D's Notebook

Tag: youth sports (Page 9 of 24)

Weekend Sports Notes

February 28, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

A large game in Waco Saturday. KU looked fantastic for the first 15 minutes against Baylor, then, other than a brief spurt in the second half, pretty pedestrian.

I was as low-key about this game as any late-season, Big 12 contender matchup in years. I listen to three different KU-focused podcasts and all of them insisted last week that Baylor was a great matchup for KU. I think that was putting too much into the teams’ first matchup, which was as dominant as KU has looked all year. That sentiment must have gotten into my head, though, because I didn’t have the usual nervousness going into this game.

I also thought all the pressure was on Baylor because of that first game and the margin between the teams. If KU lost they would still be in first place. Texas Tech losing to TCU earlier took some more pressure off.

For awhile it looked like that was all true. KU looked great early, hit their usual lull before halftime, and struggled to match Baylor’s adjustments through the second half. Or at least that’s what the general narrative of the game is.

In truth, KU missed a ton of open shots. Especially Ochai Agbaji, who despite scoring 27, missed a handful of, for him, relatively easy shots. Jalen Wilson was back to December Jalen Wilson. The bench was non-existent, although Remy Martin did score five, balanced by his typical terrible defense.

I’m not throwing those details out there to diminish Baylor’s performance or poo-poo the loss. It’s just to say I wasn’t all that worked up about it. It’s not like Baylor made KU look silly, like KU pissed it away as they had the game in Austin a few weeks back, etc. KU lost to a really good team on the road while having their worst offensive game, efficiency wise, in some time. Not a loss to lose sleep over.

Of course it helped pretty much everyone else in the Top 10 dropped a game last week.

It’s almost March. I’m more concerned with how the team is playing than the result. KU lost because the missed shots they normally hit and struggled to guard Baylor’s athletic bigs. That’s pretty much the blueprint for a KU loss this season.

Youth Hoops

L’s winter team had their final regular season game yesterday. As has been usual, they were missing four players and had to recruit a replacement from the C team just to have a sub.

Comparing scores, the team they played had lost by seven to the team we beat a week ago. So I was hoping for good things.

Not sure what went on in that other game, but our result showed why using playground logic is bad. We took a 2–0 lead, gave up an 13–0 run, and never got it under nine again, losing by 20. This team had good, little guards that could handle the ball and shoot 3’s. They had two big girls who looked awkward but could post and score, move their feet a little on D, and rebounded the hell out of the ball.

L scored eight and had three assists. She was aggressive but did not have the distance dialed-in on her jumpers and had a bunch of airballs. She also had her best, and smartest, play of the year. She had the ball at the top of the key and one of the big girls on her. She recognized the mismatch, got the girl leaning left, blew by her on the right and laid it in. A simple play, but a smart one. She hasn’t had the results she’s wanted, but I think her hoops IQ continues to improve. She’s been frustrated by this season. I keep telling her that things are going to get better, and more fun, once he AAU season begins.

Her AAU coach was in the building and watched the first half. He told me he was excited to have her and her St P’s buddy on his team. They start their practices tonight and are supposed to play in a shootout on Sunday, pending enough teams registering. Meanwhile the winter league team plays a tournament game tomorrow and a championship game on Saturday, should they win their first game. The “tournament” is kind of whack, but I’ll share more about that later.

Winter Olympics

I realized I never wrote anything about the Winter Olympics. Which should be like a mortal sin to the blogging gods: the Olympics have been one of my go-to content sources over the last 18 years.

It’s not that I didn’t watch. I did watch quite a bit in the first week, but tailed off significantly in the second week.

I guess it was fatigue from a third-straight Olympics being held with a 12–13 hour time difference and how that affects how us Americans can watch the events. There was the prime time evening window, which is probably way more convenient in the Pacific time zone than the Eastern. I don’t think I watched past 11:00 PM more than two nights. I often caught a few minutes of live events in the morning before I took L to school. That was pretty much it, though. And, as I said, in week two I lost some interest.

The lack of crowds sucked, especially since here in the States we’ve been back to full crowds for quite a while.

There was also the fact they were holding the Winter Olympics in an area that gets like 10 inches of snow a year. The starkness of the ski slopes covered in artificial snow while all the surrounding hills were a dull brown kind of cut into the vibe you want from the winter games. Naturally there was a nasty snow/wind storm that affected some of the ski events. Those were the sports gods letting the IOC know you need to stop chasing Chinese money and put the games where they belong. Seriously, I think the Winter Olympics should always be in the Alps, Scandinavia, or Canada. Fuck China. And fuck Russia, too, while we’re at it.

I laughed out loud at the ski broadcasters discussing how the snow in these games was so different than what the competitors were used to skiing on in Europe. One of them said the snow was “very sensitive.” Snowflakes on two levels!

Once again I found I enjoyed the newer events that grew out of the X-Games more than anything. The halfpipe snowboard events, especially, are crazy fun to watch. Ayumu Hirano winning the men’s gold was an insanely impressive performance, even with the judges trying to screw him. I loved the analyst getting noticeably pissed as the judges refused to reward runs that included elements that had never been done in competition before.

Also fun to hear the cross country analyst again, who screamed like someone is dying anytime there was a close race.

I suppose my favorite thing about the games was Instagram stalking the competitors. I spent too much time looking at Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami’s page. Please don’t tell my wife.

Baseball

Rob Manfred and the owners suck. For the first time in at least 15 years I turned off auto-renewal for my MLB subscription. I doubt losing my $120 will bring them to their senses, but I also don’t feel obligated to sign back up right away when an agreement is reached. There are a lot of problems with baseball, and the owners seem intent on making every one of those issues worse while adding more to the pile.

Weekend Hoops Notes

February 21, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

Ah, the trip to Morgantown, where so many good/great KU teams have gone and dropped total turds. It didn’t matter that this year’s WVU team is kind of bad and sitting in 10th place in the Big 12: this game should have frightened KU fans because of our past experiences there.

(You could tell this West Virginia team kind of sucks by the way Bob Huggins coached. That was as docile as I’ve ever seen him. He knows he has some good kids and they’re trying hard, but they just aren’t good enough. He understands there’s not need to berate them when he’s already getting all he can out of them.)

There were some scary moments Saturday night, but KU rallied and actually closed out a game strong for the first time in weeks to get a nice road win. Sadly, it was just matching Texas Tech and Baylor, who had both already won there. But it still felt big.

We’re at the point in the season where every team pretty much knows what they have. I think we know what we have in KU: a very talented team on offense that throws the ball away too much, can rebound the hell out of the ball against all but the most athletic opponents, and plays pretty middling defense.

Those turnovers and defense plus the team’s struggles to be poised late in halves say that this isn’t a Final Four team. They have too many weaknesses that will get exposed when March rolls around. It’s a really good team, but I don’t think they have greatness in them.

Which is fine.

They are still really fun to watch at times. Ochai Agbaji seems to have re-found his mojo. David McCormack is playing really well. Jalen Wilson’s transformation has been spectacular. Christian Braun always finds a way to affect the game.

It just doesn’t feel like they have the right mix to hang a banner of their own.

Thus the focus is on adding their own notch to the Big 12 banner. With five games remaining, going 3–2 guarantees at least a share of the title. Go 4–1 and neither Baylor nor Tech can catch them. It’s right there in front of them.

It’s not a done deal, and KU could certainly slip up and turn 3–2 into 2–3. But I’ve decided to enjoy the next five games and the Big 12 tournament, and then figure this team won’t play to their seed and end the season on a disappointing note. Maybe they’ll win a couple so their loss can come in the second weekend of the tournament while I’m on spring break and have distractions. I’m hoping the end will be easier to take since I’m already accepting it a month in advance.

