D's Notebook

Tag: youth sports (Page 4 of 24)

Weekend Notes

July 17, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A weird weekend for L and her teammates.

We were in Bloomington for this week’s games. While that seems close it also involves navigating a shit-ton of construction and means we’re in the car for nearly three hours each day.

Saturday we opened with an easy win. In fact, I’m not sure we’ll ever have an easier win. At halftime we were ahead 39–0. We added 16 more points before these poor girls finally got their first bucker. That’s a 55–0 run. FIFTY. FIVE. TO. ZERO. Sadly that was the only basket they could muster, and the final was 65–2. Our girls really didn’t try to score too hard in the second half and, thankfully, the clock ran the entire time.

Obviously there was a big talent disparity here. Our girls were also hitting just about everything they threw up – we hit 3’s on four of six possessions at one point in the first half – and were dominating on defense as well. The other team took only six shots for the entire game because they were either turning it over or we were just flat stealing it before they had a chance to shoot.

We learned afterward that two of the girls were sixth graders, and most of the rest were going into 8th grade. I’m honestly not sure they could have competed against six graders. There was some real strangeness in the bracketing this weekend.

I will give those girls this credit: they never got frustrated or angry. They kept trying, as best as they could, and were smiling after the game. Props to their coach and parents for teaching them to stay positive.

After dispensing with them we watched our program’s C team win a tight contest that was physical and a little nasty. We walked over to warm up for our second game, but no one was warming up on the other side. Things were ahead of schedule but as we got closer to tip there still wasn’t anyone on the other bench. The tournament director called his contact for that team and got some long, sob story about how a bunch of girls quit on the coach this week so they couldn’t field a team. Sure would have been nice if they had shared that information ahead of time to either adjust the schedule or just let us leave early.

The tournament director offered to let us play the first team again, the team we beat 65–2, but our coach politely declined.

So we “earned” a 20–0 win by forfeit and headed to downtown Bloomington for an earlier-than=expected dinner.

Sunday we went back down for the semis/finals. Our first opponents had gone 1–1 Saturday, losing to our C team. So we didn’t expect much. But these girls were tough, guarded the hell out of people, and had a big girl who could move her feet and block shots anywhere in the paint. Six minutes into the game we were down 3–0. Not exactly getting blown out but also not looking anywhere near as good as we had a week earlier. We went on a run after calling a time out and led by 14 at half, stretched it close to 20 a couple times, and ended up winning by 12.

On to the title game against our C team, who we beat handily the one time we’ve played them this year. They had a couple different girls this time, though, including one who was on our team last year and one of L’s CHS friends/classmates. Still, we knew they weren’t as good as us if we focused and played hard. Which is what we did. We got an early lead and never let up, winning by 19.

So, good team weekend.

L did not have such a great weekend. Her jump shot was not working at all. She hit nothing outside the lane in our three games. She also missed a couple easy layups. She had a few bad turnovers. In short, she didn’t play nearly as well as she did in St. Louis. She had six points and three assists in the blowout Saturday, but only two points in each game Sunday. She did not want to be in the team picture after, and made sure she was as far from the championship plaque as possible. She pouted most of the way home. I let her stew in the backseat with her headphones on while I listened to my own music. As always, I respect the bitterness.

Next weekend is our final week as a travel team. We go to Cincinnati for a four-day event. I’m guessing the competition will be a little tougher. We know our first three games are against teams from New York, Nashville, and Cincinnati.

Weather

As we drove back to Indy I noticed it was hard to see buildings downtown. Yes, that good, ol’ Canadian wildfire smoke we have been missing returned!

And there was the added bonus of a line of heavy storms blowing in. We drove through two squalls once we got within 15 minutes of home. Then, just as we pulled onto our street, the skies really let loose.

For the next two hours it absolutely dumped. I don’t have a rain gauge but the weather stations in our area I can pull up all had between 2–3” of rain for the night. When I put our pool cover pump out once the storms had passed, it sunk completely below the water level and was still completely submerged after it had been running for an hour.

During the storm, it would pour for 10 minutes, then stop for five. Then the winds would kick back up and rain would start blasting again, occasionally with small hail. This pattern repeated for two hours. We had three different severe thunderstorm warnings in this stretch. At one point the winds got up around 60 MPH. We ran outside to move some of our patio cushions and the rain was literally blowing sideways, soaking us even though we were well back under the patio roof.

Our power flickered off-and-on at least five times during the first 20 minutes of the storm before it went off for good at 6:45. It stayed off until nearly 10:00. We are just getting our fridge fully stocked again after our extended power outage two weeks back. I was not enthused about starting all over again again. I think we dodged the bullet there.

Weekend Notes

July 11, 2023 /

It was an extra-long weekend featuring many hours in the car.

Hoops in the Lou

L and I drove west to St. Louis for her first out-of-town tournament of the year.

The hoops were good. We went 3–1, winning the championship game by nine thanks to a 9–2 run in the final minute to put away a game we were trying to lose. We led by nine with 8:00 left, five with 5:00 left, but by just two as the clock ticked under a minute. Against a team we had blown a 15-point lead against on Saturday. Tense, but the girls got it done.

That team was a local St. Louis squad. The parents were a little rough. One dad just yelled the entire game Saturday. Mostly kind of positive things at his team with the occasional barb at the refs. But he just never stopped. And as we blew our lead, he was one of those dads who decides he needs to walk onto the court to celebrate when his team makes a big play. He was harmless as he never directed anything at us or our girls. But since he never stopped and thought he had all the answers, he was mega annoying.

We thought it was hilarious that between games he and the other parents from their team were in the parking lot sharing a joint. At like 2:00 PM on a Saturday. I checked and I don’t think this kind of use is protected under the new Missouri marijuana law, but I’m no attorney. I’m not sure if that chilled him out a little for their second game, as I was keeping score rather than in the seats and couldn’t hear him.

Sadly he was missing for Sunday’s championship game. He may have partied a little too hard Saturday night.

L had a good weekend. She scored 23 points across the four games, had 9 total rebounds, 9 assists, and had four steals alone in our Sunday morning game. Our second game Saturday was tight but she helped blow it open with a 3-pointer on one possession, then a bucket, foul, and free throw on the next. That helped push a two-point lead to 12 before we gave up three buckets in the last 30 seconds to only win by seven.

