March Madness

It has begun. I don't always get to watch many of the games, but I caught some of them today (the first day of it all). As usual, the games were generally close - providing some good, close games. Mary even got into the games a little bit.

Luckily Gonzaga made it through the first round. For whatever reason, I seem to resonate with them. I pull for the Pac-10 teams, but Gonzaga is just a nice underdog (not that they're underdogs any longer). Oh, and I like Duke because of coach K.

Anyway, I'm hoping to catch more of the games this year than last, because it's about the only sports they show on normal TV that I enjoy watching.

First Season

Well, my first season of basketball at Timberhill just finished up. We went 5 and 3, and then won our first two games in the playoffs. We lost in the semi-final game because we couldn't shut down the other teams two stars (who scored 25 and 27 points respectively). So we were 3rd/4th best in the league of 12 teams. Not too bad considering we were just the left-overs who didn't have teams of our own.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how the first season went, considering that I haven't played a real game of basketball in at least three or four years. Officially I averaged 9.6 points per game, and had a total of 63 rebounds. The 63 rebounds was enough to give me the third most in the league - and that's with one of the games not recording rebounds. So I came close to averaging a double-double.

I'll sign up for the next season and see if I can better that.

High Score

Woo-hoo.

We lost the game tonight - by one point. That was pretty frustrating. We just stopped taking care of the ball, making bad passes. We also stopped passing around and only played a perimeter game (which was not our strong suit tonight).

But, the 'woo-hoo' isn't for losing the game, it's for me being the high scorer on our team. I've never been a leading scorer in an organized game. Go me - 7 of 14 for 14 points, and 10 rebounds.

Third time's a charm

Our team played again last night (get used to it, every Monday night). This time we actually had five and a half players. Mr. sprained ankle didn't get it checked out, and he was hobbling around - but he's good enough that his hobble works (heck, he scored 5 pts and got a couple rebounds w/out ever jumping).

I finally played a reasonable game. I was 4/9 from the field and had 11 rebounds. It felt good to not be a liability.

We totally crushed the other team - there was another big guy on our side, so we completely dominated the boards. At one point the score was 40-12. Then they finally started playing some aggressive defense - stealing some of our lazy passes. We still won by 15.

Second Game

This past Monday my basketball team had its second game of the season. Only four people showed up (well, five did, but the fifth guy had just sprained his ankle that morning and couldn't play) - which is just enough to not forfeit the game.

The other team was better than the first guys we played, but they certainly didn't play very smartly. With an extra guy on the floor the entire time, they should have run circles (well, passed circles) around us. They finally started doing that at the end of the game, but didn't really pull away even then. We ended up losing by 10 or 12, which is pretty good considering they outmanned us.

The real stat that is sticking with me was my amazing performance. I went 2 for 14 from the field, and 0 for two from the line. I don't think I've shot that bad since I shot an air-ball in my first game in fifth grade. I've got to go to the gym to find out my other stats for the game (rebounds and assists), but I'm sure they're about as stellar. I guess that's to be expected after three years of not playing, but it's still a bit disheartening.

Random Shooters

I joined a basketball team at the club. They threw together a team of guys who didn't have their own team, and we're called the Random Shooters.

Anyway, last week was the first game. I showed up, bought my black and white jersey, and walked into the gym. My team was on court #1. I walked in and saw a bunch of newborns throwing a basketball at the hoop. Some guys who'd actually gone through puberty were playing on court #2, so I double checked the blackboard - yup, court #1. I bet that I wasn't going to be expecting any alley-oops from the munchkins, so I grabbed a ball and headed to the other side of the court. Sure enough, a couple of other guys were shooting around who looked like they had driver's licenses for a little while. I was obviously the elder of the team, and probably the slowest, definitely the heaviest.

Turns out, the opposing team was a bunch of freshmen from a local high school. We have no idea if they were on the high school team or not, but they played with heart.

No matter. We crushed them, nearly 70 to somethign like 30 points. We out-rebounded them, out shot them, played zone (which I don't think they'd ever seen before), and generally dominated. It really wasn't fair.

I did fairly well, especially considering I hadn't played a real basketball game in probably 3 years. I probably could have scored a little more if I dragged my butt down the court, but I felt it was better to "play deep defense." And I missed half a dozen short shots, and missed a number of assists because our guys didn't cut to the hoop. Oh, and I brought the ball down like the point guard I never was.

Next week we'll hopefully play a team who wasn't in diapers this decade.