NCAA Tournament Preview

I think it’s kind of weird that the NCAA started releasing these bracket previews a few years back. Partially because there are seemingly hundreds of bracket previews out there, why do we need another, even if it is the officially-sanctioned one? I guess it dominated college hoops news for an entire day, so it serves a purpose.

I don’t know that there’s a good time to release it that doesn’t render it temporary, but a Saturday morning seems like an especially fluid time. Nearly every ranked team plays most Saturdays. Within an hour-or-so of the preview’s release Auburn and Kentucky were both trailing. Kentucky came back to win, but Auburn came up short in their comeback. Immediately non-NCAA bracketologists were sliding Auburn down in their overall seedings.

More annoying to me are people who argue about these projected brackets. They literally do not matter because the season does not end on February 19 or whatever. The teams that are fighting for the top seeds will all play anywhere from 6–9 more games before the final brackets are posted. A LOT can happen in that time. A team that looks like Final Four material now can have a big injury or just go cold on offense. A team that is struggling to find themselves can get an injured player back, or the coaches can make an adjustment that suddenly helps them cover up some warts.

Drew Magary said on Twitter last week that Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir needed to stop acting like the Olympics figure skating controversy was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which I thought was amazing. Same goes for people who take these early brackets way too seriously.

Along those lines, bitching about rankings is dumb. There’s a KU podcaster I follow who rips rankings from various writers each week. His issue isn’t always with where they have KU, but it often is. None of it matters. Now it is whack to have a team that everyone else has in, say, the top seven, #18 or whatever on your list. But in the era of NET and Quadrants and all the other advanced rankings, the media poll is a meaningless artifact of a bygone era.

Youth Hoops

L’s team hasn’t really had a close game this season. They lost one game by four, but trailed by close to ten most of the game. Just about every other game has been 10+ points either way. They finally had a tight one Saturday.

We were up 16–10 midway through the first half then gave up a 6–0 run to tie it. Our best player was on fire, though, and we went into halftime up two thanks to her 10 first-half points.

The second half was a bit of a slog. Neither team hit a shot from the field until eight minutes into the half. By then we were down because they had hit six free throws to our two. As usual they were running way better offense than we were, so it felt like the game would get away from us. It didn’t help that we had just six players, and our only sub was a girl called up from the B team (which is really a C team).

But our girls hung in there. We tied it up, took a brief lead, then fell behind by 3 with about 3:00 to play. We have a girl who has the craziest shot you’ve ever seen. She’s about as big around as your pinky finger and shoots the ball from below her hip, twisting her body as she heaves it toward the hoop. But she somehow makes a lot of them. She kept getting fouled Saturday. She missed her first two free throws, then hit seven straight, four of those in the closing minutes.

We had a one-point lead, playing defense, with about 15 seconds left. Their best player had fouled out so another girl tried to drive and dribbled it off her foot. We were inbounding with five seconds left. They stole a long inbounds pass in their backcourt, pitched it ahead to a girl who fumbled the ball twice near midcourt, then recovered and threw a perfect, cross-court pass to a teammate who was wide-open from about eight feet. She turned, flung the ball, and it banked in. I was keeping score and it looked good to me. One ref didn’t make a call, typical for the general quality of refs. I don’t think he was even watching. The other ref casually waved the basket off. The other team’s entire bench went nuts, coaches and players. Our girls sheepishly celebrated.

One of our parents was recording the game for grandparents. We looked at the tape and the ball was still in the shooter’s hands when she shot, so it was a legit call by the ref. But it was damn close.

Whew!

L scored a season-high 10 points, hitting four shots, including a break-away layup that gave us a 3-point lead with under a minute to play. She was also 2–4 from the line, hitting one of two when their coach got T’ed up. After the game I jokingly told her she should go thank him. Her response, “No way! He’s crazy!”

It was nice to get a win, nicer to do so in a close game. One more game next weekend followed by the tournament and then she’ll be all-in on travel ball for four months.

Hoops Notes

February 15, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

Two more wins, one entirely too stressful, the other had too much sloppiness but 15 of the better minutes of the year to balance.

Saturday against Oklahoma, KU looked slow and uninterested for much of the game. Like they saw the line was KU –10.5 and figured they would just walk onto the court and the game would be over.

They got their shit together in time to turn it into a comfortable win…until they started missing free throws and turning the ball over. It was a needlessly close, too stressful, two-point win.

After the game KU sat at 9–2 in the Big 12, a game ahead of Baylor, two ahead of Texas Tech. This was the second last-minute win over Oklahoma. There were late wins over Iowa State and Kansas State. It took two overtimes to beat Texas Tech. They blew the game in Austin in the final minute.

I sense a trend.

As a fan you can’t help but wonder what this means. Is this a team that can’t put people away, or a team that is tough as nails and unfazed by late-game stress? Are you concerned that they are playing so many close games that can turn on a single basket? Or is this team finding its identity and developing confidence that will help them weather tight games in March?

Fans love these debates, and the over-analysis that comes with them. Which is silly because the winning argument will be determined by how KU plays in March. The 1996–97 team had at least four huge comebacks to get wins over the course of the season. When they couldn’t complete their comeback against Arizona in the Sweet 16, we decided those games from November to February were all signs that something was wrong. Had they come all the way back and continued on to the Final Four and perhaps a title, that Arizona game would have been the ultimate sign of how tough that team was, how you couldn’t stop them on offense, how they were destined for greatness.

And that team had five NBA players on it. This year’s has, likely, just one. Doesn’t bode well for what’s coming.

After shaking off a very sluggish start Monday, KU played about 15 great minutes and had Oklahoma State down 26 before they decided to miss 16 of their last 17 shots. Not quite the 19-straight misses KU had in Stillwater last month, and a bunch of these were by the bench, but still an ugly end to a satisfying win.

The big takeaways were getting Ochai Agbaji back on track after two sub-par scoring games, a complete effort by the starting five, and more good minutes from Zach Clemence, who returned Saturday after missing a month with a foot injury.

Clemence is raw, fouls on every rebound, and apparently can’t hit a free throw if his life depended on it. But he battles and doesn’t appear to be afraid of the moment. He was the only KU big who had any idea what to do against Tanner Groves on Saturday, changing the game with his defense as much as his three that gave KU a lead they never relinquished. I’m not sure how much you can expect from/trust a kid who missed a month and wasn’t exactly getting big minutes before his injury. But having a 6’10” guy who is versatile and confident could be a nice bonus, especially on the nights when David McCormack is a mess and Mitch Lightfoot can’t do anything other than hack people.

Oh, the other takeaway from Monday’s game was the uniforms. Egad, man! I had not heard a good explanation for them before the game, just that KU was honoring the 1922 national championship squad. As they were white/gray, I assumed this was some dumb Adidas thing where they were overthinking how the only pictures of that ’22 team were black and white, so why not have black and white uniforms? ESPN’s Boog Sciambi finally gave a better explanation late in the game: the ’22 team did, in fact, wear gray and white, but with gray jerseys and white shorts. KU flipped that look so the jerseys would be home whites.

OK, that makes a little sense.

Still I hated them.

I hated it because if a random viewer turned on the TV, their first comment would probably be either “Who is Oklahoma State playing?” or “Why is Kansas wearing black?”

And why in the hell do you bust these out against Oklahoma State, a team that actually has black as a primary jersey color? Granted, they would have looked weird against anyone. And I think I would have hated them against anyone. But wearing them against OSU, Texas Tech, or any other school that features black in their own uniforms was super dumb.