We were in St. Louis because our coach’s wife is from there, and her family was celebrating their mom’s 80th birthday over the weekend. So rather than go to the big GUAA tournament in Louisville, we went to a smaller, local tournament so he and his daughter could be with us. Good thing, since she scored six of our nine points in the last minute of the championship game.

Friday night we hung out at his wife’s sister’s house. I took some good-natured ribbing from a house full of Mizzou fans. I offered to show them the national champions sticker on my car and they politely declined. I spent a good chunk of the evening talking to the brother that played basketball at Central Missouri in the late ‘90s, mostly about the St. Louis high school scene he grew up in.

The big bummer of the weekend was our hotel. In a word, it was a dump. It was one of those places that might have been nice 20 years ago, but probably hasn’t had any renovations or deep cleanings since then. The rooms were all full of stains and disrepair. Some of the rooms – including ours – were only half-cleaned. The room across from us had two dogs in it, plus the humans with them seemed to be smoking a lot of weed. There was a room down the hall that definitely had birds in it. Several families couldn’t get their door keys to work properly. The overall vibe made you not want to touch anything.

The final straw came Saturday morning. We heard the shower in the room above us running and soon heard dripping in ours. The water damage to the ceiling I noticed when we checked in was a result of the tub on the second floor leaking directly into ours. I was off to the front desk to get a new room. Fortunately our second one had been cleaned and was away from the weed-smoking dog lovers.

We realized later that a big, municipal dump was right across the street, thus the terrible trash odor when we tried to sit outside.

A dump by a literal dump.

Hopefully we didn’t bring home bed bugs or anything, but at this point nothing would surprise me.

Also, on our trip home, the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on a highway happened. I’m honestly not sure how to describe it. Basically, it looked like a small cat fell out of the car in front of us as we were traveling at roughly 85 MPH. Like it dropped out of a wheel well or some other space underneath the car, not like it jumped or was tossed out the window. It was skidding and trying to get its footing as I went over it, definitely alive and not a stuffed animal. It was right in the middle of the lane so I sailed past comfortably but I’m assuming it met a horrible fate not too far behind me.

Thing is, I was traveling behind this car for awhile; for 10 minutes at least. Who knows when they had last stopped. Had this poor thing been hanging on for dear life for 30 minutes? An hour? Longer? Or did it come from a car further up? No one in front of me braked or swerved so I honestly can’t be sure where it came from.

Or maybe it was just all that passive weed smoke I breathed in at our hotel that had me seeing things.

There’s an obvious National Lampoon’s Vacation reference here but it feels wrong directly quoting it.

A mostly good, if weird, weekend in the Lou. We’re back-and-forth to Bloomington next weekend.

UC Orientation

Monday morning we were in the car bright and early to make the quick trip down to Cincinnati for M’s UC orientation. For the first time S rode along so she could finally take a look at campus. She approved.

That was pretty much the highlight of the day. Since M had already attended admitted students day and gone through virtual orientation plus done her advising appointment and made her schedule online, there wasn’t a ton of new information for her. They didn’t have the dorms open for tours, which was a bummer, as S really wanted a look to help focus our shopping.

M is supposed to move in the weekend of August 12. She will find out in a couple weeks what her official move-in date/time is. Because UC is such a tight campus you have to request a window for your arrival. Things should be a little easier for her as she’s going down a week before official move-in day for rush, but we still won’t know our time until the whole process does its thing. She’s hoping for August 12, as there are rush events the evening of the 13th. There is a chance, though, we could be moving her in during the day on the 13th.

Weekend Notes

July 5, 2023 /

A lot to get caught up on after a long holiday weekend.

July 4th

Our standard family pool party for the Fourth of July. Almost all the locals were over for a daytime gathering. I smoked rather than grilled burgers for the first time and they turned out pretty good. All the young ones were well behaved, and it seems like both generations of sisters got along for the day, too.

We had neighbors over for drinks in the evening after the family had cleared out. No driveway fireworks this year.

Kid Hoops

Thursday was the last night of summer league games. CHS played a team they lost to by six earlier in June, and both coaches agreed to stack their rosters so that it was a true A game. Which got L excited.

She played pretty well in an eight-point loss. She hit a shot right before halftime to give us a 20–19 lead. But we were on the wrong side of a 9–2 run to start the third quarter that was pretty much the game. L was not on the court for any of that run. When she played, it was an even ballgame. When she sat, our offense bogged down and the defense was disconnected.

She scored six for the night on 3–4 shooting, and had a rebound, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

She wasn’t super pleased with her play afterward, but I told her about my rough +/- numbers and how I saw her affect the game. There are definitely girls better than her on the team. There are girls with more potential or who are better than her in individual aspects of the game. But of the girls in the 20-ish player pool the JV teams pulled from this summer, no one organizes the game better than her.

Her first summer of high school hoops was a success. She fit in, she got more confident as the season progressed, was high scorer in at least two games, earned the coaches’ trust, and most importantly, she made some new, good friends. I’m excited to see how she improves once fall practice kicks off.

Not much rest for her. The travel team goes to St. Louis Friday for a tournament.

Over the weekend we went to the Y to shoot three times. She came up with a new workout that required her to make 300 shots. Mid-range, floaters, and 3’s. Off-the-catch and off-the-dribble. Lots of free throws. It took roughly an hour to get through it each day. I worked up a good sweat rebounding and passing.

Weather/Power

What a weird weather week.

We began with a terrible bout with the Canadian wild fire smoke. A couple times we had the worst air quality of any city in the US. Wednesday morning we were up to #2 in the world. Never say that Indianapolis can’t compete on the world stage!

It was much worse than our first run with the smoke a month ago. Two days the sky resembled the winter sky right before a big snow storm. Those days we couldn’t even see the sun, let alone take eerie pictures of its light refracted by the smoke. There was also a strange, metallic smell to the air.

Then Thursday a Derecho storm blew through with winds over 70 MPH. Our power went off at 3:57 and did not come back on until 3:00 Saturday afternoon. We filled up coolers with ice and transported our important items from the freezer to a relative’s home, but lost pretty much everything else from our fridges and freezers. S said it was time to replace a lot of our condiments anyway. Our house got pretty toasty each afternoon, but at least our basement remained cool. It was completely comfortable sleeping down there.

At one point nearly 80,000 people in Indianapolis were without power. I was obsessively checking the outage map and watched it slowly tick down a few thousand at a time, only for it to shoot back up after more, if less intense, storms came through both Friday night and Saturday morning.

