It's a bit of a down week for Maja and Millie's basketball seasons. Maja's travel team has an off week for its Sunday night games due to the Super Bowl, and February is proving to be worse than January was.
First off, the grown-up league worries. Playoffs start on the 8th, and I've spent waaay too much time getting schedules on websites and brackets designed and filled out. And if your not the 5th/6th grade boys, middle school, or high school divisions, your schedules were perfect! (At least the website was correct....)
Secondly, two big events happened that screwed around with our schedules, for better or for worse. My wife had her gall bladder out on Monday, which makes after school events an obvious nightmare, and to complicate things, I had a tire blowout on the highway escalate to a lot of hidden and difficult wear and tear on my car. For the time being, it's out of commission, so I'm the lone driver of events.
Practice on Thursday was another schedule change, moving back to 7pm for a practice/scrimmage with the Sixers and the "Bullspurs." We continue to try and setup plays to run. Only Millie has any experience running plays and my brilliant plan to execute a center screen has earned the nickname "Pass-Pass" required players that weren't available at practice. And many of the others were not thrilled.
Friday was a hectic day, with Millie's game in Hazleton (horrible officiating and a lack of good passes may not have doomed the team, but only allows you to score 8 points as a team. We then skipped Maja's team practice to watch the Penguins play the Phantoms at the arena, followed by a post-game concert by a Dave Matthews tribute band, Proud Monkey.
That would be enough to make all of us pass out, but overnight, my wife began experiencing tremendous pain, and a pre-dawn trip to the ER was in order.
Good news, it was nothing life-threatening or even too-serious, but with my sister and brother-in-law coming to visit from Philly, a lot of running around, grabbing kids, taking my wife home and getting to Maja second scheduled game of the day (She needed to miss the first for our sanity).
Maja's game was a rematch against the dreaded Warriors who handed them their only loss for the season. Maja played cool and controlled, amounting to 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and maybe double-digit steals in their 18-6 revenge win. The team played well, but I realized that the Warriors had a few good players finally show who we hadn't played against, but most importantly, their star player was sidelined with an ankle injury. Don't know how that will work out in the playoffs, but the Warriors drew a first-round bye, so I assume everyone will be back in full force.
Millie's game was supposed to be an exercise in keeping to the fundamentals, and, if we got a lead, work on a few techniques, such as "Pass-Pass." They couldn't get started with jumper cables out there. Bad positioning, poor hustle, and when things did go right, balls just didn't bounce our way. We had a three or four minute run where things started to work, but we could never get out of our own way.... 12- 7 loss to a team we nearly shutout a month ago.
The worst part? Certain girls were more worried about losing than facing the defense they were facing. That will be addressed in a swift and very cardiovascular kind of way this Thursday.
So beyond wife issues, car issues, scheduling issues, and a team that's become lackadaisical? Life is juuuust peachy! But thanks to the Super Bowl, we'll grab a lesson with their trainer, grab some wings from Nina's and maybe watch the Super Bowl, maybe play a game, maybe clean out the office since I'll be working from home a bit during this car-pocalypse.
But playoffs are here, and we need to prep for the Celtics... again.
First off, the grown-up league worries. Playoffs start on the 8th, and I've spent waaay too much time getting schedules on websites and brackets designed and filled out. And if your not the 5th/6th grade boys, middle school, or high school divisions, your schedules were perfect! (At least the website was correct....)
Practice on Thursday was another schedule change, moving back to 7pm for a practice/scrimmage with the Sixers and the "Bullspurs." We continue to try and setup plays to run. Only Millie has any experience running plays and my brilliant plan to execute a center screen has earned the nickname "Pass-Pass" required players that weren't available at practice. And many of the others were not thrilled.
Friday was a hectic day, with Millie's game in Hazleton (horrible officiating and a lack of good passes may not have doomed the team, but only allows you to score 8 points as a team. We then skipped Maja's team practice to watch the Penguins play the Phantoms at the arena, followed by a post-game concert by a Dave Matthews tribute band, Proud Monkey.
That would be enough to make all of us pass out, but overnight, my wife began experiencing tremendous pain, and a pre-dawn trip to the ER was in order.
Good news, it was nothing life-threatening or even too-serious, but with my sister and brother-in-law coming to visit from Philly, a lot of running around, grabbing kids, taking my wife home and getting to Maja second scheduled game of the day (She needed to miss the first for our sanity).
Maja's game was a rematch against the dreaded Warriors who handed them their only loss for the season. Maja played cool and controlled, amounting to 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and maybe double-digit steals in their 18-6 revenge win. The team played well, but I realized that the Warriors had a few good players finally show who we hadn't played against, but most importantly, their star player was sidelined with an ankle injury. Don't know how that will work out in the playoffs, but the Warriors drew a first-round bye, so I assume everyone will be back in full force.
Millie's game was supposed to be an exercise in keeping to the fundamentals, and, if we got a lead, work on a few techniques, such as "Pass-Pass." They couldn't get started with jumper cables out there. Bad positioning, poor hustle, and when things did go right, balls just didn't bounce our way. We had a three or four minute run where things started to work, but we could never get out of our own way.... 12- 7 loss to a team we nearly shutout a month ago.
The worst part? Certain girls were more worried about losing than facing the defense they were facing. That will be addressed in a swift and very cardiovascular kind of way this Thursday.
So beyond wife issues, car issues, scheduling issues, and a team that's become lackadaisical? Life is juuuust peachy! But thanks to the Super Bowl, we'll grab a lesson with their trainer, grab some wings from Nina's and maybe watch the Super Bowl, maybe play a game, maybe clean out the office since I'll be working from home a bit during this car-pocalypse.
But playoffs are here, and we need to prep for the Celtics... again.
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