I get what Adidas/KU was trying to do, and they get some points for intent. But the execution was terrible. KU might have worn gray 100 years ago, but there was no reason to wear it in 2022, especially against a team wearing all black. They could have made the lettering and shorts blue. Or wore the all whites the ’22 and ’23 teams wore.

Rumor has it Adidas has another alternate uniform lined up for sometime in the next month. Based on what some other Adidas teams have already unveiled I fear I may hate them, too.

Adidas has made some decent alternate uniforms for KU over the years, notably the Chalks and Phogs. But they keep messing up the regular uniforms then throwing out at least one bad alt set each year.

They really should let me design the uniforms. I would do a better job.

Pacers

Man, Kevin Pritchard came strong before the trade deadline! Three deals made some major changes to the Pacers’ roster going forward.

He shipped out Caris Levert, who in a nice player but dominates the ball too much and got an expiring contract and some draft picks in return. He sent his best player, Domantis Sabonis, and others, to Sacramento for Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson. Then he sent Torey Craig to Phoenix for Jalen Smith.

The trade with the Kings got the most attention, with a lot of the Internet freaking out over it. Haliburton is a darling of the NBA analytics movement, while a lot of people struggle with their thoughts about Sabonis. Sabonis is the better player right now. But he doesn’t play defense, isn’t a great shooter outside the paint, and I’m not sure he has much more upside. Haliburton is younger, under team control for a lot longer, already shows a lot of promise and seems to have a lot of upside. Plus he seems like a great dude.

Whether this series of trades would have been made if Myles Turner was healthy is an interesting question. Regardless, seems like the Pacers are going with him after trying to force him and Sabonis to work together for four years.

So the Pacers got some draft picks, a potentially great young player, cap space next summer, and some other pieces that can either be moved or fill the gaps until new players can be brought in. It seems like the new talent matches what Rick Carlisle wants to do better than the old. And there’s the familiar mantra of “When Turner, Malcolm Brogdon, and TJ Warren get healthy, this team is pretty solid.” I would not be surprised if the Pacers trade some of their draft capital and returning players to move up in this year’s draft, or find a better match for their younger guys. It’s not a full rebuild, but probably as close as owner Herb Simon is willing to come to one.

The Pacers have blown leads in their first two games with their new lineup. But at least they are interesting again. Those were the first games I had watched since the holidays.

Youth Ball

L’s CYO team has had a rough couple of games.

A week ago they got hammered by a really good sixth grade team. I think they lost by 24. It’s crazy watching these year-round teams run offense like high schoolers and have 12 year olds that can hit pull-up 3’s on the break. I keep telling L if she works hard, that’s the kind of game she can have by the end of this summer after three months on a travel team.

Saturday they played another seventh grade team. Strangely they hadn’t beaten a sixth grade team but were undefeated against seventh graders. We jumped out 4–0 then gave up 15 straight points until early in the second half. We cut it to 17–16 with about four minutes to play, but threw a bunch of bad passes and airballs and lost 24–20.

Other than her first CYO game of the calendar year, when she went scoreless, she had scored six or seven points in every game she had played in 2022, whether for her CYO or travel team. A week ago she broke that string by only scoring four. Saturday she scored just two. She missed a ton of shots Saturday. She was angry and didn’t talk all the way.

I know she’s frustrated by the CYO team. They don’t really do anything on offense, so they’re easy to guard. There are two girls who are always in the wrong spot on defense, so they give up easy shots. They don’t rebound. I told her to keep her head up and try to have fun. When travel ball starts next month, with more frequent practices and better coaching, things will get better.

We got her travel schedule last week. They will start practicing in early March then playing shortly after, continuing through the end of June. Most of it is local, although they will go to tournaments in Louisville and Knoxville.

Weekend Sports Notes

January 17, 2022 /

A lot of sports notes from the weekend. I should probably split this into a couple different posts. But it is a holiday and we all have a little extra time. So one extra-large post it is!

Kid Hoops

L played in her first-ever AAU tournament over the weekend. Or rather it was a “shootout”: a one-day, round-robin event focused more on getting teams games than declaring a champion.

Her coach told us that this was just a chance to get the girls together for the first time and get a feel for the roster. Seven of the ten girls played together last year. The girls haven’t had a proper practice together, just some light work at the end of their program’s twice-monthly, age-group training sessions.[1] Making it even more fun, L’s team is a 7th grade B team and this was an 8th grade A shootout. The coach stressed not to worry about the results, this was just about getting the girls on the court.

L had been really impressed with her teammates after their training sessions. After the most recent one she came home raving that all the girls were good and, most importantly, all of them knew how to run the offense. It drives her nuts that half the girls on her other team – let’s call them Jr T’s to differentiate – don’t run the plays correctly. We had a talk about playing time last week. She claimed she was fine not playing as many minutes for a chance to play with better players. I was glad that was her mental state. I told her if she doesn’t start and/or play much, that will give her the motivation to work harder to improve.

Her squad had three games Saturday. First game we played a team that was at least mixed with seventh and eighth graders. But their eighth graders were big. BIG. L had played against some of these girls in CYO ball before and I’m pretty sure they smoked us then.

We had eight of our players for game one. L’s St P’s buddy started, as she is our tallest player, but L was on the bench. The game started ugly. The other team pressed the hell out of our girls and we could not break it. We were down 8–0 or 10–0 before we even got a shot up. L checked in and didn’t help much, mostly because she didn’t get the ball. Another girl played lead guard spot and was not used to looking at L for help.

L played one shift without doing much. She came back in with about 5:00 to play and we were down 15–0. She got the ball in the deep corner, went baseline, and threw up a little floater than she has gone about 1–50 on this academic year. This time she swished it and we were on the board. She had a little grin on her face as she ran up cord.

A few moments later she got ahead of the break, received a great pass, and laid it in. In the last minute of the half, she got open on the wing from about 15 feet and drilled the J. It was 21–8 at half and L had six of the points, going 3–3 from the field.

She started the second half. She wasn’t as lucky this time, missing a tough layup, having a short jumper blocked, and badly bricking two free throws. She seemed to be meshing with her teammates more, though. We lost 43–20 but, again, expectations were low. She was pleased after the game.

Following an hour break and quick trip to Chipotle, it was back on the court against and all–8th grade team from Terre Haute. These girls were even bigger, and better. Everyone knew where to be on every play. They would get an offensive rebound, whip it to an open girl behind the arc, and she would drain the 3. Or the girl with the ball would draw the defense and then hit a cutter with no one on her. We lost this game 62–11 and it really wasn’t that close.

L started and again scored six points on a layup, a jumper, and two free throws. She also rebounded pretty well despite their size, made a couple nice passes, and even blocked the shot of one of their biggest girls.

Another hour off before the last game, against another big, all 8th grade squad. These girls looked super impressive warming up. Just as big as the previous team but more athletic and with a couple fast, small guards.

That team did not play to its ability. Or our girls just figured something out. We only had seven players for this game and they looked gassed at times. But they played hard, never trailed by more than 15, and closed strong to only lose 46–37. L started and scored seven this time, including a nice and-one that she cashed the free throw for. She also missed the front end of a one-and-one in the final minute putting her at 3–6 from the line for the day. She rebounded her ass off, probably her best rebounding game ever.

Her St P’s buddy – her name also begins with L so I need to come up with a way to identify her – had a nice basket at the hoop that she converted despite getting mugged. After the ref called the foul, L ran over and shoved her buddy, and sent her right into the girl that fouled her. That girl was not as excited about the play as our girls were. Fortunately L started laughing so there was no drama.

So a pretty good first day with the new team. L went from sitting the bench to starting five-straight halves. I’m not sure how good the two girls we were missing are. One of the other dads told me the coach had told him whoever started the third game would be his starters going forward. Who knows how that will work and when this team will play again, but I was proud of L for at least putting her name in the mix.