When our power came back on there were still around 20,000 people in the city without power. I think most of them were back up and running by Sunday evening.

We had zero damage at our house. The neighbors to either side of us kept their power. It was just a thin row of 7–8 houses behind us that all come off the same line that got knocked out. Obviously the big downside of living in an area with tons of old trees and old power lines.

The big surprise was that our pool survived without turning bad. I was worried that sitting in the heat, covered, with zero circulation or filtration would be a recipe for stuff to grow quickly. It has turned cloudy in less time before. But Saturday night it was clear and tested out fine. I shocked it and ran the pump a little higher than normal and it was fine to swim in on Sunday.

In a related note, our refrigerators are very clean and organized.

Taylor Swift

I mentioned in Friday’s playlist that M was off to Cincy to watch Taylor Swift perform. She said the show was awesome.

M just got her tickets a week before the show. She received a text saying that some new tickets had been released. She was worried it was a scam, but noticed the message came from the same number her other Ticketmaster texts came from, so she decided to quickly buy two tickets and hope they were legit. She messaged some friends and they asked if she could try to get two more. The link indeed worked again so she bought four total tickets at face value 10 days before the show. She checked the secondary market and seats in her section were going for more than $2000. Pretty crazy. She was in the lower level in the Bengals stadium, with a great view of the main stage.

The grandparents of one of the friends that went with her live in Cincy, so the girls stayed at their house. The grandfather also met them near the stadium so M could park in a good spot hours before the show, took them to his house to drop their stuff, then back to the stadium. She’s living right these days.

Just a nice bonus this trip allowed her to miss out on about 24 hours of our power outage.

Football Recruiting

I will not address KU football recruiting until December.

Home States

Finally, not only did I just pass my 20th wedding anniversary and my 20th blogging anniversary, but also marked my 20th year living in Indiana. A few years ago I went through the exercise of figuring out how long I spent in each of the four states I lived in.

That was harder than you would think because of the college years, splitting time between two states. I decided to give Kansas ¾ credit for my first three years at KU, then full credit for the last couple after I gained residency and stayed there most of the summers. I’m not sure if that works out exactly right, but it seemed close and fair.

Anyway, my 20th year in Indiana means I’ve officially lived here longer than any other state. That still doesn’t sound right. My current tally looks like this:

Indiana 20 years
Missouri 19 years
Kansas 12 years
California 1 year

Weekend Notes

June 26, 2023 /

Quite a few things to discuss this week, so I’m going to split this into two posts. The personal stuff first, the NBA Draft stuff later on today.

Weather

We dodged a big ol’ bullet Sunday when storms roared through our area. There was a tornado on the ground about 10 minutes north of us. Several on the ground on the south side of Indy did significant damage. There was fairly large hail within two miles of our house.

But we just got a couple brief downpours and gusty winds.

In fact, we had worse problems a few nights earlier when the wind kicked up and briefly knocked our power out. I’m talking like a quick blink. However, a few minutes later I noticed a fire truck was sitting in the street in front of our house and the firefighters were walking through our neighbors’ yard.

We later learned the gusts had pulled down a power line in their yard which had caused a small fire. They were not home, but fortunately the fire was just in their yard and well away from their house.

Also fortunate that it wasn’t an integral power line for any of us and no one had to sit in the dark until the power company arrived to fix the line at 3:00 AM.

A Night of Music

S and I joined some friends to watch Ben Folds play at the Rock the Ruins concert series at Holliday Park, which is about 10 minutes from our house.

It had been a hot afternoon, but once the sun disappeared behind the park’s thick tree canopy it became a lovely evening.

I’m not a huge Ben Folds fan, but did very much enjoy the show. He only played a couple songs that I knew, somehow not playing “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” which would have been perfect for the setting.

A key part of Holliday Park are some “ruins” that were transported from a building in New York to Indy in the 1950s. Folds mentioned that it was an honor to play in this ancient, historic site. “One that they rocked so hard 2000 years ago that they blew the motherfucker up.”

The Bear

I spent a good chunk of the weekend racing through season two of The Bear. I loved the first season. I liked this one even more.

SPOILER ALERT

Everything that made season one great was still there. I can sum all of that up with one word: porn.

The show is food porn, obviously. It is acting porn. It is music porn.[1] It is cinema/photography porn. It is writing porn. Just about every aspect of the show is pornographic it is so good.

What made this season slightly better than the first was how the little moments where the supporting characters were allowed to shine in those first eight episodes were all expanded here, often to episode-long explorations. Marcus going to Copenhagen. Sydney’s food tour of Chicago. Richie’s week learning how the best restaurant in the world operates. Tina’s trip to culinary school.

I think what was brilliant about these episodes/scenes was their restraint. Any actor can go big: see Jamie Lee Curtis’ turn as Donna Berzatto in episode six. In each of those other performances, though, the actor we are focused on had to go small and subtle. We learned so much about them through small gestures and looks and actions. I don’t know who deserves more credit, the writers or actors, but major props all around for making such good television.

My favorite scene of the year? Near the end of episode nine, “Omelette,” as the new restaurant is minutes away from opening their doors for Friends and Family night, Carmen and Syd crawl under a table to make sure it is level. Their conversation was so honest and open and intimate despite being just about work.

One of the big storylines of the season was Carmy trying to balance beginning a romantic relationship with the super cute Claire and opening a restaurant under a ton of pressure.[2] When I heard he and Syd connecting under that table, though, I knew that Claire wasn’t going to work out. Not because he and Syd have a romantic attraction for each other, but because she is the only woman, maybe person, who he can truly be open and connect with. If you are more honest with your co-worker than your girlfriend, girlfriend ain’t gonna last.

So of course Carmy fucks it up.

There were also like half a dozen other conversations like the one between Carmy and Syd that were amazing and affecting and make this show so good.

I also loved how everyone but Carmy figured their shit out over the course of the season while he became more of a mess. By the end of the year, The Bear (the restaurant) was a lean, mean fighting machine of competent, confident staff that saved F&F night when it was on the verge of becoming a disaster. And did so largely without Carmy, who was locked in the walk-in , pounding on its doors and screaming.

Richie especially was a revelation. He went from literally having no idea where he fit into the new restaurant concept and how that would affect the rest of his life, to being a total food and hospitality badass in a suit.

