of those surprise weeks when you go from shorts and tees to coats and hats again. All that after a mild winter, a normal fall, a terrific summer, another nice spring, and I believe a relatively warm winter a year ago. Mother Nature is loading up for something big.

The pool has been open since Monday and by Friday the water was both warm and filtered enough to get in. L had friends over Friday night, and after spending the night they hung around to swim Saturday. We hosted S’s dad and stepmom for dinner Saturday night. Sunday we hung out around the pool, with two of the local nephews coming over to get their first swims of the year in.

Kid Props

I mentioned Friday that I had to attend a function Friday morning. I went into school early with L to attend the Blessed Basil Moreau awards ceremony. We knew she would receive an award. We were not told what it was for or who had nominated her when we got the invitation.

When we arrived her religion teacher, Mrs. K, strolled over and sat with us. She had both M and C in her classes, so we chatted a bit about them.

The ceremony began and Mrs. K went to the podium and asked L to join her. She said a series of nice things about L’s attitude, leadership, and dedication. She said L was the kind of kid you wished you had 24 more of in class. She then shared a specific example of L’s behavior.

One day L saw one of her friends getting picked on in class. L didn’t think that was right, so she went and sat with her friend, calmed her down, got her back on track, and after class let Mrs. K know about the situation.

That all sounded pretty good.

After the ceremony I asked for the whole story.

“It was T,” she said, referring to a basketball teammate who is autistic and has been targeted by a few mean girls this year. “This little bitch was picking on her because she knows T won’t say anything back to her. So I went over and shut that shit down.”

Even prouder, especially for how she related what happened! Of course, if Mrs. K had heard that version she might not have nominated L for the award!

Now L is a part of the Holy Cross council at CHS. Not sure exactly what that entails but she acted mock put out about it. “More meetings,” she sighed.

As a parent you hope that your kids have a strong set of core values and that they will speak up when those values are violated. One of the things I am most proud of is that our girls do exactly that. When they see friends in need, they help them. They all, to a certain extent, are wiling to confront people who they think are being assholes.

It’s one thing to convey these lessons to your kids. It’s another for them to have the strength to stand up for their values when presented with an opportunity. Our girls aren’t perfect, but it gives me immense satisfaction that my primary job for the last 20 years has not been in vain.

Pacers

I was pretty pissed after the first two games of the Pacers-Knicks series. Yes, there were a lot of bad calls, most of which seemed to go against the Pacers. I mean, how do referees get kicked ball calls wrong against the same team, in clutch moments, in two straight games? And how do they claim they can’t correct an incorrect call one night, when it goes against the Pacers, then stop the game to huddle up and correct an incorrect call two nights later when it allows the Knicks to keep the ball in the final two minutes of a close game?

But, let’s be honest: bad calls or not, the Pacers lost the first two games because they couldn’t block out on the boards or stay in front of anyone on defense. They reverted to December Pacers ball, thinking they could just score 150 and win by two. That shit doesn’t work in the playoffs. At least not usually.

After two games in Indy, though?

WHOOOOO DOCTOR, WE’VE GOT A SERIES!!!!

An incredibly frustrating and tense game Friday, with the Pacers jumping out early, giving the lead up, getting another cushion just after halftime, then not only blowing that but finding themselves down nine points with nine minutes to play. Were they going to get swept? They righted the ship, made some big plays, and Andrew Nembhard threw in a prayer of a 3 with 17 seconds left to break the final tie.

The Knicks are about as banged up as you can be so there was no reason for this game to be close. Yet the Pacers’ refusal to even pretend to play defense killed them.

Sunday all that switched. The Knicks looked injured, tired, and short-handed. The Pacers defense was nearly as good as their offense. The lead was 20 points in the first quarter. It was around 40 points much of the third quarter. The fourth quarter was one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in the NBA: both teams cleared their benches early and just let those cats roll for 12 minutes. It was not scintillating basketball. Pacers fans didn’t care.