She struggled a bit in the half court sets. But, to be fair, most of the team did, even the returning girls. There was a lot of two girls standing in one spot or someone away from the ball bringing their defender to the ball instead of away. That will get worked out in time. When we got home I showed her videos of Kansas and Golden State running their weave offenses so she could understand how to pass in those sets. She kept bounce passing rather than tossing or handing off since she had never seen that kind of motion offense before.[2]

She proved to her teammates and coach that she deserves minutes. In fact, this was probably the best she’s played this school year. By my math she scored 28% of their points for the day. On the way home she noted, “It’s kind of weird I played better against 8th grade teams than I have against 7th grade teams.”

I’m hoping she can take that confidence and apply it to her Jr T’s team, which is all seventh graders from several Catholic schools. She was super frustrated about her play after their game last week. They play again tonight so we shall see.

Her AAU team may not play again for awhile. Most of the girls are on some kind of school team at the moment. They’ll have skill sessions and light practices every two weeks. The coach said they won’t really dive into things hard as a team until March and most of their play will come over the summer.

There was also a sixth grade boys shootout going on, and they played on the other courts and between L’s game. Those games are nuts. It’s all pressing and running flat out and chucking threes. Some of those kids are insanely talented, light years beyond what anyone I ever played with or against in sixth grade could do. I’m usually pro fast-paced offense in all sports (see below), but this was a little much. And those games are sooooo sloppy. Most of the coaches are psycho. Another check in the Better to Have Girls Than Boys column.

Orthodonture

L got her top braces put on last week, so these were her first games with them in. I asked her orthodontist if she should wear any kind of protection. Neither of her sisters played a contact sport when they had their braces so I never worried about it. He said you can get special guards, but he didn’t think it was worth it. At her games Saturday I noticed more than half her team had braces, and no one was wearing a guard. OK, then. I broke my glasses multiple times, and had to get stitches once when the frames sliced my eyebrow open, playing middle school ball. Teeth were never my issue.

KU

I missed the KU-West Virginia game while sitting through all the AAU ball. I did get the nervous texts from friends about the Twitter rumors that Remy Martin was out for the year. Wouldn’t be a college sports season without some kind of off-the-court drama.

I won’t get into the Remy stuff for now since it seems confusing and a little over-the-top at the moment.

I followed the score and then watched the recording on Sunday morning. That was a great performance by KU, likely their best of the season. It was, I think, the first time all year three players have balled-out at the same time. Who would have guessed that David McCormack and Jalen Wilson would be two of those?!?! I don’t think West Virginia is as good as their 13–2 second coming in indicated. Still, to hammer any Big 12 team by nearly 30 this year deserves a few minutes of satisfaction.

And on a day when Baylor lost their second-straight conference game, and Texas Tech also lost. A week ago it looked like Baylor would run away with the league. They might still do that; when healthy they are probably the most complete team in the conference. But, as Kansas State beating Tech and Iowa State being a couple shots away from being undefeated show, the Big 12 is going to be an absolute meat grinder this year.

I like that the conference is good, but I hate the way it is good: with seven or eight teams playing insane defense. That turns games into ugly slogs that are hard to watch. I guess that’s a good thing for the tournament, as playing non-conference teams will seem like a breeze after getting worked over by Big 12 teams for nearly three months. I certainly won’t complain if KU somehow comes out of this with another conference title, since that almost guarantees a one or two seed in the NCAA’s. I do reserve the right to complain about the aesthetics along the way. Especially if KU turns into a pumpkin in four or five of these games.

NFL Playoffs

The only game I watched much of was the Niners-Cowboys game, which was awesome as a neutral. The final, what, 18 minutes, were just tremendously stupid and entertaining.

Long-time readers will recall that I grew up a Cowboys fan, but have deserted them a couple times in my life. It’s been 12–14 years so I fully abandoned them because of Jerry Jones’ nonsense. But two of my college buddies I constantly text are Cowboys fans so at least watch their games these days so I can keep up with the conversation. I do enjoy watching the Fighting Jerrys lose, though. Especially in painful manner.

That was about the most painful loss possible. Get down big, early, at home. Get a break or two that allows you back in the game. Do some dumb stuff along the way. Then have your final shot to attempt to win the game taken away in a truly unique way. Running a quarterback draw with 14 seconds left and no timeouts, then watching the clock run out while the referee sets the ball has to be one of the five dumbest ways to lose an NFL game.

As I said above, I’m generally pro-offense, and enjoy all these wide-open offenses that make football so entertaining. But do we have to label all these coordinators and coaches as geniuses when they are constantly getting in their own way by trying to be too clever? Dallas converts a fake punt and then keeps the punt team on the field to try to confuse San Fransisco and ends up with a delay of game penalty that means their next fourth down is too far to go for it. And the Niners send a tackle in motion on a fourth and inches, which caused an illegal motion penalty and forced them to punt and give Dallas one final chance to win. Neither play was remotely necessary, and just examples of coaches thinking “Hey! I’ve got this great look no one has ever thought of before!” And using it in a high-stress situation that it has never been practiced under. Just dumb all around. And terribly fun to watch since I did not care who won.

I’m no expert, but the Bills-Chiefs game seems like it could be pretty good.

  1. We didn’t put a ton of research into picking a travel hoops program. We just asked a parent we knew where his two girls played and signed up there. But L’s program just had their first “graduate” commit to a D1 program. And it was a doozy. A high school junior who is ranked in the top five in the country committed to UConn two weeks ago. Girl must be a badass if she’s committing as a junior. I’m expecting nothing less than a full-ride for L now.  ↩
  2. I even sent her a GIF of KU running it and told her to watch it five times a day.  ↩

So This Is The New Year…

January 3, 2022 /

Happy New Year, everybody! Let’s kick off another calendar year of discussing random shit, shall we?

Our New Year’s Eve was rather quiet, as usual. M went to a party, which was a first. That meant we had to stay up until we were sure she was safely at the home of the friend she was spending the night with. What did our parents do before the Find My app? Just worry until we showed up the next day? Fortunately she had a good and safe time.

Our neighbors invited S and I out for an early New Year’s toast at 10 PM. We met at the end of their driveway, shared a drink, and caught up about how our respective holidays went. It was a humid 55, so we all had light jackets on. Those were the final hours of both 2021 and our balmy stretch of weather. It got cold New Year’s Day, snowed a bit overnight Sunday, and the windchills are down below 20 now. 2022, January, and winter are all here.

L had a couple games yesterday, her final of the early winter session. They won the first game by 34 and she had her highest scoring game of the year, dropping in eight. She also had a half-court shot rim in-and-out at the final buzzer. They played the team of a St P’s classmate in the second game. This team was tall and athletic and play together year-round. We hung close for about 10 minutes then gave up a 12–0 run that we could not come back from. We were down 20 in the fourth quarter before a little run turned it into a respectable 10-point loss. L didn’t score but played solid D and probably had her best rebounding day of the year despite facing the big girls.

Her team will now transition to a different league for the winter. Those games will be closer to home and usually just one per weekend. She will also start playing in an occasional single-day tournament with the travel team she’ll be a part of in the spring and summer.

After her games we got all the Christmas decorations taken down and stored for the year. As always the house feels a little emptier and colder this morning without the tree up.

I also watched a certain 10-episode Netflix show over the weekend. More about that later this week.

M and C went back to school today. Cathedral is doing a two-week elective thing; they call it J-term, I know there are other schools that do a similar thing. M is taking an art appreciation class, which includes a day in Chicago going to museums. Hopefully Covid doesn’t wipe the out. C and all the other freshmen have to go through the same set of courses that are a mix of leadership/mentorship/future planning stuff and some fun sessions. Neither of them is super excited about any of this even though this means no homework for two more works. They both said they’d rather be in their regular classes with their friends. L has two more days of playing Xbox before she goes back.

