D's Notebook

Tag: youth sports (Page 5 of 24)

Weekend Notes

March 6, 2023 /

College Hoops

I’ll save most of my thoughts for a post later in the week. It is always a bit of a relief when we reach this point in the season and have a few days off.

November and December are usually a mix of big games and ones that KU should win easily. I’m always left wanting more from that part of the schedule, as the Jayhawks often have week-long gaps between games.

The Big 12 schedule wears me down. I don’t know if it is just getting older and it’s harder for me to stay up for a late start and then have my normal struggles to come down afterward, or it’s still some remaining DNA from my youth when the Big 8 only played on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but two months of Saturday-Monday/Tuesday turnarounds make me feel like I’m playing and not watching. I want more time to savor those Saturday wins, or recover from the losses.

So when we hit conference tournament week and everyone takes a few days off, it is a nice break before the real stress of March kicks in.

Naturally in a few weeks I’ll be missing basketball. Such is life as a sports fan.

Kid Hoops

L’s winter league team wrapped up their season Sunday. They were supposed to play a semifinal Thursday and would have likely lost. But that team was unavailable for the weekend’s championship, so they forfeited.

Which left us playing a team that beat us by 41 three weeks ago. Fun.

The championship game got moved to Sunday morning. We were the only game in the building, which was weird. It gave our girls an opportunity to go through a real warmup instead of the three minutes of rushed layup lines on normal game day. I think that pregame shooting paid off.

We lost by 8 but played tough the entire game. We had the lead until just before halftime, dug a 12-point hole in the second half, and trimmed that down to four late.

It helped us that they were missing one good player and another girl who sucks but is super physical and fouls all the time and scares our girls.

Also L played her ass off.

She had a season-high 16 points, a couple assists, more rebounds than she’s had all season, and a couple steals. Those points didn’t come from just getting to the rim. She hit one 3, another just inside the arc, and two baseline jumpers.

Several of her teammates played their best games of the year as well. It wasn’t enough, but it sure was better than getting embarrassed.

We went straight from there to a meeting for her travel team. The program director brought in all the 7th–8th grade teams to talk about organization-wide goals, show them some sets they want all teams to run, and then watch the high level high school teams go through a workout. Not sure they got much out of it, but L was happy to see most of her teammates again. They begin practice next week with their first tournament the weekend of the 18th.

HS Hoops

Both Cathedral sectional games were on TV, and we watched each of them. Friday they played their typical sloppy ball and nearly blew an 11-point lead in the last 90 seconds, but held on to win by 4.

Then Saturday they took on one of the two Indiana teams they lost to during the regular season, a 10-point loss in the City championship game in January.

The Irish were ready for revenge. They jumped out to a 14–2 lead before play was stopped for 45 minutes because of a rim malfunction. After play resumed they didn’t lose any of their momentum and led by 25 at half, gave ten of that back early in the third, then went on a 16–0 run and cruised to a 43 point win. FORTY-THREE!!! Crazily it was the school’s first back-to-back sectional titles in 25 years.

They advance to regionals where they will face the other Indiana team that beat them this year: undefeated, #1 Ben Davis. BD beat them by 12 in December. Revenge game #2? If Cathedral takes care of the ball they can beat anyone. But they love to throw it/kick it/hand it away.

More Faux Spring

It was nearly 80 one day last week. It’s been in the low 60s several other days. We had heavy, spring-like rains Friday. A cold snap is coming, but it’s been nice to pretend it is spring for a few days.

We got all our spring garden trimmings done Saturday. Some years I’m all bundled up and taking regular breaks to get those knocked out. This year I was sweating.

An Old Friend

For the first time in several years, I found Boulevard’s Irish Ale at a local liquor store. It bums me out that Boulevard has scaled back their national distribution and eliminated a couple of my favorite beers in recent years. I wondered if it would take a trip back to KC this time of year to ever drink Irish Ale, my very favorite BLVD beer, again.

But I found two six packs and bought them both. I’m going to run back to that store later and see if they got any more that I can nab before it disappears for the season.

Weekend Notes

February 27, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A week ago L’s team beat some good sixth graders in the best game they’ve played all year. This week they played another sixth grade team and got crushed.

It was a 50–26 loss. And that was with us scoring six points in the last minute. The team we played made at least 7 3’s to our one. They worked us over pretty good on the defensive end. They dominated the boards. Nothing really went right for us.