Two-two, going back to New York.

You figure there’s going to be a huge swing after game four. The Knicks can’t play that poorly again, can they? The Pacers can’t play that good on the road, right? It feels like this series is going seven, unless either Tyrese Haliburton’s or Jalen Brunson’s bodies completely fail on them and their teams are forced to play without them.

Northern Lights

We missed them here. Friday evening it was mostly cloudy in our part of Indy. I walked outside several times between 10 and midnight but never had a clear view of the sky. Where the low level clouds had gaps, higher clouds were reflecting the ground light and preventing any glimpses of the colors. I saw great pictures that people got not too far from our home, so had I hopped in the car and driven even 20 minutes I could have seen the spectacular views on my own.

But it was late, I was fired up after the Pacers game, and had drank a beer. Bad combos for an old man. Probably best to stay at home.

Saturday our skies were crystal clear but the lights weren’t as intense in our part of the state. Again, I could have taken a drive but M and one of her friends tried that without success so I stayed home.

Bummer. I’ve never seen the Northern Lights in person and this weekend’s show seems like it was one of the best in memory. Seeing them would have been a nice companion to watching the eclipse last month.

Blog Archives

For some reason I got out of my routine of reading through my posts from 20 years ago in February. This weekend I caught up on three months of blogging from 2004. It was fun to read through a lot of pregnancy posts. I was surprised how much I wrote about American Idol and The Bachelor. That was the one spring I watched both of those shows.

Anyway, if you’re ever really bored, a reminder that I have nearly 21 years of archives you can read through. Could be good for nights you can’t sleep. Probably better than white noise for easing you into a slumber.

Weekend Notes

April 29, 2024 /

Some quick weekend notes. I’m going to try to really let the content flow this week. So be prepared either to read a lot or be disappointed if I only crank out a couple posts.

Home For The Summer

I went down to Cincinnati Friday morning to pack up M for the summer. She had called me Thursday night to let me know that in addition to being the day a lot of the dorm kids were leaving, UC was hosting two big graduation events Friday.

Urban campus + limited parking + people moving out of dorms + thousands of extra people on campus for graduation = ???

It ended up being not as bad as I feared. I thought I was going to have to park well away from her dorm and then we’d have to huff it several blocks to drag all her crap to the car. Right when I got to the front of her dorm, though, a police officer directed me to a spot right across the street. He even held traffic so I could spin around and pull in! The only downside was once we were done, we had to wait about 20 minutes for traffic to clear to get out of our spot. But at least we didn’t have to walk blocks.

Move-out was pretty easy. Her roommate had gone home the previous weekend, and I had taken a load of stuff home from L’s basketball games last week, so her room was fairly empty. Thursday night S suggested I take her Telluride so I had plenty of room to load everything. I scoffed at that, saying she didn’t realize how much cargo space the Model Y has. I admit there was a moment Friday when I wasn’t convinced we were going to squeeze everything in. But we managed.

We stopped for her last lunch in Ohio for four months then headed home.

She’s been submitting job applications online for several weeks without any bites. She was scheduled for jury duty starting today. When she called last night to get her status, she was cleared. So her task for this week is to complete some applications in person. S gave me instructions not to complete getting M a car until she’s got a job. I told her C has first dibs on the Mazda if we don’t have a fourth car when the Audi goes back, so hopefully that lights a fire under her ass. She already helped one of her aunts do some stuff, but she needs a real job.

She was the first of her high school friends to get home for the summer. A friend who goes to Pepperdine got home Saturday night. One who went to the College of Charleston arrived Sunday. The bulk of the kids who went to public schools will trickle in over the next 10 days.

Strangely, as we were waiting for traffic to clear Friday, I got notifications from CHS that both C and L had earned High Honors for the year. With a month of school left. Bizarre. Not sure if this was an error and was supposed to just cover the third quarter. The certificates in the emails clearly noted the entire academic year. We told them this doesn’t mean they can slack off for the last month.