I feel obligated to throw out a few words about episode six, “Fishes.” The obvious comparison is to last season’s episode seven, “Review.” They are both over-the-top, breakneck episodes designed to overwhelm and challenge. If you want to love the show, you have to keep up. “Fishes” is like your worst family holiday nightmare cranked up to the maximum boss level. It is probably too much. Especially with how it ends. It was shocking and draining and thoroughly depressing. Much of what happens in that episode does end up being vital for how the rest of the season plays out, but I think it came very close to distracting from how strong and consistent the other nine episodes were.

Despite that slight hiccup, there is just so much goodness in this show. It’s the best thing I’ve watched this year and I give it my highest recommendation.

Kid Hoops

Two weeks of JV updates for L.

The past two weeks they’ve split the JV pool into two teams that each played one game in the Thursday league.

A week ago L’s group played sectional rival North Central, the school we live down the block from. She scored a game-high 10 points in a nine-point win. Everything was at/near the rim as she went 5–8 on 2’s and 0–3 on 3’s. Her best move of the night ended up a waste. She ran out on a break, caught a pass over the top of the defense, took two dribbles, then stopped and faked, sending her defender by her in the air. The CHS bench all let out howls and screams. And then she blew the layup. Oh well…

This past Thursday they played Lawrence Central, another school that falls into CHS’ sectional. L had five points in a seven-point win. This time she was shooting from outside, going 1–4 on 3’s and hitting another long two. LC was playing a zone and a couple times she was wide open but chose to pass.

When she subbed out after turning down her most open look of the night, her coach told her, gently, that she needs to shoot more. “You have a nice shot. Be ready and take them when you’re open.” That’s exactly what I’ve been saying…

I should probably mention who coached her team that night. It was the CHS freshman coach. He just happens to be a 1982 McDonald’s All American at Cathedral and a first-round pick in the 1986 draft.

I had not met him before – he is a VP for Community Relations and Diversity at CHS – but did introduce myself since I was keeping the book. Super nice guy. If you do some digging you can find stories about his life and what he does outside of coaching and his work for CHS.

I also met the dad of another freshman. He told me he liked my KU shirt a couple weeks ago in passing. We talked this week and he told me he has both graduate and law degrees from KU, although he arrived in Lawrence about the time I left. We bored our daughters with about 10 minutes of KU hoops talk before we broke it off.

College Prep

We have begun ordering things for M to take to college in less than two months.[3] Saturday the Amazon man dropped off like five boxes for her. Sunday three different Amazon folks came to our house with stuff. Two things are coming tomorrow. Two other things are backordered and will be here in the next couple weeks. And we’ve only just started.

I swear I didn’t take half as much shit when I moved into McCollum Hall in August 1989. Pretty sure I just took some clothes, toiletries, my boombox, and a bunch of cassette tapes.

Ok, that might be an exaggeration but I know we easily fit everything into the trunk of my stepdad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. We’re thinking about renting a van for the day we drive M to Cincinnati.

  1. THREE Neil Finn songs!?!?! As if the music choices weren’t good enough already…  ↩
  2. For the record, I’m very much in favor of dudes dating short, cute, dark-haired medical residents. Although Molly Gordon is 5’5” so perhaps I shouldn’t call her short.  ↩
  3. Yikes!  ↩

Graduation Weekend Notes

May 22, 2023 /

Grad Week

We officially have a high school graduate! The week leading up to Sunday’s graduation ceremony was jam-packed for M.

Her final day of school was last Monday. They were supposed to go in for first period Tuesday but she (and most of her classmates) opted to skip that.[1] She had little activities each day but Thursday was when things really got cranking. That morning she met with a group of girls on campus to take pictures. One of her middle school friends, who graduated from a rival school this weekend, took the photos and they turned out amazing. If you are a Facebook friend these are the pics of the group in caps and gowns around the school sign, etc.

Afterward she changed clothes and helped the other class officers paint their spot on the school wall. That evening she attended her first grad party, then slept over with a group of girls who were all on the crew to help make breakfast for Senior Sunrise.

She was up at like 5:30 Friday to get to campus and setup the breakfast. They had a beautiful morning for their last time together on the Hill, then meandered over to the gym for the Irish 500, the annual tricycle race between classes. There was some controversy this year as a team of sophomores, featuring one of C’s best friends, won for the second-straight year. The seniors claimed they cheated but C was insistent that she had video that disproved the senior’s argument. Who knew a tricycle race could be filled with so much drama?!?!

That night was the baccalaureate mass. Because of the timing we were not very environmentally friendly as a family and had to take three cars. I felt a little bad about that, even more so since parking is such a pain on campus.

The class president gave a very good speech which was a bonus. In the midst of the ceremony C looked at me and said, “Is that rain?” referring to the background noise. At an appropriate moment I slipped my phone out to check the radar and, sure enough, there was a big, fat red storm cell sitting right on top of CHS. It had not passed when the mass was over and we had to run to our cars while getting absolutely soaked. And I mean soaked. My clothes were plastered to my body. Thank goodness it wasn’t graduation day!

We had to laugh when the kids walked in for the mass. They were in alphabetical order. There was a sequence that went from Xavier Booker (6’11”) to M’s ex-boyfriend (5’7”). That just didn’t look right. We were also thankful that the ex-boyfriend comes before his twin sister in the lineup, otherwise he and M would have walked and sat next to each other. They are on decent terms but that still would have been awkward.

When we got home M was in tears. She said she was tired, stressed, and sad. I told her it was 100% acceptable to be sad, but there was no reason to be stressed. This was going to be one of the best weekends of her life and she needed to take a deep breath and enjoy it. I think it was more the lack of sleep than anything else, because once she got a good night of rest, she was fine the rest of the weekend.

Saturday her best friend’s grandmother took a group out for lunch and then she had up to six parties to attend. She ended up only going to four, but that was still a pretty full day.

Sunday was the big day. CHS’ graduation is outside at their baseball complex east of the city. An outdoor event in Indianapolis in May? Holy taking a chance! I guess they haven’t learned from over a hundred years of Indy 500s, where the biggest drama of race day is often whether that storm developing over Terre Haute is going to make it to Speedway before the race ends.

We lucked out, though. It was bright and sunny and in the low 70s. The sun felt a lot warmer than 70, and we were all very hot. Plus we roasted in the sun, sunburns for all. But at least there was no rain or it wasn’t like 57 and windy.