L was feeling under the weather and looked like she had zero energy. We were missing our best player. We had another girl who hadn’t played with us all year and was clueless. And another girl who has played a couple times but never goes to practice showed up and had no idea who she was supposed to be guarding when we were on defense. Not that any of that made any difference.

Our tournament starts Thursday, the first game against a team that beat the sixth graders that just beat us. So doubting that L’s team will make a run.

In good news, we had our parent Zoom meeting for the travel team Sunday night. They will start practicing in two weeks. We will miss the first tournament of the season because of spring break, so L won’t get a travel game until April. She’s excited to rejoin those girls, though.

Jayhawk Talk

Whew.

I had a bad feeling about this run of West Virginia and Texas Tech back-to-back. It felt like too many people were chalking them up as wins and assuming KU would be playing for, at worst, a tie for the Big 12 title next weekend in Austin. I hoped the team was taking them more seriously than KU fans were.

I’m not sure what the answer to that question is, whether it was the KU guys not being focused or WVU just playing great, but it was too damn close of a game.

I missed the second half for a social event. I was extra stressed because I couldn’t find the broadcast anywhere on Sirius while we were driving. I checked the score when we stopped to pick friends up and was relieved to see KU up by seven late. A few minutes later I checked again and let out an “Oh shit!” when I saw it was a one-point game. Reminded me of almost exactly a year ago when we went out as the KU-Texas game was going on and my peaks at the score of an intense, close, low-scoring game made me want to throw up.

A dub is a dub, especially on a day that saw crazy ends to games in Tucson and Iowa City. With Texas losing to Baylor, the Jayhawks are one win away from clinching at least a share of the title.

Social Outing

S and I attended Cathedral’s annual fundraiser Saturday evening. We’ve gone once before, and that was your standard “dress up, drink, eat, and donate some money” type deal. But this year there was a Yellowstone/Western theme.

If you know me, you know I don’t have much time for the cowboy thing. So I bought a hipster Western shirt and a $20 cowboy hat from Amazon. That was enough to fake the look for a few hours.

It was a fun night. We hung with some friends we don’t see often enough. Saw a ton of St P’s people. It was fun to talk college choices with the others who also have seniors. S ran into lots of people she went to school with back in the day.

We did not bid on anything. Someone did take home a very cute puppy for $10,500. Catholics, man!

M was working the event to get National Honor Society points. One of her friends was tasked with walking around and showing the puppy off to people before bid time. M made sure that girl kept swinging by us. My response each time was that she is four and a half years away from being able to buy her own dog.

Afterward she agreed $10K was too much for a puppy.

I haven’t heard the final haul but several fancy trips also went for over 10K. Again, Catholics!

The Decision

I supposed I’ve buried the lede. As some of you know from direct messages or my Facebook post, M decided last Wednesday that she will be enrolling at the University of Cincinnati next fall. She is excited to have made her final choice and relieved the process is over.

Now begins the work on housing. She confirmed that she can only request one roommate, so she’s back in the pool “meeting” people and trying to find a match.

She got more good news Friday, learning that UC accepts credit from Semester at Sea. That is now on the radar for her junior year, following the path of one aunt and one uncle who participated in that program during their undergrad days.[1]

So she’s going to be a Bearcat. KU plays football in Cincinnati next Thanksgiving weekend, which may be a tough one to attend. The basketball Jayhawks should be in the Queen City sometime in the next two years as well. I already warned her I’m going to be super obnoxious to her on those days, whether I go to the games or not.

  1. That aunt also went back as an adult and served as a counselor, guide, or whatever they are called.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 19, 2023 /

An early weekend roundup, as M and I are headed to Cincinnati early Monday for an admitted students orientation. We will likely do the same at IU in March as she continues to gather information before she makes a final decision.

Kid Hoops

L’s team played a sixth grade squad Saturday. That always worries me because if a sixth grade team is playing up they are usually pretty good. Checking scores, they had beat a team that beat us by 20 by 32, so it seemed a little bleak.

Our girls played their best game of the year from the opening tip and earned a 50–45 win. We lead by double-digits for a good stretch of the game and only let it get close because we were sloppy in the final three minutes.

L had a great first half, scoring eight and getting a couple straight steals off the other team’s best player. She didn’t score in the second half – she only took one shot – but still played great D and had a few nice assists. Her best friend took advantage of being the tallest kid on the court and scored 21.

It also helped that we had a girl who hadn’t played with us all year. She’s a really good athlete and has a decent hoops IQ, although she’s a little raw. L played with her at summer camp last year and they got along really well, so was excited she finally showed up. They look like they could be a really good guard duo together at CHS next year.

