Game Log 12/1/2006: Season debut

The game itself wasn't great tonight...two pretty unskilled teams...but it turned out fine. It took forever, but it turned out fine.

We had five fouls...three on Green, two on white...within a minute and twenty seconds of the game. Ugh. But we got the handchecks, which helped. And since this was the season debut for both teams, it's probably for the better.

The game was an 11-point game at halftime, and about 15 at the end of the third quarter. I didn't hear boo from either coach in spite of the fact that there were so many fouls (and they were a little unbalanced...more on the leading team). Two polite questions from the winning coach, one on the losing coach. One time, Green received an in-bound pass while totally leaping into and creaming a White player. I called it. The coach started to ask me a question, but then said "Ah, never mind. You had a better angle." I actually giggled as I walked away...it was so danged unexpected.

It says right there in the rulebook that "incidental contact may be severe." That happened on a killer pick today. Green was standing stock still in the backcourt when her teammate blitzed by with the ball. The defender had no idea...absolutely none...that the pick was coming. The pick did not push with body or arms. She simply was a wall, and the defender bonked off of her big time, and was injured. It's awful that the kid was hurt, but that's a no-call all the way. In fact, since the hurt player was going so fast that she actually displaced the screener, it could have been called on her. How popular would that have been? No-call all the way.

Here's the big call of the day. End of the third quarter. I'm trail, and I have the last shot. The buzzer sounds. I wave it off..."No shot! No!" My partner at Lead has a foul, however. We come together. The determination is that it went foul-buzzer-release.

I think that we're shooting one-and-one. There's no shot, right? So how can it be in the act of shooting?

Partner thinks we're shooting two. His argument: even though the shot didn't go off, the foul was still in the act of shooting while the ball was live.

I deferred to my partner...when in conflict, I'll do the less-weird and more-explainable thing...but after the game, we argued.

We bet a Twix bar on it.

And the winner is: my partner.

He prefers caramel.

THINGS I DID WELL: No fatigue! Felt in charge, handled weird situation well by coming together with partner (even though I turned out to be wrong). Consistent (both myself and as a crew) on travels and carries. And there were a LOT.

THINGS TO WORK ON: Rotate more often as lead. Focus more doggedly on defense.

NEXT UP: Junior high games on Tuesday, then damn good games on Wednesday and Friday. I'm stoked that these games are appearing on my schedule this year! Breakthrough time!