The ceremony went well. M gave the opening prayer. One of her classmates was supposed to follow her by offering the prayer in Spanish. Apparently the band didn’t get the memo as they started playing immediately after M finished. It was hilarious watching her whip her head around trying to figure out what to do. We went back and watched the recording of the event that night. M said the school president told them just to wait for the band to finish and then give the Spanish prayer. After she got that message she just glared at the band. I found her indignation delightful, and was glad she was sticking up for her classmate.

Anyway, the whole event took about two hours. There were a few too many speeches, especially since we had speeches on Friday. There are 240ish kids in her class and it took about 45 minutes to call their names to walk the stage. I talked to the parents of some of L’s basketball teammates Saturday about their ceremonies at the big, suburban, Hamilton County schools. Their ceremonies often take 3–4 hours. That sounds fun.

One highlight from the ceremony was learning that M’s class destroyed the school records for both total scholarship dollars offered and, since they are a smaller class, scholarship dollars per student. She said when the school president announced that, the grads were all laughing that it was thanks to Booker and all his offers. I noticed he only listed about 10 schools, and a football player who is going to Kentucky did not list a couple schools I know he had official offers from, so their class total could have been even higher. Another kid, who is just a normal dude, had like a quarter page of scholarships listed. Good for him!

L took her camera and got some very good pictures. When going through them I laughed because she not only snapped M and her friends as they walked right behind us, but also Booker and her favorite assistant coach from the girls program.

After the ceremony we came home and had an Italian takeout dinner that was a combination celebration for graduation and C’s birthday last week with S’s dad and stepmom. Then M opened the time capsule made back in first grade. It was fun reading all the things she wrote about herself back then. My only kind of emotional moment of the week was when she read the letter I wrote to her and then I read the letter she wrote about me being her hero. The best stuff.

That was our graduation weekend. M will have two graduation parties in the coming weeks. On Memorial Day we are hosting a smaller one for just family and close friends. Then in June she and two of her best friends will have a mutual party at one of their homes. She has about 1000 parties scattered around those. I think S and I are only going to a couple of those, so our calendars are much less packed than M’s.

Driving

With M home, C went straight from getting her license to driving to school most days. Which means I’m back to how I was when M started driving on her own: checking my phone every 30 seconds until I’m sure C made it to CHS safely, or that she is getting home safely after school. Glad she got her license at the end of the academic year so I’ll have the summer to get more comfortable mentally with her being out on her own.

Kid Hoops

L’s team had a tournament this weekend, although she only played on Saturday. They won those two games by 29 and 45. Even the “close” one was never really close and we had running clocks for the entire second half of each.

L didn’t score much – four and two points respectively – but did a decent job passing and playing defense. The team we beat by 45 lost to us by 40 a month ago. The mom who ran the clock next to me said they came from Ohio. I wanted to ask her if it was worth driving two hours to keep getting crushed, but kept that question in my head.

In the bracket games Sunday our girls won by 43 and then played our program’s highest level sixth grade team for the championship. That team has a girl who can literally look me in the eyes. All she does is block shots and take 3’s. They have another girl who is pushing six-feet who is mostly an outside player, too. They’ve won two different “world championship” tournaments, so they are a really good team.

Our girls beat them 45–43 in overtime. Texting with our coach after it sounds like we controlled the entire game then got sloppy at the end to let it get to overtime. But after losing by a single point in overtime twice this season, the girls finally closed one out. I mean, to took paying sixth graders to do it. But these are “world champions,” so don’t knock it too much.

That was our last tournament of the spring. We take the holiday weekend off then the girls will all funnel out to their high school programs for June. We will reconvene after July 4 for three out-of-town tournaments and then be done with this iteration of the team. In Indiana only three girls from a high school can play on the same AAU team. As we have four girls who will go to the same high school, our team will need to be split up.

The good news for L is the CHS head coach also coaches with her AAU program, so I think she’ll be able to stay with her current travel coach for at least one more year. It will just not be with all the same girls.

  1. Their actual senior skip day was May 12. She and three of her friends spent the day at the outlet mall about an hour away.  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 15, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A great weekend for L’s team.

They played in a one-day shootout Saturday about 30 minutes away from home. Our coach moved us up to the 8th–9th grade bracket, so we were worried going in.

That was dumb; both teams we played were awful.

The first was an all-freshman team. We hit two 3’s to open the game and never looked back. We had a running clock before halftime and won 59–5. It was bad. Just run-out layup after run-out layup. It reminded me of the 1989 Kansas-Kentucky game.[1]

This was L’s first game in her new ankle brace. Going in her coach said he was more interested in her being available for next weekend’s tournament than these games, so would limit her minutes if she was still in pain. Something about the brace helped her, as she had four offensive rebounds in about a three minute span. Oh it helped that the other team was awful. She finished with two points on 1–1 shooting and six rebounds.

We expected our second opponent to be better. They were from Cincinnati and were mostly tall, super athletic girls. We went out for a group lunch and came back to watch the end of their first game. We quickly saw that no matter how athletically talented these girls were, they had almost no basketball skills. They lost to a team that was shorter than us, and seemed to fall apart mentally in the closing minutes.

Still, you never know. We’ve been bothered by tall, athletic teams all year.

Turns out we needn’t have worried. We rolled them 55–29. L started and had four assists in her first four minutes on the court. She hit a 3 and a couple other shots to finish with 7 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, and zero turnovers. That’s a pretty solid box score line.

I felt bad for the Cincy girls. They seemed pretty clueless and got down on themselves easily when things went wrong. Their most talented girl looked like a shorter version of LSU’s Angel Reese. In one sequence she had five offensive rebounds. But when her sixth shot attempt got blocked out of bounds, she smacked the ball and pouted. She had just done something remarkable – some players go an entire season without getting five offensive rebounds – but she got in her own head and didn’t do much the rest of the game.

It didn’t help that their coaches just screamed at them the entire time.

Things got a little tense late in the game when a refs T’ed up one of their players. When asked what she did, the ref said, “She said a curse word.” One of their parents asked what she said and he responded, “Jesus Christ.” That set their coach off, “OH, SO WE CAN’T SAY JESUS NOW???”

So you have a white ref who is clearly in a bad mood, and a black coach screaming at him. This seemed like it could go off the rails quickly. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed.

Best news was L survived the weekend without rolling her ankle again and wasn’t in too much pain Sunday. I’m sure it helped that she didn’t practice at all last week.

One more weekend of travel ball before we break for June, when high school activities take over.

Tennis

M finished up her CHS tennis career with two matches last week.

Monday was senior night, and S and I got to walk onto the court with her before her match.