Those sixth graders were good. I think they’re a team that locks people up on D then hits a bunch of 3’s. We were lucky that we could handle their pressure, guard them on the perimeter, and when they did take 3’s, they only hit a few. Our size advantage meant we owned the boards as well.

One more week left in the regular season before the tournament and then a return to travel ball.

Jayhawk Talk

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! WHAT A GAME!!!!!!

Down 17, win by 16. I wasn’t even nervous at halftime, this is just what happens with this program right now.[1] Play like ass in the first half, then completely flip the script and come roaring back after halftime. The fact it turned into a blowout instead of a nail-biter and was against Scott Drew made it even better.

Ok, so I was a little pissed at halftime. But I figured Baylor wouldn’t keep shooting 81% from 3 and KU would shoot better than 9% behind the arc. Still, being down 13 to such a good team, even at home, seemed pretty bleak. With a trip to Ft. Worth on the schedule for Monday, it seemed doubly bleak.

So, for the first time this year, I switched seats. Yes, just as I did for the K-State game last January and for the national championship game in April, I moved from the couch to the chair next to the couch.

And it fucking worked again you naysayers.

In other superstitious notes, I hated the Sunflower uniforms that KU wore. I was advocating for burning them at halftime and taking a technical foul to switch into something else. I guess I have to support continuing to wear them since we came back and won? Shit.

Gameday was in town. Ochai, CB, Remy, and others from last year’s team were back in town. The sun was shining through the windows. The crowd was nuts. KU is in first place in the Big 12 with four games to play. It was a great fucking day in Allen Fieldhouse.

Rock Chalk, bitches.

Signs of Spring

It’s been warmer more often than it’s been colder the past couple weeks. The sun is coming up earlier and staying up later. I just scheduled our mulch delivery for May. Spring break is five weeks away.

But the biggest sign that winter is loosening its hold on us is that our bird friends are returning. We had our first two geese of the year in the yard this week. They always show up when our neighbors take their old-people spring break. Sure enough, the neighbors left on Saturday and the geese arrived two days later.

Then on Thursday we had two ducks splashing around in the pond that forms in our yard when we get rain.

It’s still mid-February and this is the Midwest, so we will get bitch-slapped by Mother Nature a few more times over the next 6–8 weeks. But spring, she is a coming.

  1. Totally not true.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 13, 2023 /

HS Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I’m not a coach, what do I know.

Jayhawk Talk

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kid Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super Bowl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insomnia/Sick Day Notes

January 31, 2023 /

Ugh. I had battled a cold for a week or two, with this weird congestion passing back-and-forth between my head and chest. I never had a sore throat, never felt bad. Just constant plug of yuck in part of my body.

In the midst of that, I took NyQuil for several nights so I could breath and sleep peacefully. I slept like a baby all of those nights. Since I got off the meds, though, my periodic insomnia has returned. Last night I went to bed 11:30ish, drifted off for a bit then jolted wide awake. I came downstairs around 1:30 to read and have a drink to try to reset my body, then tossed and turned for several hours before maybe getting two solid hours.

I hate when this happens. I know my body will eventually get back on track and in a few nights I’ll be sleeping great again. And it’s not like my days are busy, so I can sneak in a nap if needed. Just doesn’t give me much energy or motivation to do things.

Didn’t help that C threw up this morning, so the errands I had planned got wiped out. I tried to nap but my one cup of half-caff coffee was enough to keep me from getting any rest. At least there’s nothing big going on tonight, so I will be relaxed and ready to hit the sack early.

Thus, a few more notes that I planned on holding for a couple days but I’ll share now since I’m kind of a zombie.

Kid Hoops

L’s team got a 12-point win last night. It should have been more than that; they led by 15 at half and then played sloppy and let it get down to four before we put them away. L had 10, including six in that late run.

I forget if I shared this already, but we have new coaches for the winter session. Now the CHS varsity coach and her top assistant/freshman coach are in charge. Our two wins this week were against pretty bad teams, but at least our girls seem to have a much better idea of what’s going on compared to when the previous coach was running things. A good change, and a chance for L to spend time with the people who will hopefully be coaching her next fall.

College Process

I haven’t shared the latest on M’s college search.

You know that she was accepted to IU quickly in November, including admission to the honors program. Then we waited to hear on her next four applications. We got word on each of them over the last three weeks.