So now I guess we start counting down for spring break. Only 82 days…

Kid Stuff

December 20, 2021 /

Today is a strange day in our house. M and C wrapped up finals on Friday, so (as I begin this in the morning) both are still in a deep sleep. Hell, C probably finally went to bed somewhere in the 2–3 AM range.

L, on the other hand, has class through Wednesday. So the two of us were up at the normal time.

That feels weird because it’s the first time we’ve had a schedule like this. Last year, of course, both schools were locked down and the girls were e-learning for the final month of the semester. Two years ago I’m 95% sure M’s last day of finals coincided with the last day of the year for St P’s. I picked her up at noon, we went to lunch to celebrate the end of her first semester of high school, then I picked her sisters up an hour or so later.

Not sure L is super happy with how this works out for her. Although she goes back two days after the high schoolers in January, so it evens out.

Seems like finals went well for both high schoolers. M complained about how the finals schedule this year. Instead of having two finals a day for four days, they had three finals the first two days, then two on Friday. So they had pretty normal days those first two days, starting at 9:00 and finishing at 2:30. So told me how that was so unfair compared to the old system. I rolled my eyes and ignored her complaints.

We signed C up for the written portion of driver’s ed on Friday. I’m hoping she gets a lot of work done over the break and can knock out her 30 hours of “class time” quickly. We haven’t got her in a car in the high school parking lot, yet. But that is coming soon.

Two more weeks of basketball in the books for L’s team. They’ve split games each weekend.

Last week they lost game one of the day by five. That was a bummer because they led by six pretty much the entire game. The other team threw a half-court trap at us to start the fourth quarter and we gave up the lead in about four possessions and never got it back.

The true highlight of that game, though, was one of the refs. First, he called the game like a first grade game, stopping to explain every call to the players, giving them visual demonstrations of what they did wrong. This got tedious quick.

Worse, he also enjoyed lecturing the coaches and parents about his calls. If there was any complaining, he would stretch these lectures out for a good 30 seconds, speaking loud enough for all to hear. He was in control of the gym. Or at least giving that appearance.

Example: “Ladies, you can reach as much as you want, but if you displace the player you’re guarding, that’s a foul.” He would wave his arms around to give a visual of how you can reach as he spoke. “Until the offensive player is displaced, it’s a legal defensive play.”

The displacement thing became very important. Both coaches complained that their girls were getting hacked. But, as he said, as long as you don’t displace the girl with the ball, you can hack the hell out of her and he won’t call it.

Sadly it was our coaches who lost their patience the most with him, and there were a couple lengthy, and uncomfortable, “conversations.” The word displacement was thrown around a lot. Eventually even parents were sarcastically yelling “Displacement!” from the stands any time there was contact on the floor. Our assistant coach asked the ref, loudly, if he was proud of himself.

None of that was necessary. Refs can explain calls to coaches during breaks in play, quietly. There’s no need to carry on for everyone in the gym to hear.

Thanks to all his pontificating – plus the other team shooting about 25 free throws – the game took 90 minutes to play. Which is just ridiculous. More so since we played immediately afterward. On the same court. With the same refs. Sigh…

Fortunately we got matched up with a team we had crushed in week one. We crushed them again. L and a girl almost got into it. They ran into each other once and L got the best of it. Then they were fighting for a ball and both refused to back down, even after the refs called a jump ball. This other girl was a little rougher than L, and the second time they tangled a friend of mine said, “I think she is going to look for L after the game and try to kick her ass!” I laughed, but made sure that girl left first just in case!

I think the score not being close and the refs realizing we were starting the game about the time it should have ended forced Mr. Talker to blow his whistle less often. Although one of our coaches yelled “Displacement!” at his partner when she let the defense shove one of our girls without a call.

L’s team is in what is supposed to be in a seventh grade league. The team they played first yesterday had girls that looked like they belonged in high school. And they were good. Really good. We heard after the game they hadn’t lost a game since third grade. It showed. They were better everywhere on the court and smoked us by 30.

Sadly, again, the highlight was our coaches losing it with one of the refs. Our head coach got a warning then two technicals and an ejection for complaining that the other team was grabbing our guards when they tried to run the offense. Which they were. Also the fouls were 8–2 against us in the second half despite our girls being totally checked out while they were getting mauled on the other end. Still, never a good look for a coach to get tossed.

Guess what? Once again we had the same court, same refs for game two. This time our opponents looked like fifth graders. So we beat them by 30. An even-Stephen day. There were no referee issues.

L played ok in all the games. I think she scored six total points last week. She had two in the first game yesterday, then six in the second. Which came despite her barely being able to run thanks to her knee issues. They subbed her out more than they have in any game this season since she could barely walk at times. I was worried about her when she scored the first bucket of the game then immediately went to the bench. But she came back in early in the second quarter, hit a 15-foot jumper, and flexed as she ran up court. OK, then.

She has been frustrated because she’s not scoring much. She was really down after the games last week because two girls who almost never score both dropped 10+ in the second game. The two girls who lead the team in scoring also do it by being very aggressive and taking super-unorthodox shots. One girl just kind of heaves it from her hip, yet she’s probably averaging 10–12 a game. L is always trying to set herself up to take a perfect shot.

I told her as a point guard, it isn’t her primary job to score. She’s supposed to set up others to score. But, I made clear, she turned down some scoring chances. A couple times she had wide-open paths to the bucket that she passed out of. The mom who has coached her for years was sitting beside me and even yelled at her a couple times, “L, what are you doing?!?! Take that shot!”

I added that it’s not being selfish if she has a good, open chance to score and takes it. And, as the best dribbler on the team, she needs to take advantage if she can take two dribbles and get in the lane instead of someone else taking a guarded jumper from the perimeter.

She did better than that in the second game yesterday. Even though that team was awful, I give her credit since she was moving at about half speed. She got to the baseline several times and had three runners spin out. She was aggressive. She made some good passes. I also reminded her that as she gets older, the game changes. Forget her knee issues. At this age, the games aren’t just about being faster down the court than the defense. It’s great when she can get out on the break. But she has to learn to run and play within an offense. Learning to be patient and run the plays how the coach wants them run will pay off one day.

Holiday Notes + Kid Sports

December 6, 2021 /

It seems like most of the family has re-acclimated to being in the eastern time zone, but our days are still all messed up. A full, five-day school week this week will surely get us back on track.

Our holiday schedule is all out-of-whack from normal, though. The day after Thanksgiving is normally our decorating day. Since we were hiking through Waimea Canyon ten days ago, that wasn’t possible. L and I got a bunch of the decorations out on the Friday before we left, placing them around the house as we listened to the Cathedral semi-state game on the radio. But we left the tree for when we got home. S and I got that put up last Thursday night, completing our decorating for the season. We didn’t put up any outside lights this year. The five big spruce trees in our front yard we lit last year that remain dark. I’ve heard from several friends who are disappointed that they don’t see them shining brightly as they drive by. We also ordered our Christmas cards yesterday, a week later than normal.

These little things shouldn’t be such big mental hurdles. But everything does seem just a little off. Again, a normal week should rectify that and we’ll all be freaking out that Christmas is just two weeks away when next weekend rolls around.

Saturday was Cathedral’s winter formal, back after a year’s Covid-induced hiatus. It was a much more hectic night that two years ago, when we had just one girl going and she had friends over to our house to get ready.