Then we sat down for the long wait until she played. I had forgotten how long these full team days can take, as both matches I had gone to this year were JV only and moved more quickly. Fortunately for us, there was a pop-up storm right on top of the CHS courts about 20 minutes into the varsity matches that brought things to a halt.

I went back Tuesday as M was one of six JV girls selected to play in the makeup matches. She and her partner played a JV team that pretty clearly featured Center Grove’s next star player. She was probably 5’9” and blistered the ball when she hit it. When she could keep it in, you had no chance to return it.

M and her partner nearly broke the tall girl’s partner, leading 30–40, but blew that game. The next game they were up 40–15 and blew that one. It took about 17 minutes for them to lose 6–0 and walk off the court laughing at themselves. I’m glad M has always kept a sense of humor about her ability.

Wednesday she played her final match. This was the night S and I were at the City and Colour concert so we missed it. She played with a junior this time and they lost 6–1. That made her 0–4 for the year, and something in the area of 1–10 or 2–10 for her career. She came close to getting another win two weeks ago when she lost in a tiebreaker.

Again, she had fun, which is all that really matters.

C only got to play one match this year, with one of her St P’s classmates. I was able to go to that match and stand with her partner’s parents. They also have a son in M’s class so we’ve know them for 13 years. We made a lot of jokes about our daughters’ abilities as they struggled to hit the ball, not giggle, and figure out how to keep score. They also lost 6–0 in about 15 minutes. In a coincidental twist, M had lost to one of those same girls 6–0 last year. I couldn’t be prouder!

C also enjoyed being on the team, and she and her partner have talked about taking some lessons together this summer so they are less clueless next year, and hopefully get a few more matches.

Girls tennis season kind of sucks. Being in the spring, practices and matches are constantly being cancelled because of weather. C was sick with the Punta Plague for two weeks and missed a bunch of practices. Getting one match out of our team fee and uniform purchases seemed like a bad return. But if she is interested in continuing to play and trying to improve, I guess it’s worth it if she had fun.

Mother’s Day

We had a pretty chill Mom’s day, mostly because that’s how S likes it. We ordered dinner from a new restaurant and were able to eat outside. She took flowers to her sisters and step-mom. We watched a movie together in the evening. Otherwise a rather quiet holiday.

We did have our old neighbors over Saturday night, the first time we’ve seen them since before spring break, so that was probably the highlight of the weekend for S.

  1. If you know, you know.  ↩

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 Notes

May 1, 2023 /

A big weekend full of big events.

Prom

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

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

Oh, and the weather forecast sucked for Saturday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kid Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Draft

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

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

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

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

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

Weather

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

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

Weekend Notes

April 17, 2023 /

A weekend of transition in various ways.

Kid Hoops

Back to tournament action for L and her travel teammates.

Her ankle is still recovering from the sprain she suffered over a month ago. In our games Saturday that showed. She seemed sluggish and a step slow.

We lost the first game by 18 to a very good team. They were long, athletic, took and hit 3’s, and were just a tough all-around matchup. We killed ourselves by missing at least 10 free throws and not stopping them in transition on several baskets. They were better than us, but those things were the difference between an easy win and a tight game late.

In the second game we played a flat-out bad team. We won by 41 and it wasn’t even that close. There was a running clock the entire second half so we only scored 10 points in those 13 minutes. It was one of those games where you wondered why these girls are still playing. I guess to give teams like ours someone to beat?

L had a single bucket in each game. In the second game I could tell she was getting frustrated. She made a sweet move on one drive, lost her defender, got to the hoop, and then short-armed the layup. A few possessions later she badly missed an open shot. I thought an invisible player fouled her because it looked like she got pushed from behind even though there was no one around her. Just terrible form, in other words.

On our walk to the car after she was pissed. “I am so bad!” She didn’t say anything else so I let her stew all the way home, figuring whatever I said would be the wrong thing.

We had an early departure Sunday as the bracket games were an hour from home. She still wasn’t saying much so I didn’t either.

We played a bad, but not as bad as game two Saturday bad, team in our opener. We crushed them by 40. And L was awesome. 10 points on 4–4 from the field, 2–2 from 3. A bunch of assists and rebounds. Solid D. And that was all after she got absolutely wiped out on an illegal screen and did a half flip that landed her on her shoulder. She popped right back up, though. I guess I need to start hitting her in the shoulder before every game.

We had a three-hour break so headed to lunch as a team. In the car we finally talked about Saturday. I told her I understood her frustration, but that she needed to focus on process not result. That missed layup? That stunk. But she needed to realize she made a really nice move that beat her defender, attacked hard, and did 80% of the shooting right. Do the same thing next time, just hit the shot. Four of her missed jumpers were fine: open shot, within the offense, good form, and got the ball to the rim. Don’t sweat those. Sweat the shot when she rushed things, ruined her form, and had no chance of making it because of her process.

She told me that she feels like if she only scores two points a game, she’s not contributing. I told her that’s not true; she can score zero points but if she gets a bunch of assists, plays good D and gets some steals or keeps her girl from scoring, she’s doing a ton to help win. And I reminded her that our best shooter has a lot of 1–10 games, but she keeps shooting.

She agreed and then whipped out a list of things she came up with that she can do everyday to get better.

That night I told S that was the best example of how L is our daughter. When she messes up she gets pissed and won’t talk for awhile, which is a very me thing to do. But then she sits down and makes a list of ways to change her path, the way S would react.

After lunch we played another team from our program. These girls were really tough on D, had a great rebounder, but didn’t have much going on offense. We pulled away late in the first half to lead by nine at the break. We stretched it out to as many as 20, which was the final margin.

L wasn’t as good scoring – just knocking in four on 2–5 shooting – but was really good in every other aspect of the game.

On to the championship game, against the team that beat us in our opener Saturday.

Unfortunately I had to leave for another event (see below), but got updates. We were up by one late in the first half but gave up a run to go down by nine. Our girls played their asses off in the second half, or so the texts I got said. We lost by one. Later in the evening our coach said there were three or four possessions where we played great D, got a stop, then couldn’t control the rebound and gave up a put-back. Rebounding will always be our Achilles heel for a lot of reasons, and sounds like it was the difference.[1]

Still I think everyone was pleased with how the girls played. They looked like they hadn’t played in three weeks in that first game Saturday. Over the next four games they shook off that rust.