First was an acceptance from Purdue. She doesn’t want to go there, but it was serving as her in-state, backup school. It was nice that she got in, though, because she heard of several kids she thinks have similar grades to hers who got deferred admission.

Next came Cincinnati, two weeks ago, another yes. Which was expected. UC is a solid school but not as selective as IU or Purdue.

Then last Friday she got word from Michigan: deferred. Which at first she was thrilled about, thinking that meant she has a shot to get in in April when they open up the enrollment spigot again. However, she read that all out-of-state applications are automatically deferred, so they may not have even looked at her file yet.

I heard from the parent of another kid who was deferred by UM that is not true; he knows of a couple out-of-state kids that got in last week. So we don’t know if M has gotten any attention or not.

Michigan is kind of fucking this whole process up. She’s never visited there, hasn’t done deep research about any specific programs, housing, etc. She just knows it is arguably the best public school in the country. If she gets accepted I think she’s really going to want to go there.

I’m torn. It would be awesome if she got accepted and had a chance to spend four years in Ann Arbor. But basically doubling the tuition we had planned to pay the next four years changes the parenting math quite a bit. And I’m not sure I could deal with her ego if she gets a Michigan degree!

Still, I didn’t want to crap on her excitement Friday, so I told her it was awesome that she’s at least still in the game. I would be surprised if she gets in, simply because it is so competitive and her non-academic resumé is lacking. But you never know.

Now she is stressing about not hearing from UM until April, while both IU and UC need a decision by May 1. I told her not to sweat it, spend the next two months making a choice between IU and UC and then we’ll have a plan in place when she gets her final decision from Michigan.

We booked a spot in UC’s admitted student program in February and will take a similar trip to IU in March. I gave her the task of coming up with some specific questions to ask when we are on each campus so we’re not just repeating what we did over the summer.

I can’t get a good feel for where she’s leaning. For awhile I thought she was higher on IU. But over the weekend she told us one of her best friends since grade school may go to UC, and they’ve talked about rooming together if they both head that way. The good thing is the tuition at the schools is basically the same so she can make a decision purely on where she thinks she fits best.

I honestly never realized how stressful this process is. I applied to two schools and knew where I was going. I only applied to UMKC because my stepdad was going through his first battle with cancer at the time and wanted a local option in case I needed to stay in town.

Health updates

The beginning of the year has been busy on the health tip for our family. Or at least for two us.

I mentioned awhile back that C was diagnosed with a bulging disk. She’s been doing PT twice a week to try to build some core strength and take the pressure off her spine to avoid more invasive treatment. It seems to be going well. I think she’s been consistent with her home exercises, and most days when we go in for PT she says she feels better. She’s been cleared to do anything that doesn’t cause new pain, so she has the ability to be active. She’s not really taking advantage of that, although it is January. I just hope she can be consistent with continuing her therapy at home once she’s released from PT so she can feel better and avoid either injections or surgery.

A couple weeks back I went to a dermatologist for the first time in my life. Being light skinned and having spent too much time in the sun in my life, it seemed like a good time to have a doc who is trained in such matters to take a look at my skin.[1]

Good news is I got a clean bill of health. I did have a spot he was a little worried about. Years ago my primary doc told me it wasn’t anything to worry about, and S had assured me that she also thought it wasn’t problematic. But my dermatologist said while he thought they were both probably right, he wanted to go ahead and do a biopsy just to make sure.

I got the results late last week and it came back benign. I wasn’t super concerned but was still nice to hear. I figure most people are going to end up with sun-related skin issues at some point, so it’s nice to be able to kick that can a little farther down the road. Use sunscreen, my peeps!

  1. I often ask S to look at moles, skin tags, etc that look odd. She’ll poke it, wrinkle her nose, and say, “Yeah, that’s weird. You should get that looked at.” Those two months of derm she did really come in handy!  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 30, 2023 /

A lot of sports this weekend.

Kid Hoops

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

This one was not.

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

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

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

KU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other College Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pacers

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

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

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

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

NFL

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

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

  1. Now ten of eleven.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

December 19, 2022 /

What a weekend of sports at all levels!

Hoo, Hoo, Who?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cLots

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

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

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

Burn it all down and start all over again.

Youth Hoops

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

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

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

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

World Cup Final

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

December 5, 2022 /

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

College Football Bowls and Playoffs

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

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

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

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

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

Kid Hoops

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

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

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

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

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

World Cup

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

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

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

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

Colts

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catching Up

December 1, 2022 /

A few things happened either before or while we were traveling that deserve a few words.