Pacers

What a weekend!

Friday night’s game three could not have been more exciting. The Pacers jumped out to an early 19-point lead, hitting just about everything they shot. They were up 12 at the half before a 5–0 run extended that to back to 17. The Bucks methodically sliced into that margin, finally taking the lead late in the fourth quarter. Some back-and-forth, including a ridiculous Khris Middleton shot to send the game to overtime. Another crazy Middleton 3 with about five seconds left in OT tied it again. Then Tyrese Haliburton torched Patrick Beverly for the game-winning shot.

Sunday, no Dame Lillard, Beverly got injured early, and Bobby Portis was ejected in the first half. Yet the Bucks played their asses off and stayed in it until a couple huge Pacers runs after halftime broke the game open. Even then, the Bucks trimmed a 17-point lead to six at one point. Myles Turner might have played his two best games as a Pacer over the weekend to key the wins. And now the Pacers are one win away from advancing, with both Giannis’ and Dame’s status in doubt going forward.

HS Hoops

L didn’t have any games this weekend. But she did go to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony with several of her teammates Saturday to watch their head coach get put into the hall. That was kind of cool. L and her teammates all snuck out after about 90 minutes as there were A LOT of speeches and they were more interested in doing silly high school girl stuff than listen to old people talk.

Weather

Man, it suddenly got really nice. We kicked the air on Sunday because it was warm and muggy. The forecast ahead looks great. We are opening the pool next Monday. I probably should have scheduled that a week earlier.

Weekend Notes

February 19, 2024 /

Snow!

Our first significant snow of the year hit Friday afternoon. Which was perfect for A) kids who are driving home from school, B) a wife who has to commute through rush hour traffic, and C) the opening night of All Star Weekend. Perfect in this case meaning the opposite of perfect.

We ended up getting between 4–5” inches of heavy, wet snow at our house. Everyone made it home safely and I was excited to get to use the snowblower for the first time in three years. It broke exactly three years ago right when I finished clearing the 9” we got in that storm. I didn’t get it fixed for the ’21–22 winter, gambling we wouldn’t get a big snow. Which turned out to be a good gamble. I got it fixed in the fall of ’22 but again we never got enough snow to break it out.

But Friday was my night! I pulled the starter, it fired right up, and I got to work. It threw snow like a champ and I was looking forward to clearing the driveway in a fraction of the time it would take with a shovel.

Then the fucking thing broke after about five minutes. Once again the auger stopped turning, the same thing that I had fixed a year ago. Sigh. I’m guessing work done 16 months ago probably isn’t under any kind of warranty.

So I pushed the heavy-ass snow around with a shovel for about an hour until the driveway was clear.

Then the sun came out Saturday morning and even though the windchill was around zero, everything on pavement quickly melted.

Someone hates me.

All Star Weekend

I watched a lot of the ASG activities, way more than I usually do. I don’t know if this has been done in other recent host cities, but it was interesting that Friday night’s activities were split between two locations. The celebrity game was at Lucas Oil Stadium, then the Rising Stars games were in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Saturday’s events were in Lucas, the actual All Star Game in Gainbridge. A little surprised the game wasn’t in Lucas, too, given how many seats in Gainbridge were blocked off for various non-spectating functions.

I tuned in late for the Celebrity Game. Dumb, but good, clean dumbness. The Rising Stars games were fun, mostly because Pacer Bennedict Mathurin led his team to victory and won the MVP. He was going off in their first game, but badly missed two dunks that would have been spectacular. The highlight, though, was him taking things super seriously when Indiana native Jaden Ivey talked a little trash. Mathurin told him, in very uncertain terms, that Ivey couldn’t guard him in the regular season or this game. The playful smile quickly disappeared from Ivey’s face and he looked ready to throw down. TNT picked the right guy – Mathurin – to mic up for that game. Solid exhibition game drama!

