A lot of hoops to get through. Not looking forward to some of it, though\u2026<\/p>\n
Two games for CHS last week. Wednesday we traveled south to take on Center Grove, ranked #7 in 4A. After our city championship, we had snuck back into the media rankings at #11 in 3A.<\/p>\n
Varsity lost by 17. We were down seven at halftime then scored the first seven points of the second half to tie. After that, CG went on an 18\u20132 run to put us out of our misery.<\/p>\n
L didn\u2019t play much in the JV game. Her foot continues to bother her, meaning she can\u2019t practice 100%, meaning the coaches have been sitting her if they think she looks a step slow. Which is fair, but frustrates her. Also, this night she just generally didn\u2019t feel very good. She played the first 90 seconds or so then sat the rest of the first quarter. Same for the second quarter, although she subbed in late in the quarter\u2026and promptly took a shot to the nose and had to leave because she was bleeding everywhere. Fortunately she is simply prone to nosebleeds and the contact was right in the troublesome spot rather than suffering any real damage. Still, she bled all through halftime. But she started the second half so the CG trainer got her sorted out.<\/p>\n
We trailed by two at halftime and by the same amount after three. L hadn\u2019t done much, rimming out a couple drives on her only shots. With about four minutes remaining we switched to full court pressure, got a couple steals and buckets, and led 38\u201330. Then CG broke our press on two straight possessions and turned 2-on\u20131 drives into wide open 3s. Modern basketball. 38\u201336 in like 25 seconds. Yeesh.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when L decided she wanted to play some ball. She got fouled on a drive and made both free throws. She found a lane from the left side, drove hard, and converted the layup. CG started fouling to stop the clock and she went to the line two more times, hitting three of the four charities. Seven points and a steal in about 2:30 of game time. Hey, we ended up winning by seven! Our whole team played well late: another guard forced three turnovers, a couple other girls knocked down their free throws. Other than those seven points, L didn\u2019t do much. To cap things off, as we walked out after the varsity game, she tripped on a floor mat and luckily caught herself before she went face first into the linoleum.<\/p>\n
Saturday was S\u2019s birthday. Just like for mine last June, we celebrated by watching some high school ball. Instead of staying in the city to watch two summer league games, though, we traveled 100 miles north to take on the school where our varsity head coach played.<\/p>\n
JV opened their game with a 13\u20130 run, gave almost all of it back, leading 16\u201315 just before halftime, then figured things out and won by 19.<\/p>\n
L did not have a good game. She missed a couple contested layups from the left side in the first half. It didn\u2019t look like she had any speed or lift and was more worried about contact than finishing strong. She hit one of two free throws for her only point. She had a couple assists. But she had three turnovers, all of which were bad ones caused by her forcing things that weren\u2019t there. She was very upset when the game ended and took a long time to come out of the locker room. It\u2019s been a hard year for her, and I think it caught up with her in that moment. There\u2019s more to this we\u2019ll get to in a couple weeks.<\/p>\n
On the varsity side, HNHS is a 4A school with the same record as us, against a much weaker schedule. In the computer rankings they were about six spots behind us in the all class list.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t have too much trouble with them. Got a decent margin early and kept stretching it out. We were up around 20 before we got sloppy late but held on for a comfortable 14-point win. And we did it mostly without our leading scorer, who had missed practice Friday and thus only played about 10 minutes. Not sure if she was sick or that was because of a punishment she earned. Good that the other girls saw they can win without her carrying them.<\/p>\n
JV is now 15\u20133, varsity 13\u20138. Two more games this week to wrap up the regular season.<\/p>\n