Youth Sports

The Friday before we left, St P’s had an assembly for the two girls basketball teams that made it to the City finals including L’s team. She still refused to hold the trophy. I laughed. It was a nice way to end the season.

That was also Semi State Friday for Indiana football, featuring Cathedral’s rematch with Center Grove. The windchill was in the 20s, it was snowing for much of the game, and we had shit to do to get ready for our trip, so I stayed home and listened on the radio. M still went. She said it was the last game of her high school career, since she would miss the potential state championship game, so she felt an obligation to go. I appreciated the dedication. She also said she might only stay for part of the game because of the weather.

CHS jumped out to a 10–0 lead after two possessions and seemed to be firmly in control. Then they gave up 33 straight points. Yeesh. 33–10 final.

M ended up staying for the entire game. I had coached her two weeks earlier on how to interact with her boyfriend if/when the Irish lost. She was way ahead of me. “Oh, none of us are going down on the field if we lose. It will be bad.” I think she and the other girlfriends indeed stayed away from the players after the ass-kicking was complete. She refused to even look at his messages after she got home because she was sure they would make her cry.

So 10–2 playing two levels up from their natural class with a crappy offensive line that forced their stud QB to scramble for his life all year. Not too bad, but it sucks to go out that way. CHS loses several important players – three of them are Power 5 recruits – and will stay in 6A for at least three more years. So M might have had the best run anyone in our family will have with a regional loss, two state titles, and a semi state loss.

KU Football

I saw a few moments of Texas’ destruction of KU while we were eating at O’Hare. That was the most predictable result of the season. Texas had been hearing for a year about losing to KU last November, in contexts that often had nothing to do with football. Not sure even if KU had been completely healthy they had a chance in that game.

Last weekend I went to bed knowing KU was already down two scores to K-State. Didn’t seem like a game to fall asleep on the couch to. From a summary podcast I listened to sounds like it wasn’t a total destruction and the margin, once again, largely due to self-inflicted errors. Now three weeks or so to get healthy for a bowl game.

The big KU football news came mid-week when KU announced a contract extension for Lance Leipold. That was huge news. Sure, the bloom is off the rose a bit by going 1–6 after starting 5–0. But the most optimistic predictions for this year had the team winning four games. The Vegas over/under was 1.5. Leipold got them to six wins and a bowl game, something that might have been on the table next year for the sunniest of KU fans.

When the final contract was announced this week there were a few interesting notes. The buyout is pretty manageable for any bigger program that really wants him. From Twitter I gather there was some mocking of the clauses that allow Leipold to opt out if the construction projects on the stadium and practice facilities don’t begin by a specific date next year. To me those were pure window dressing, another sign that these projects are, indeed, finally happening.

There’s still a lot of work to do. The defense fell apart over the last two months and needs a lot of help, perhaps even a new scheme. The schedule is a little tougher next year, with Illinois replacing Duke.

You would think most of the big names would return with Lance guaranteed to be their coach, but you never know these days. Jalon Daniels is the big key. He seems like a kid who loves KU and playing for Andy Kotelnicki. NIL can change that in an instant.

For programs like KU the big carrot of a bowl game isn’t just the chance to play an extra game but also that extra month of practice you get. Between that and hopefully another good year in the transfer portal, the chance is there for Leipold to really begin to build something next season.

I know, I know. KU football fans should never get their hopes up. I’d like to think times have finally changed.

KU Hoops

I didn’t see a minute of the Bahamas games. Because of time zone weirdness I was awake for a couple of them. But I was in Italy, for crying out loud, and these were games in November. I was not going out of my way to find them.

Getting humbled by Tennessee sucks, but the Vols currently have the best defense in the country, and KU is too reliant on Jalen Wilson at the moment. I’m not going to get too concerned yet. It would be nice if we figured things out before December 17 when Indiana comes to Lawrence.

MJ Rice breaking out Monday night was a nice bonus.

Higher Education

L got her acceptance into Cathedral last Tuesday. No surprise but it was still fun. Her Golden Ticket package was in the mail when we got home; this year the gift was long Irish socks. We get to go pick up her Class of 2027 shirt and yard sign next week.