Saturday’s events were fun. The Skills Contest is goofy and largely relatable. It helped that the Pacers squad of Mathurin, Tyrese Haliburton, and Myles Turner won. The 3-point contest still holds up, especially now that everyone can routinely hit 30-footers. The dunk contest remains kind of sleepy, the judging sucks, and even the cool dunks aren’t as cool as the original cool dunks were in the Eighties. There were way too many dunks that involved jumping over people.

The best event of the night was the shortest, Sabrina Ionescu’s 3-point competition with Steph Curry. I’m sure like 5% of viewers wrote it off as “Woke Basketball,” but I found it charming and entertaining. Reggie Miller quickly called for (hopefully) future Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark to get an invite next year.

The LED court used at Lucas Oil was nutty. I would think that would be super distracting if you were actually playing on it but I didn’t hear any complaints.

It was great having Uncle Reggie be on the mic for so many events. He was never my favorite player, but having a local cheerleader as one of the main announcers made the Indy homie in me feel good.

Like the dunk contest, the game was the game. The East scored 211 points, which is more about how the game has turned into a 3-point shooting exercise played by shooters with unlimited range and accuracy. It’s not terribly engaging, but you have to admire the skill. The East being up so big meant there was no ratcheting up of the intensity in the fourth quarter as guys suddenly started caring about winning.

There’s been a lot of grousing in the media about how badly the game is broken. I don’t have a good answer for how to fix it – players decided 20 years ago they weren’t going to risk injury and play actual defense – other than scrapping a traditional game. Maybe go to a series of mini-games with smaller teams, more like the Rising Stars game? In the era of load management and constant injuries because of hyper-bulked up players, I don’t think it’s possible to play a normal, 48 minute game. Football has scrapped the traditional all star contest because of the injury risk. The NBA really should do the same.

Draymond Green complaining all week about the game being in Indy got annoying quick. MFer is from Saginaw. A little cold and snow shouldn’t get to him like that. Soft as hell.

I guess LeBron James has been fighting an ankle injury and his minutes Sunday were limited because of that. When he was on the court he still had flashes. But it was very evident that he’s lost a significant amount from his game. Now I’m even more suspicious of how he managed to play so hard and well during the In-season Tournament in December. Not that I would accuse a 39-year-old man still playing at a high level of not being 100% clean.

Steph Curry may be in the process of losing his first step, too. I loved how he was still out there having fun Sunday. He saw other dudes were lighting it up and ran around making crazy passes to get them shots. Compare him to game MVP Dame Lilliard who seems to play with whatever the opposite of joy is. We need more Stephs.

That’s not totally fair. I think most of the players were having a good time, goofing around as much as they can. Karl-Anthony Towns looked like he was having the time of his life. Jason Tatum was running around laughing. Haliburton is always having fun. Nikola Jokic was making fun of himself, attempting half-assed dunks. It’s just a bummer the game MVP was the one guy who did not seem to let his competitive guard down.

Jayhawk Talk

I knew last Monday’s game at Texas Tech would be a loss. KU doesn’t win on the road this year for starters, they had beaten Baylor in a tough game two days earlier, and Kevin McCullar was still out.

I did not expect a 29-point loss where the guys on the court didn’t look super interested in competing.

Saturday I was getting pissed because for the first 18 minutes against Oklahoma, not much seemed to have changed. McCullar was back, but he was beyond rusty and not close to 100%. As with Tech in Lubbock, KU was letting OU shoot 80% from 3 while shooting 10% on their end. The team looked lethargic and lacked fire.

Then they put a little run on before halftime and came out a completely different team in the second half. I’m not sure OU is all that good, especially down a couple players, but a road win is a road win in a year KU has had zero luck when playing true road games.

Now they get a six-day breather to heal and recharge before the final regular season run. Protect the home court and they are a comfortable 2–3 seed. Just be healthy in March.

Rabbit Hole

I will share that I fell into an unexpected and exciting rabbit hole Sunday. I am not going to share what that rabbit hole was just yet. Maybe in a day or two, we’ll see how things go.

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