Brick-à-Brack

It is March again: time to try your luck in the internet's most competitive, most hyperbolic NCAA pool. The trophy is small, so small in fact that you might not hear about it when you win. Nevertheless, for the seventh consecutive year the EWM Yahoo! NCAA men's basketball tournament pick'em welcomes everyone from the fearless to the bored to pick against the the savviest basketball futurologists around. There's no time for biting your nail out of nervous habit (well, okay, but make it fast). Simply sign up! At no monetary cost to you, join this year's group on Yahoo!, Brick-à-Brack (ID#21100). If you have questions, heave a three-quarter-court email my way: dmueller at earthwidemoth.com. Invite your friends. Invite your arch-nemeses. But don't invite that shady character who brought a spoiled pecan cheese log to the Superbowl party. The group has room for the next forty-nine who sign up. What's at stake is more valuable than the cash in your pocket: your status as a basketball know-it-all.

Yahoo! Tournament Pick'em
Group: Brick-à-Brack (ID# 21100)
Password: ewm
Firm up your picks after the selection show on Sunday, March 14. The latest you can sign up is five minutes before the round of 64 tips off on Thursday, March 18.

MAC Championship

As plainly as I can say it, I've never looked forward to a MAC Championship game like I am looking forward to today's MAC Championship game: Akron vs. Ohio, 6 p.m. tip-off. ESPN2.

Above all, I would like to see Ohio win because one of their freshmen, #3 Ivo Baltic, was on teams I coached in the KC area from 2000 to 2004. Now Ivo's a 6-9 forward who developed an impressive facility for basketball (although I got to know him because I coached his soccer team when he was even younger). Often Ph. and I would pick up him for practices; he was what my own coach approvingly called a "gym rat," would leave a practice asking about when would be the next time he could get in the gym. For perspective, and because I am proud of what he has done for himself, here are a couple of photos to contrast with the one below, which D. took after we saw Ohio play EMU at the Convocation Center five weeks ago.

So, easily, I am a fan. And I would greatly enjoy seeing his 9-seeded Bobcats beat the 3-seeded Zips.

The other side of the coin for me, as far as my personal interest in today's game, is that I once had a try-out in front of Keith Dambrot many years ago.

A Short Bench

Sunday's game in the Ann Arbor Men's League was special. It was the final game of the regular season. With a win, we would move into a three-way tie for first place, at 7-3. We were facing a youthful, full-court-pressing team from Washtenaw CC (their club team, if you will, although they have a deep bench, a coach, and, for Sunday night's game, cheerleaders). I haven't played in a game with cheerleaders since 1995; they even twiddled their fingers in the air when we shot free throws.

Our group has been up and down this year. We started 5-0, which was good enough to lock up a sponsor for the state tournament later this month in Midland (why it is in Midland, I have no idea, since all eight teams are from SE Michigan). We started the season with ten guys, more than most carry. One--the only guy older than me on our team or in the division--decided to quit for reasons I won't bother going into. That left us with nine. Several of our early games were 40+ point routes (against teams in a division below ours). One was a triple OT win against a team that later beat us by 40--our poorest outing of the season. The other two losses came to a close rival; we lost one of those by four points, the other by five. So: although we finished in a first-place tie, we wouldn't win any of the tie-breakers based on head to head matchups or point differential. So it goes. I don't know how they'll settle who gets the trophy.

Why was Sunday's game special? Well, aside from the eventfulness of playing against a "team" of 18 and 19 year-olds (i.e., babies who were born the same year I graduated high school), instead of having our usual nine players, we had five. Four didn't show up because of Winter Break, injuries, absent-mindedness, I don't know. We hadn't been short-handed like this before. I am too old to be nervous about basketball games in a recreational league. But: it was going to be difficult to hold off a team of fit, pressing youth for four quarters.

The game started off smoothly enough. We were down 31-29 at halftime. Nobody was in foul trouble. I had just one foul in the first half, and fouls are as you might expect the main concern when playing without a single sub. A couple of bad plays (or bad calls or both) can leave you in the unwinnable mismatch, four vs. five. Next, something terrible: in the first 1:24 of the third quarter, I was called for three fouls: two blocking fouls, which might have been charges were I willing to fall onto my back (I'm not), and an official's hallucination. The new problem: four fouls with 6:36 remaining in the third quarter.

We adjusted (put me on the right frontcourt corner of a 2-3 zone). And--this is why it was special, mostly--I managed to finish the game without fouling out. Also, we won by 12 or 13 points, entirely because our team defense was excellent. We held them to something like 20 points for the second half.

I'm blogging it because I'm pretty sure this is the last league game I'll ever play in. I will travel to Midland in late March for the state tournament. After that, the only basketball I play will be lunchtime pickup games with EMU's regulars twice each week. I still enjoy playing for fitness, recreation, and communion, but I like being able to skip a day when I want to, I like being able to go home when I'm done for the day, and I like being able to walk one building over from my office to play among people I know (and who are not absurdly competitive).

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