M also got a message that she has been granted direct admission to IU’s honors college. She was surprised by that since she didn’t think she had even checked a box on her application that she was interested in the program. She’s a little torn on that path. She doesn’t want to take all honors courses in college as she’s only taken one or two per semester in high school. And she doesn’t want to live in the honors dorm but with the “regular” population. We have friends who have a freshman in the honors college and we told M to reach out to her and get her perspective before she made any decisions.

Holidays

I did not listen to any Christmas music until we got home. In fact, as we were leaving the parking garage at O’Hare M said, “Once we get on the road, can you find some Christmas music?” That’s my kid.

We got a jump start on our holiday decorating. We put up some of the inside decorations a week before we left. I put lights on two trees three weeks ago and planned on not turning them on until right before we left. When he had that snowstorm a couple weeks back it seemed like the right time to flip the switch on those. And we decided to go ahead and put up our tree over a few nights the week before we left. S said there was no way she would have the energy to do it upon our return. I was good with that plan.

Oh, and I watched the Cheers “Thanksgiving Orphans” episode that Friday before we left. After 36 years it remains the greatest 22 minutes of televised comedy ever.

Wednesday we had our belated, mini Thanksgiving dinner. Based on requests from the family, I made green bean casserole, Giada’s dressing, corn soufflé, and sweet potato casserole. My plan was to smoke a turkey breast. Which I tried to do. But since the windchills never got out of the 20s yesterday, the bird wasn’t close to done at meal time. We waited half and hour and it still wasn’t ready. So I let it keep smoking and dinner was just sides. Which isn’t a bad thing. Once the turkey came off it was really tasty, so leftovers should be good tonight.

Kid Hoops: Denied

November 18, 2022 /

L’s team came up short in the City championship game Thursday.

It was a tough, defensive matchup between two teams that knew what their opponent was trying to do. The difference was St O got to the basket more than we did, and hit a couple big threes to stretch out a lead on their way to a 30–20 win.

It was 4–4 after one, and we were down 10–8 at halftime. L hit a 3 midway through the third to cut a four-point deficit to one, but St O countered with a 3 on the next possession which kicked off a 16–7 run over the remainder of the game to pull away.

L led us with 10 points, but took a lot of shots to get there. St O took away our inside player, who only scored four points and never shot a free throw. In fact, we only shot two free throws for the game while St O shot 15 (hitting eight). A lot of that was because St O did a better job getting their guards lanes so they could drive and we fouled them trying to recover. L, on the other hand, rarely had open lanes and when she could find an angle to attack usually had three defenders waiting on her at the rim.

It was a terrific environment. It felt like all of St P’s was there to watch. One of L’s travel teammates played – and won – the small school division championship earlier. She stayed to watch, and their travel coach brought two other teammates to watch. The coaches from both high schools were there. We went through a stretch in the fourth quarter where L was trying to take over and missed four or five straight long jumpers. Each time she put a shot up, you could hear all the St P’s kids prepare to go nuts if she made it, and then the air go out of the group when she missed. It would have been cool if she hit a couple of those and we got to the game to the last minute like the first time we played St O.

L was a mess after the game. It didn’t help that she got elbowed in the throat in the third quarter. She was in pain, angry, played bad (in her eyes), and we lost her final CYO game. She was in tears for several minutes while she tried to recover from the elbow, and then when the coaches called off trying to foul in the final 20 seconds she lost it again.

The CYO director and Bishop Chatard coach ran the too-long trophy presentation after the game. The coach handed L the runner-up trophy and she quickly handed it to someone else. When we were taking pictures she refused to hold it. She is always in the middle of team pics and but last night she moved as far away from the trophy as possible. I respected the bitterness.

It was a really fun season. We had great coaches, the girls improved, and our little three-game winning streak over the past week was a fine example of eight kids learning to play together even when two of them were the focus of the offense. L’s teams had only won one tournament game in the previous four years, and that was way back in fourth grade. This year they knocked off the undefeated regular season champs, pounded St J in the semis, and gave the eventual champs a good run for 16 minutes or so.

We practiced Wednesday and I liked how the head coach closed practice. He told the girls it was a big game, but it was still just one game. They would all play in bigger games in some sport in high school.

I hope that’s true for L. She obviously has a lot of basketball ahead of her, health permitting (knock on wood). But it meant a lot to her to be playing her last game for St P, with four of her classmates for the last time together, and with three seventh graders she really gets along with. She took the responsibility of being the leader, and was devastated by letting them down (again, in her view). Hopefully she uses this as motivation to keep improving her game and can build on the overt leadership skills she began to show this season.

It sucked to lose this one, but at least they had the opportunity.

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