Mandatory Basketball Rant 2021-22 Week 8

It's amusing.  I pine away for my kids games when they're cancelled/rescheduled/shut down due to COVID, but holy moley does it seem like pure insanity.

A quick rundown from 1/21 - 1/27.

The Local Rec League is 700 parents who are content with the way things are, and about 30 that are just giant pains in the butt.  Compared to other things, it's a tolerable number, but week-after-week, it wears one done.  Throw in a board who half don't want to do anything, a quarter want to quit, and a President who tries to make everyone happy without looking at the facts, and I'm half-tempted to drop everything at his doorstep.

... but I have plans, so I'll abide... for now.

For Millie's team rec league, it continues to be miserable inevitability.  The other guard on the team gets wilder with each game, some of the girls are now running away from the ball when it's passed in their direction, and Millie's only steady target is now literally turning it off halfway through the game.  It was sheer will, and great ball handling on Millie's part, that they got within 4 of the best team in the league, and only lost by 6.  The playoffs are coming fast, and things are going to be ugly.  

Maja's Freshman team came off of their COVID break with huge victory against their only loss of the season, 44-38.  The addition of one of the 8th grade guards and our usual 7th grade center was a 30+ swing in margin of victory.  They then proceeded to give a thorough thrashing to Pittston, and ended the week with a 41-3 victory over Tunkhannock.  

Yep, that's right.  Tunkhannock.  It's a real place, like the town inside a snow globe.

Maja is literally averaging 1.5 points a game, with over 1 in every other category.  She's literally either making one foul shot, two foul shots, or a two-point field goal, every game.  I'm more than satisfied with the ton of playing time she's getting.

Her 7th grade team is just trying to get on the court.  Weekend games keep getting postponed, so it feels they'll be playing Saturday and Sunday until April just to catch up.  

The 7th Graders had only lost a player a week to COVID, then during the Freshmen game, one of them finally went down for good... with a dislocated butt.  It's a lower back dislocation, very close to the tailbone, but I stick with dislocated butt for the injury.    

The same player was one of the recent COVID cases, so didn't even have a chance to play a flurry of games this past weekend.  We split forces, me going to Maja's game and my wife going to Millie's West Hazleton League. 

Maja's game was a healthy 39-19 rout, while Millie encountered 7th grade boys of actual height. 

Her team lost, but she put up her regular fight.  

Sunday, we switched, my wife going to see Maja, and me taking Millie to a much needed lesson.

With her lesson done (and learning Maja's team wiped the floor with the other team 46-8), we raced down to catch Maja's 8th grade team still playing on site, only to be confused to see Maja still playing, twenty minutes into the 8th grade scheduled slot.  

Comes to be, the 8th graders showed up with five players, so the coached tacked the 7th graders onto the roster (which is permissible).  Funny thing, the fact that the 8th graders would have lost without the 7th graders, but Maja did get to play against one of her dear AAU friends, so that was fun.

For the final game of the weekend, Millie's travel team had an "exhibition" game against the number tournament seed, Freeland.  These two teams had earned byes in the playoffs, so they played a fun little game with no impact to the standings.  

No one around the court thought that at all.  It was a tremendous slugfest that came down to the 3-point attempt in the closing seconds.  

Mountain Top 22  Freeland 19.  

It can't be a rivalry until both teams win, so now it will be a "fun" rivalry for the next 6-7 years.   Both teams get a reprieve, with quite probable playoff wins against teams they've torched before, but they should be back on February 5, 2021, championship Sunday.

Of course the announcements for AAU tryouts are coming hot and heavy, so there will be nary a day of rest