C asked a guy friend of hers from St P’s to go with her (this is a girls-ask-boys deal), but just as friends, and she was awfully casual about the whole thing. Since it was the first time she went to a dance with a boy we had to give her a little slack. They were going with a big group of kids, and the plans were constantly changing, which was annoying to S and I, who like to have details locked in. We texted another parent Saturday afternoon to see if she knew what was going on. Her response was, “Good Lord, I have no idea what the plan is!” Kids…

M went with a group of girls and left our house before allowing us to take a picture of her and C together in front of our tree. When S learned M had been gone for 20 minutes, she was not pleased.

We took C to the gathering point for her friends. We stayed about 10 minutes and got a few pics before leaving. Before the group departed for the dance, there were something like 46 kids gathered at that house. Bless those parents!

We left early because the family who was hosting M’s group was having a parent party and we wanted to get there before the girls left. This group was only nine girls and not all the parents stayed, but it was hectic for a bit. We laughed later at how the ladies stayed upstairs all night while the guys were downstairs. I guess we can’t complain about our kids acting weird when the parents won’t mix. It was cool to get to meet a few new dads, though. We stood around and watched football while having stilted, guy conversations until the group thinned to a more manageable number and the dialog got easier. Meanwhile the ladies were upstairs getting into the wine and having a good-old time! The juniors all left the dance early and when they came downstairs, M said, “They are so loud and you guys are so quiet!” Facts.

It sounds like the dance went well. Both girls said the music sucked. I don’t think C and her “date” spent a ton of time together, but that was true for most of the “couples” who aren’t actual couples. Ahhh, the awkwardness of youth! I can’t judge: I didn’t go to a dance until my senior year because I was too nervous/lacking in confidence/fearful of rejection to ask anyone.

Speaking of CHS, I should note that the football team won the state title while we were away. I was able to listen to part of the game while we were getting ready for our luau. They fell behind 7–0 early and were struggling to move the ball. But the QB snapped out of the mini-funk he had been in and a junior wide receiver went off, racking up over 220 yards on the night, leading the Irish to a fairly easily 34–14 win. That wraps up a 27–2 run over the past two years, with the only losses coming to Center Grove who went 28–0 over the same stretch.

L started her first winter basketball league yesterday. She’s playing on a team that has girls from four different parishes. She was super excited when she heard a friend of hers, who is probably the best seventh grader in our part of the archdiocese, would be on the team. That girl is on crutches, though, and may not play until the second session begins in January.

The team has practiced a lot but Sunday was their first time playing together, and you never know how that will go. After her practice Thursday L said, “We are soooo bad!” She was wrong. They won their first game 44–21 and the second game 39–20. They are really good on D and have two girls who are fearless going to the hoop and can convert. We jumped on both teams early and neither game was in doubt after the first quarter.

L played solid. She scored six in the first game. She missed a couple shots late and I told her she deserved to miss them since her coach told the team to stop shooting. She only scored two in the second game. She moved the ball well, though, and played decent D. She had a couple steals both games and got some tough rebounds in the second game. Once she tried to back a girl down in the post and shoot a turn-around jumper. She didn’t come close to hitting rim. I was running the clock and a mom from the other team was keeping the book. I started laughing and said, “Not strong enough to do that yet!” The mom said, “That was a sweet move, though!”

I think playing with these teammates will help L’s game, as she’s running with legit scorers and will have to hone her distribution skills. They have three more weeks of games – two before Christmas, one after – and then I think most of the girls will stay together for the second winter session.

Kid Hoops: Fall Wrap Up

November 11, 2021 /

Another CYO basketball season is in the books. Thanks to a big win last week, with a guest coach on the bench, L’s team solidified itself as the solid middle of her league: they lost to each of the top three teams and beat each of the bottom three teams. Fourth place, bitches!

Last Wednesday we played St J. This was my first game handling all of the coaching responsibilities with both of the usual coaches out-of-town. Comparing scores, it appeared that we were pretty evenly matched with St J. But you never really know.

Watching warmups, though, I was more confident. They looked a lot like us: filled with more athletes than players, not a lot of size, and I guessed they could run with us.

We got out to a great start, and led 11–5 because we were getting run-outs and layups. We even hit a few free throws. But we gave all that back and trailed 13–11.

That’s how the entire game went. We would get a little lead, then give it back. We were tied at halftime and had a three point lead going into the fourth quarter.

I wasn’t doing a lot of coaching. I let L call all the offensive plays. I would tell the girls when to switch between pressing and falling back on D. I called a few time outs. I yelled at the refs a couple times. But mostly I kept my ass on the bench and handled the substitutions.

We were up six late in the fourth quarter and it really felt like we had the game in control. St J scored to cut it to four with just under a minute left and called a time out. They had been pressing us and our press-break offense was getting a little wobbly. In the timeout I told our girls to run the one variation we have on that set. I was about to send them back out when L asked if we should flip her and the girl who normally throws the ball in, because in this play the inbounder pops in, gets an immediate pass back, and is supposed to take off. She might have saved the game with that call.

She threw it in, got the return pass, and St J immediately fouled her. Normally our worst free throw shooter would have had the ball. Now our best shooter was going to the line.

L went down and hit both free throws to put us back up six (more on this in a moment). We gave up a quick basket, they fouled again, we hit one of two. The last 30 seconds were a mad dash of them chucking, getting offensive rebounds, missing free throws but getting offensive rebounds, and then us grabbing a loose ball with four seconds left. They fouled, we missed both, but still escaped with a 36–31 win.

Three wins in a row to move to 3–2! Our girls were super pumped. Well six of them were. L sat on the bench crying. She had fouled out with about 20 seconds left and came off the floor in tears. She didn’t say anything to me as she passed, so I had no idea what she was crying about.

I gave her time to calm down and as we left the gym, I asked her if she was upset that she fouled out, that she thought the last foul was a bad call, or something else.[1]

“I shouldn’t have said anything to the ref,” she said, as the the tears flowed again.

When she was at the free throw line in the last minute, just before her first shot, one of the St J girls stepped into the lane. It threw L off for a second, as she looked at the girl, then the ref, then banked in the free throw. After the shot she said something to the outside ref, who just looked at her. The underneath ref walked up and told her it was his call, he saw the violation, and he didn’t call anything because she had made the shot. She seemed annoyed but she swished the second shot.

She claimed that’s what upset her, saying something to the ref. I’ve told her many times that it’s the coach’s job to argue calls. She wasn’t really arguing, more questioning, but I couldn’t hear her tone so perhaps she was sharp when she asked about the call.

I told her it wasn’t a big deal, she just asked why there wasn’t a call, she didn’t argue or complain like sooooo many girls do. I was glad she knew that she should keep her mouth shut, but she hadn’t done anything wrong so she had no reason to get so upset about it.

I’m guessing this was just her night to be stressed by the tension of the game and that little moment made her crack.

For her, at least, that took some of the shine off of a big win.

Another good story from that game. One of our girls was scrapping for a loose ball under our basket and, as she was getting fouled, threw the ball backwards, over her head. It was a legit foul call, but somehow the ref called it a shooting foul and gave her two shots. It was, in no way, a shooting foul. If I was the St J coach I would have been pissed. She was just heaving the ball, her back was to the hoop, and it went to a teammate, not anywhere near the rim.

A St J grandma across the court, who had been loud all game, lost her damn mind.

“THAT’S NOT THE GIRL THAT SHOT THE BALL!!!” she started yelling. “YOU HAVE THE WRONG GIRL! SHE SHOULDN’T BE SHOOTING THE FREE THROWS!!”

Some of our girls started laughing. The girl at the line looked at me with a confused look.

“S, you’re right where you’re supposed to be. Knock these down,” I said in a calm but loud voice.