By the time I got home Sunday evening L was in bed, nearly passed out. She was exhausted, sore, and her ankle pain was in pain. She claimed to have scored “six or eight” in the championship game, which wasn’t a bad finish to a pretty solid day. If I give her credit for eight, that means she averaged 7.3 points for the three games. Quite an improvement from Saturday.

NHS

I had to leave basketball because it was National Honor Society induction night at CHS, which meant the seniors who had earned enough points got the cords they will wear over their graduation gowns. M obviously got those points, otherwise I wouldn’t be skipping a championship game.

It was interesting seeing the number of seniors getting their cords compared to the juniors who were being inducted. It looked like a good third of the kids who got into NHS a year ago did not earn their cords.

How you earn your NHS points at CHS is kind of a bullshit process. No, strike that. It’s totally a bullshit process. The teacher who runs the program has been doing it since S was in school and plays all these BS, power trip, mind games with kids and forces them to jump through hoops to get the 10 points they need. I think some kids, once they’ve been accepted to the colleges they want to attend, decide to check out on all that nonsense.

One of M’s classmates is going to Notre Dame and is almost literally a perfect student: she earned a full ride to Cathedral, the first girl from St P’s to ever be awarded that scholarship. One of just three class of 2023 CHS kids to get into Notre Dame. But she didn’t get her cord. We joked that she was probably too busy applying for scholarships to worry about showing up at exactly the right time to get her name on a list of limited spots for whatever points the NHS sponsor was throwing out each week. Or, more likely, she figured, “Fuck that.” Although she would never say fuck.

But M got hers, and it will look very nice over her graduation gown in – checks calendar – one month. Holy shit! She has 20 days of high school left!

We also planned on taking some graduation invitation pics afterward. She and two of her friends are doing a party/open house together. The other two girls are going to Miami (OH) and brought red shirts. M was going to put on her black UC shirt. I was tasked with taking some super cute pics of them that S would turn into super cute invitations for the party.

Only problem is the weather changed Sunday and it was cold, windy, and rainy. Which made M pout. I told her she needed to knock it off, we can’t control the weather, and we could still find a way to take a nice pic. Then she told me she was tired because she only got four hours of sleep and I told her it wasn’t my fault she and her buddies stayed up until 4:00 AM when she had to be at work at 9:00.

Things were going swimmingly.

Then a miracle occurred: the rain stopped, the sun popped out, and the parents grabbed the girls and hustled outside. Of course it was like 40 degrees and windy, so there was much complaining. But I was able to snap a few pics and one of them turned into a perfect one for the invitation.

Two more pre-graduation jobs checked off.

Weather

It had to end. One of the very best weeks of weather I can recall in my nearly 20 years in Indy ended Sunday morning when a cold front blew threw. After over a week where the temps were in the 70s and 80s with almost no humidity or clouds, we got a nasty reminder that there’s still plenty of time for shitty weather in the Midwest. It felt more like mid-December with wind-whipped rain that soaked you even in the quickest run between car and building. We heard there was snow at the middle school track meet. As I type this Sunday night there is a chance of snow over the next few hours until daybreak.

Then it’s going to be back into the 70s Wednesday, 80s Thursday, then another cold blast for next weekend.

The girls were begging me to open the pool last weekend. I actually texted our guy Tuesday and he said there was a chance he could be here Thursday, but that feel through. I think he’s going to swing by sometime this week, so maybe the girls will be able to get in one of those warm days. Otherwise it might be a few weeks before they get a chance again. I probably should have stuck with our traditional second week of May open date.

  1. Size, ability, “want to.” We are short, have bad technique, and tend to watch the ball rather than go after it. My theory is our girls are too nice to be good rebounders, because you have to be a little mean to be successful.  ↩

Weekend Hoops Notes

March 20, 2023 /

Not a good weekend of basketball. Nope, not good at all.

Jayhawk Talk

Well, I feared playing Arkansas from the moment the brackets came out a week ago. Long, athletic, fearless, a little crazy. They resembled Texas and TCU, teams that gave KU three of their worst losses this year. Saturday afternoon I began to gain confidence. KU was more experienced and had been tested all year. Arkansas dropped just about every big game on their schedule. There was a little turmoil on their roster. They might be more talented, but they certainly weren’t the more steady team. Get a lead, force them to shoot jumpers, and hold on to survive and advance.

For 25 minutes KU were about perfect, leading by 12 with under 16 to play.

Then it all fell apart.

I wasn’t mad or sad that KU’s season was over. I never expected them to repeat, and while my goal was to be the first defending champ since 2016 to reach the Sweet 16, this team outperformed every other expectation I had for them.

No, I was mad at how they lost. They went soft. They missed free throws. They got both a 5 and 10 second violation, neither of which they had picked up all season. They took a couple very quick, nervous shots when there was still a lot of time left in the game. It wasn’t just a game KU could have won, it was a game they should have won. They pissed it away.

A bad end to a great season, with most of the worst errors of the second half committed by the players who made some of the biggest plays of the year.

Would Bill Self being on the sideline have made a difference? Maybe. He might have adjusted quicker and differently to what Arkansas was doing, notably how they attacked off the pick-and-roll. Maybe he would have called a different out-of-bounds play or two.

However, I think it’s a disservice to Norm Roberts and the other assistants to put the loss on them. I don’t think the general message from coaches to players was much different that it would have been had Self been there. It was individual breakdowns that caused the loss more than any tactical choices the coaches made.

Saturday was a great moment for the KU haters. Not only did another highly ranked Jayhawks team fail to play to their seed, but, as it is currently set to be constructed, KU will likely take a step back next year.

For the first time in seemingly ages, there is no player in the system who is set to take over the mantle as Alpha. As Perry Ellis passed to Frank Mason, who handed off to Devonte Graham, who handed off to Udoka Azubuike, who handed to Ochai Agbaji, who handed to Jalen Wilson. I doubt that either DaJuan Harris or KJ Adams have the ability to take on that kind of role next year. There is a very good recruiting class coming in, but none of those guys seem like they are the next Gradey Dick, who himself wasn’t the best player on the team this year.

The easy answer to that these days is to hit the transfer portal. It’s hard for me to see a transfer coming in and being the Alpha from day one. It takes everyone the better part of a season, if not longer, to figure out Self’s system and expectations.

The portal is also problematic since KU already needs to shed a player or two in order to get under their self-imposed sanctions for next year. Assuming all four committed recruits still show up in the fall, some non-senior/non-Gradey Dick player will need to depart. If Self wants to add a transfer(s), that means another has to hit the bricks.

