Mandatory Basketball Rant - Winter 2022-23 - Week 14

 We have finally made it: the last tournament of the winter season, and these freaking adults just cause to much drama.  

So first, the other topics, for posterity.

Local Rec League: Chalk another one up to "Eric was right, but we're going to do it anyway," for the other Board of Directors, we finished our High School division at the same time as the younger kids, but certain members demanded we keep one extra weekend on the books because "some kids like to play."  We're not sure which kids were still wishing to play because almost 80% of the league has Sunday afternoon spring sport practice, which interferes with the schedule.  Luckily, we just obligated for an extra three hours at the local community college's rate and not for two refs a game as well.   And after all the bro-haha, One of the coaches still came over on Sunday to coach their team, a team where six of their eight kids and practicing lacrosse, including their own kid!

Maja: Maja is enjoying her masochism season, with track, dance, and AAU, and all three on Thursdays..  I'm reinforcing conditioning and more conditioning for track, she's killing AAU practices, and dance remains her "passion hobby" as she preps for two competitions and one solo recital.  As long as she's healthy and happy, I'm fine, we're down to eight weeks of this chaos.

Millie:  Millie's 6th grade school team was always planning on playing a tournament out near Williamsport.    The AAU girls played there last year and rolled over everyone except an 8th grade team they were paired up against instead of the championship game.  I shouldn't be surprised the same parents of the AAU 5th grade kids who live close to the tournament recruited the 6th grade team to play AGAIN.  Needless to say, the same parent from before reached out to me, I advised him Millie was already committed to the school team, and he didn't pursue the issue.   Now no one seems to have a straight story, there's finger pointing, etc.  

Funny thing is the school team only lost to the 90% intact AAU team (only Millie is missing) by 10, and the AAU squad, somehow added Millie to their roster (a big tournament no-no) and still managed to lose big to the minor 6th grade travel team with some big girls who know how to rebound and put back shots, but not much else.  

Watching the school team work a press break against the AAU, I'm apparently the only parent that's happy with their performance, because there isn't a future 7th grade school within a two hour drive that will press that well  over the next year.  The girls will do just fine.  

The AAU girls, on the other hand, may have re-tooled at skill positions, but are missing any sense of a big, so they're going to do well against 50% of the AAU teams, and get slaughtered on the other half.  The AAU rants might start in late-April, and I might be a wee bit afraid of my rants.  Again, it's not the kids... it's the adults making a mess of things.