The grandma kept her complaining and the refs just ignored her. S hit one of two and we moved on.

Now if the grandma had said it wasn’t a shooting foul, she would have been 100% correct. But it was absolutely the right girl to be shooting if the ref was going to give her free throws.

Always fun when adults in the crowd look like asses in front of everyone.

Saturday was my second game as coach. We played St C, who are just insanely good. They had beaten the second and third place teams by 20+ each. Two years ago when we played the same group, they beat us by 30+. They are tall at every position, play together year-round, and look more like a decent high school team than a 7th/8th grade team. We knew we had no chance.

I told the girls to have some fun, they were cleared to take 3-pointers if/when they were open, and to try not to get frustrated. I also drew up a 3–2 zone before the game, saying we would likely switch to it at some point.

I don’t know if it made a difference, but St C carved up the zone, pressed us early, and jumped out to a 19–0 lead before we hit a free throw.

We actually tied them 6–6 in the second quarter, which was our highlight for the day.

My coaching goal was to hold them under 50 and to score more than 10. We lost 49–12, so it was a total success from my perspective! Thankfully one of our eighth graders hit two 3’s to get us into double figures.

St C has a girl that only has one hand. Her right arm ends at her elbow. She can use that arm to cradle the ball, but has to dribble, shoot, rebound, and guard people with only the left hand. She was the best player on the court. We saw her two years ago and were kind of shocked by her ability. And she’s gotten a lot better. She clearly has natural athletic talent – C ran against her last spring, losing to her in the 200 and beating her in the 100 – but for her to be so good at basketball is a testament to how hard she’s had to work to overcome a huge physical limitation. She will go to a large high school so I wonder how she will do playing against really good, high school competition. I hope she does great.

Since CYO tournaments are never seeded, the blind draw for our first round opponent was…St C again. Lucky us! Tuesday we practiced, with the regular coaches back, and worked on a 2–3 zone for about half the session. We had no idea if it would work but at least the girls had an idea what we were asking them to do instead of my drawing something on the whiteboard five minutes before tip.

I don’t know if it was the zone, St C not taking us seriously, or just the Hoops Gods throwing us a bone, but Wednesday our girls played well and St C could not pull away. It was only 11–3 after the first quarter and 16–7 at halftime. With 3:45 left in the game we hit a 3 to make it 31–21. St C came down and drilled a 3 to answer and we only added one free throw before the final horn, losing 39–22.

Cutting 20 points off the deficit in four days was a great accomplishment for our girls. I think it helped that the refs last night called the game very loose, where Saturday four girls from both teams ended the game with four fouls. Letting the girls scrap was to our advantage.

One of those rare seasons that ended in a loss but the players, coaches, and parents were all pleased with the outcome. After the game the 8th graders were all crying, as this was their last time playing basketball together.

L had a solid season. She didn’t score a ton. But even though she played against mostly older girls, she was completely competent with the ball. She can get it up court and set up the offense. She makes really good passes on the break. We need to work on her left hand, on learning how to take advantage of getting an angle on the defense, and on her shooting.

She now gets a week-and-a-half off, which is good. Her knee pain has stabilized but one of her ankles has been bothering her a lot for the past couple weeks. We even put her in a walking boot Monday night, just to see if it helped at all. I told her she can’t do any running until her next club practice to give her bones and joints a rest.

Her club program has been having skills sessions every two weeks, and those will continue through the winter. She is on another team that will be in a late-fall league that plays in December. That team will likely morph into another team that plays in a winter league before the club takes over her time in the spring. She’s all-in for hoops for the time being. Hopefully her body can keep up.

  1. The fifth foul looked legit to me. But two of the calls against her were crap, especially since she basically got wiped out twice when she was going to the bucket and didn’t get a call.  ↩

Kid Hoops Notes

November 2, 2021 /

The CYO basketball season got back to action last week, and L’s team had two games. It was their best week of the year.

Tuesday we played St E, the church where all three of our girls went to preschool. Games against teams like St E are always tricky. They don’t have a grade/middle school, so are reliant on word-of-mouth within the parish to get enough girls to come out for a team. Often these teams suck. Occasionally they are clearly vehicles to build around one really good player, who usually plays on another, higher level team outside CYO.

St E was kind of in the middle of that spectrum. They had one really good player and another decent player, but the rest of the team was trash. And the good girl wasn’t so good that she could carry a team. She handled the ball all the time, got rebounds, made good passes, and took a ton of shots. In pregame warmups she was hitting 3’s. Her jumper wasn’t as good with a defender on her, though. She scored eight of St E’s 15 points, but was hampered by foul trouble and had to sit a good chunk of the second half before fouling out late.

Our girls played really well. We scored 32. We hit four free throws (out of 12), so we had 14 made baskets. One of those was a short jumper by L, let’s call it a 10-footer. The other was a long two banked in by a girl who should never shoot, inside or outside. The other 12 were all layups or off of offensive rebounds. When our girls can get out in transition, they are good. When they play teams that can stop that, it’s tough to score. Fortunately St E gave up a lot of run outs that we turned into points.

Saturday we played St L, the team we destroyed by 29 in the fall break tournament. We knew they were missing a player in that first game, a girl who is super athletic but not a that great of a player. Still, she’s tall and works well with their 6-footer. When the big girl throws up a brick, this other girl is great at getting weak-side rebounds.

Our girls just did not look into the game at all. They made sloppy passes, didn’t run plays right, and were half-assing it on hustle plays. I was helping on the bench (more about that later) and at one point looked at one of the other coaches and asked, “Have we got a loose ball all day?” It didn’t help two of our eighth graders are incredible swimmers and had already swam at a meet before the game. They were both a step slower than usual.

Anyway, we were behind most of the game, but kept coming back. We were never down more than five but also couldn’t take the lead when we made our runs.

Early in the fourth quarter we were down five and our coach was begging the girls to stop worrying about offense and show some pride by not letting their girl get the ball. A few steals, two layups, and a free throw later the game was tied with about 3:00 left.

That’s when the game got really interesting.

Our girls had been complaining the entire game that the big girl was playing dirty. Hitting them with elbows in the neck, grabbing their jerseys and shoving them, cheap shot-ing anyone who ran by her. Just your average mean kid shit.

We got a defensive rebound and were pushing the ball up court when I saw our tallest girl go flying and land with a loud thud on the floor. I was blocked from the point of contact, but apparently the big girl hit her with an elbow again, then put two hands in her back and shoved her. Luckily for us their big girl outweighs ours by a good 30 pounds and a referee was right there. He T’ed up the big girl.

If you’ve followed these posts, you know L’s team has a free throw issue. We are shooting somewhere in the range of 15% for the year. Not an exaggeration.

The head coach sent L to the line to take the technical shots. She calmly swished them both to put us up two.

We scored on the ensuing possession and closed the game on a 12–1 run to get the W. The big girl sat out the rest of the game, which helped us, although she was not playing great to begin with. We’re pretty sure her coach pulled her because of her behavior. And our girls were super pumped afterward. They do not like the big girl and were glad she got caught and that her outburst was a big factor in her team losing.

We are now 2–2 for the CYO season. Oh, L scored six in both games last week.

Now, why was I on the bench Saturday? Both coaches will be out of town all this week. And we have two games scheduled. And I’m the only remaining parent who has been dumb enough to coach these girls at any point before. So guess who gets to coach them this week? Against two very good teams?

Yep, this guy.

I’m thrilled and greatly looking forward to it. The team we play Wednesday has lost to St L, which makes no sense. But they also lost to the second place team – who beat us by 20+ – by five. So who knows.