Sunday was the draw for the Indiana state tournament. Remember, this is a blind draw. You get no credit for being the best, or one of the best, teams in your sectional. Nor are you punished for having a bad record. The six teams in our sectional are, in the computer rankings<\/a>, slotted at numbers 9, 11, 36, 37, 59, and 81 in class 3A.[1]<\/a> So, of course, the quarterfinal games are #9 (CHS) vs #11, and #59 vs #81, with the two middle ranked teams getting the byes.<\/p>\n Yep, that means CHS will open sectional play against our arch rivals BCHS, who we just beat two weeks ago in the City championship game.<\/p>\n Such a stupid, unserious way to run a tournament. The two best teams get no reward for playing the toughest schedules. Rather, their \u201creward\u201d is that one of them will end their season before four teams with worse rankings play their first game. CHS has played the 26th toughest schedule in the state across all classes. BCHS the 34th hardest. The teams that get the byes? Their schedules are ranked #190 and #115.<\/p>\n Anyway, should be an interesting game at 6:00 next Tuesday night. I hate to jinx the winner, but they should be an almost certain lock to emerge as sectional champions the following Saturday.<\/p>\n No, this has nothing to do with the teacher who is constantly messing up, I mean, runs the clock at our home games.<\/p>\n Back in mid-December two good southern Indiana teams (both top 10, one in 1A, the other in 2A) played a close game that went down to the final seconds. The road team led by five with a minute left, and when the final buzzer sounded, thought they had escaped with a one-point victory. However, as the official scorekeeper was tallying up their points, they discovered that the person running the scoreboard had given the home team credit for just two points on a 3-pointer they hit in the final minute. The game was actually tied. The game officials had already left the gym, so the game was officially over.<\/p>\n The schools reached out to the state athletic association asking for guidance, and were given a few options. The schools chose to play a four-minute overtime. They got together Saturday to finish that contest. The team that thought they won a month ago ended up winning 34\u201333. I\u2019m hoping that there weren\u2019t any scoring errors and this is indeed the final result.<\/p>\n Nope, nothing here. I\u2019m thankful we were sitting in a gym in northern Indiana and missed the Houston game. As we walked out, Rylan Griffen had just hit a 3-pointer to give KU a five-point lead with 30 seconds left in overtime. I\u2019m just going to assume the Jayhawks held on to win and move on<\/a>. I had over 70 text messages and a ton of Facebook messages when we got home. Since I was tired I didn\u2019t read them and I\u2019ll assumed they were celebrating a glorious KU win. Weirdest thing, when I tried to watch the game I hit Delete instead of Play and lost the game.<\/p>\n At least we\u2019re not Indiana<\/a>, I guess.<\/p>\n Two games in Paris vs San Antonio. Thursday, the Spurs put the hammer down in the third quarter, mostly courtesy of sublime play by Victor Wembanyama, and crushed the Pacers by 30. Two days later the Pacers returned the favor, getting white hot and turning a one-point deficit midway through the third quarter into a 38-point win. Tyrese Haliburton scored 16 points in a little over 2:00 to key the rally. The NBA is wild! Or, la NBA est folle<\/em>! Pacers have now won 15 of 20.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t watch much of the conference championship games. I\u2019ve been meaning to get to Oppenheimer<\/em>, so maybe I\u2019ll watch that instead of the Super Bowl, as I have little interest in either team that won yesterday.<\/p>\n I used to really enjoy the old NBC Sports Network channel this time of year, as they aired various sports you normally only get to watch in Winter Olympics years. I\u2019ve never skied in my life, but I love watching competitive skiing, especially the downhill. So I was thrilled that I came across this weekend\u2019s downhill race being held in Austria<\/a> on regular NBC Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t recall if they did this during the last Winter games but Saturday they were flying a drone behind\/above the skiers, which was a truly incredible perspective. It\u2019s always hard to represent the pitch of the mountain on TV, but the drone cam did the best job of conveying that I\u2019ve ever seen. It was almost like being there. Good stuff. I hope this wasn\u2019t a one-off and they show more Alpine events over the next month.<\/p>\n And NBC never should have killed the NBC Sports Network.<\/p>\n
\nScorekeeper Weirdness<\/h3>\n
\nKU Hoops<\/h3>\n
\nPacers<\/h3>\n
\nNFL<\/h3>\n
\nSkiing<\/h3>\n