I can think of at least five guys who have a good reason to transfer, either just to get a fresh start or go somewhere where there are better opportunities to play. I wonder how NIL will change their calculations, though. Is it better to stay at KU and not play much and maybe be unhappy, but make more NIL cash, than to find a better playing situation but not have the same NIL chances? Weird times.

Now don’t take my prediction too strongly: KU will still be good next year. But they will be very young and unproven.

Oh, and there’s the little matter of Bill Self’s health. I’m an optimist. I think he’s going to be fine and coaching at KU next fall. It remains a question, though. If you don’t think the coaches he battles with the most on the recruiting trail haven’t been putting the word out that kids can’t trust Self to be their coach, you don’t know a thing about recruiting. [1]

So defending champs no longer. But the Kansas Jayhawks remain the reigning men’s division one basketball national champions for another two weeks.

Rock Chalk, Bitches.

Other Tournament Thoughts

We went out to dinner Friday evening with some friends who are far less interested in sports than I am. I checked the Purdue score at halftime and was surprised they were down, but figured they would rally. I checked again midway through the second half and they were up five. About 20 minutes later we began hearing occasional noise from the bar area, capped by a huge roar. My buddy and I quickly whipped out our phones and saw Fairleigh Dickinson had just hit a 3 to go up five. We watched the last seconds on a phone. Amazing. I don’t know that many people had a whole lot of faith in Purdue getting out of their region this year, but to lose their opening game? Stunning.

Matt Painter is a very good, borderline great, coach. He recruits to a style and gets those players to excel in that system. He sees the big picture and tweaks his system for the strengths of each year’s roster. He makes terrific adjustments within the game. But, man, that dude has terrible, terrible luck in March.

I know some IU people were having a lot of fun with this, especially in tearing down Painter and the “myth” that he is a great coach. There’s definitely a pattern here, but the randomness of the tournament is a bitch. You can never really quantify how coach X or program Y has such bad luck over time. Is it mental? Is it something specific Painter does wrong? Does Bill Self really coach differently in the Elite Eight? Or is it just the roulette wheel of March Madness coming up the wrong color time and time again?

My bracket was looking pretty good until Saturday evening and Sunday. Fortunately everyone else is getting wiped out, too. I picked 10 of the Sweet 16 and have five of the Elite Eight and three of the Final Four left. I’m second of 44, sixth of 155, and seventh of 49 in my three pools. In my fantasy league, I’m tied for second, six points out of first. And that was with the first overall pick scoring zero points in his first game. If you’re going to take a chance on an accessory to murder (uncharged), he really needs to deliver.

I’d rather be wearing KU gear Friday when we leave for spring break than celebrating bracket success.

The Best Conference in 20 Years kind of had a shitty first weekend.

A Sweet 16 without Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, or North Carolina. Wonder how long it’s been since that happened.

It seems like they’ve shrunk the commercial pool even further this year, and we’re seeing the same 5–6 commercials. Or at least we’re seeing an assortment of 3–4 and then each break has one stupid AT&T commercial and then a Capital One commercial. At least the CapOne ads are funny, but they are so overplayed.

I’m really starting to hate AT&T’s Lilly. Especially when she’s referred to as a “special contributor” by the CBS studio people.

Has anyone thought of putting Coach K and Peyton Manning in a commercial together? It seems inevitable as they both do 8000 ads. I’m going to start boycotting any products that use either of them in their campaigns. Branch out a little, people.

Oh, and if you weren’t watching the very first games of Thursday, you probably missed Coach K’s “speech” to all 64 teams. I’m so disappointed in myself that I didn’t predict CBS would find a way to make the tournament about him somehow. Guy went out a loser. Why are we celebrating him?

I do not like three-man announcer booths. They don’t give the games enough room to breath, even if all three people on the mic are good.

Finally, a rules suggestion. If a player is fouled and makes their shot going into a TV timeout, the timeout gets delayed until either he makes his free throw or the next dead ball. Those breaks kill all the drama of the and-one opportunity. This seems like a reasonable ask, especially when it sure feels like the dreaded double timeout occurs a lot more often in March. No, I’m not just saying this because Kevin McCullar missed an and-one free throw after a commercial break.

Kid Hoops

It was a delightful weekend of getting up at either 6:45 or 6:15 to drive on snowy roads in a single-digit windchill to watch L and her travel team take the court again.

They were perfect Saturday, getting two double-digits wins over very physical teams. L looked a little intimidated by the physical play and struggled with turnovers in the first game. She had six total points on the day, and probably rebounded better than she did anything else.

Sunday we faced a team from Michigan in bracket play. They were super tough on defense, and led by 11 midway through the second half.

Our girls made a nice run to take the lead late. But it felt curiously like the KU game. We missed five free throws in the final 3:00. One of our assistants got a technical that cost us a point in that same stretch.[2] The game went to overtime where our best free throw shooter went 1–2 with 20 seconds left to put us up one. The Michigan girls threw in a crazy shot – a banked, running layup from high off the glass – to take the lead with 10 seconds left and we couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

Bummer.

That team went on to win the championship with our game being their closest of the weekend.

There was another connection to the KU game. Like DaJuan Harris, L rolled her ankle. Unlike him, she never came back into the game after getting hurt. Fortunately since we lost she didn’t have to miss another game (or two). When we got home it hurt to walk but didn’t look too swollen, so we’re hopeful she didn’t injure it too badly. The good news is we won’t play games for another three weeks because of spring breaks, so she has a nice, long, built-in rest period.

(Monday morning update: she’s in a boot and it still hurts pretty bad, but still not a ton of swelling or discoloration.)

She had been in the game less than two minutes when she got injured, so she didn’t get a chance to do anything. When she rolled it she was backing down a defender at halfcourt. She went down, lost the ball, and her defender picked it up and went in for an uncontested layup. Two more killer points.

I asked L about the bench technical. She shook her head and said, “Those refs were so soft.” I think she’s been watching Bill Self videos.

Oh, sports are dumb. So, so dumb.

  1. A friend made a wonderful point along these lines. “100% guarantee Scott Drew has already called recruits about Self. At the same time he’s probably going to say something in his next press conference about how everyone should join him to pray for Self’s return to good health.” Phony with a capital F.  ↩
  2. The technical in the KU game was a double-tech, and didn’t cost either team a point, but did put Jalen Wilson on the bench before halftime.  ↩
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