Next Saturday we play the first place team, St C, who are just crushing souls this year. We have no chance against them short of a Covid outbreak on their roster. Even then I bet their sixth grade team could play up for the day and still whip us. Doubling that fun is we play St C in the opening round of the season-ending tournament next week. Not sure who we pissed off to get that draw…

Anyway, pray for me this week as I try to give the girls some kind of guidance from the bench. I’m debating whether to use my five time outs to stop runs, or sit on them to get the games over with quicker.

Weekend Sports

October 18, 2021 /

Another busy weekend filled with sports of various sorts.

Friday night was the biggest high school football game in Indiana this year: 6A #1 Center Grove at 5A #1 Cathedral. Center Grove was ranked in the top ten nationally in every one of those “polls.” Cathedral was ranked as high as 14th but more often down in the 30s nationally. Both teams were undefeated. Neither team had really been challenged all season. Center Grove hadn’t lost since the 2019 state championship game. Cathedral’s only loss in the last two seasons was to Center Grove last year on a touchdown with 16 seconds left in the game. Center Grove has a quarterback going to Tennessee; a defensive lineman who will choose between Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Clemson among others; another lineman going to Louisville; a third lineman who was committed to Miami (OH) but is now looking at Power 5 schools; and a safety who is going to Cincinnati. Cathedral has three really good juniors who should all be Power 5 recruits.

So anticipation was high. M and C both went and were super excited that some nationally-known Tik Tok dude was coming to the game. Also a lot of students from the other two Indy Northside Catholic schools skipped their games to come watch.

I knew the crowds would be a nightmare and the weather was expected to be bad, so I stayed home and listened on the radio.

It was a hell of a game…for the first 30 minutes or so. The field – which is natural grass – was in awful shape because of heavy rain Thursday night and during the day Friday. That slowed both teams down, but probably affected CG more. Cathedral was much better offensively in the first half but only had a field goal to show for their efforts, leading 3–0 at halftime. They recovered a fumble on the second play of the third quarter and turned that into three more points. A drive or two later they were moving the ball and went for it on fourth down and two inside the CG 10. The quarterback had a lane, planted to cut, and lost his footing, coming up inches short of the marker.

Four plays later Center Grove ripped off a 67 yard touchdown to take the lead. That energized their defense and Cathedral didn’t move the ball the rest of the game. In the fourth quarter CG had a third and 13 and converted it into a 47 yard TD pass. They punched in a touchdown in the closing seconds to win 21–6.

So Cathedral out-gained CG. They ran more plays. They held CG to over 100 yards below their season average in both rushing and offense. And still lost by two scores. Man…

State playoffs start this week. The #2 team in 5A is in Cathedral’s sectional, but they aren’t due to play until the final in two weeks (Reminder: in Indiana everyone makes the playoffs and sectionals are not seeded). Cathedral got through Center Grove without any notable injuries – or at least that we know of yet – so remain the favorites to repeat as 5A champs Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday we loaded up the entire family and headed down to Bloomington for the IU-Michigan State game. It was homecoming and the perfect excuse for both the girls’ first college football game and M’s first unofficial campus visit. S’s aunt and uncle shared their tickets with us and we joined in their tailgating group. Or at least for part of it. There is a ton of construction between Indy and Bloomington so we only made it down for the last 45 minutes or so of the pregame hang out.

I cracked up when someone walking by dropped a mini-bottle of Fireball and it landed right in front of our girls. They all started giggling and stepped away so it didn’t look like it was theirs.

The storms Thursday finally flipped the weather from late summer to early fall and it was nearly perfect, at least inside the stadium where the wind was blocked. Outside it was a little blustery and chilly.

Our tickets were fantastic, 40 yard line, 26 rows up. I’ve been inside IU’s stadium a couple times but much higher up. When you have good seats their stadium is nice and tight and there are great site lines.

IU played terrific defense for most of the game, shutting down a potent MSU offense, but a pick six kept the Spartans in it. We left at the end of the third quarter so we could walk around campus a bit and beat traffic out of town, but the girls did seem to enjoy the game.

One of their favorite things was a super drunk guy a few rows in front of us. He was in that too happy, too enthusiastic phase of drunkeness through most of the first half. He was 45% more fired up about good plays than anyone around him. Stood on plays when no one else was standing. Tried to high five people he didn’t know that were 10 seats away. His girlfriend or whoever kept trying to shush him and make him sit down.

He made us all about piss ourselves after he took a restroom break. He returned, but walked right past our row to one about 10 closer to the field. We watched as he slowly made his way to what would have been his seat if that was his row and take an empty place. The people he slid in between were all giving him odd looks. He casually looked around trying to find his friends. Meanwhile they were sitting in their proper spots, laughing their asses off and taking pictures of him. I’m not sure if he figured it out or someone down there told him he was in the wrong spot but after a minute or two he slunk back up with a wry grin on his face.

After halftime he was struggling. He no longer stood to watch the game but sat, staring at the ground in front of him. He stood up to head towards the bathroom and had the drunken lean going. He made it out but we never saw him return. Ahh, homecoming!

At the end of the first half IU attempted a 55 yard field goal as time expired. The ball would be placed at the 45 yard line so that’s about as easy math as you can do to figure the distance. There were some guys two rows behind us who were drunkenly arguing whether it was a 35 or 37 yard attempt. That made me laugh.

Sadly we got to see one of S’s former patients get injured. Hopefully it’s not serious as he walked off the field but he did not return, which is not a good sign.

I did think it was super cool that they play “Jack and Diane” between the third and fourth quarters. When you have a song like that by a local artist, you have to go with it. We were across from the student section so heard them roaring “Oh yeahhhhhhh, life goes on…” as we exited.

We did a little walking and driving around to show M a bit of campus then back on the interstate just as the game ended to avoid the crush getting out of town.

All-in-all a really fun day, other than the Hoosiers losing. M really has no idea where she wants to go but seems focused on larger state schools. I’m guessing there will be visits to some other Big 10 schools in the next year. And two people asked, I assume with zero sarcasm, when she would be visiting for a KU game. That’s already tentatively on the schedule for next year…during basketball season.

Sunday L had a couple basketball scrimmages in lieu of another fall break tournament. Five schools got together and played two quick games each.

In the first game we played a school I don’t think we’ve ever played before. They were big but not super skilled and we ran them off the court, winning 32–15. I was glad we played them first.

In the second, we played the school we lost our season opener to. They won that game by nine but that score gave us more credit than we deserved. I’m pretty sure they were missing a girl that day, because they not only crushed us Sunday, but that missing girl went off.

She scored 24 and had 13 rebounds as they beat us by 20-some. It was 25–6 at halftime but our girls got their heads back in it and, other than that one girl, played them pretty evenly in the second half. This girl was unbelievable. She’s tall and about as thick as a pencil, but has everything in her game. She posted up and hit turn around J’s. She hit face-up shots. She hit two long jumpers. She hit tough shots on the break. She could handle the ball and made good passes. She was really damn good.

L played ok. She scored three in the first game and two in the second. She was 3–4 from the free throw line, which given how our team shoots is amazing. But she had jammed her left middle finger in warmups for the first game and was struggling to do anything with it. By the second game it was swollen and purple. All she could do with the ball was take one dribble with her left then go behind her back to the right. Unfortunately the girl guarding her in the second game 1) was a really good defender and 2) knew that move was coming, so would just be waiting for her on the right side. Once L did that move four straight times and the girl was just standing there, one step to the right waiting to cut her off. It was like L was caught in a loop.

Oh, and I got to help coach as the head coach was unavailable. I don’t know any of the plays so just yelled “GET BACK” and “WHO ARE YOU GUARDING?” a lot. That’s kind of fun, especially when these were “scrimmages” and not true games.

Now they have eight days off until the season picks back up again.

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