Two Win Thursday

This evening I was able to watch both the third installment of Bedlam hoops and the WC Lady Cards semifinal game...at the same time, from my living room. This was going great until both games got close late.

The Lady Cards led big early and looked dominant throughout the first half and most of the third quarter, but a half court shot by the other team to close the third quarter turned the momentum against them and they struggled to hold their lead through the fourth as a seasoned (and previously undefeated) Dexter squad rallied to within 4 before WC finished them off. This is the Lady Cards first trip to the final 4 (ever), it was good to see them respond well in a big arena and a big game. They showed poise late when it would have been easy to fold. The prevailing thought seems to have been that Dexter was the favorite to win the title, with them out, WC has a good chance of capturing it on Saturday. For $5 you can watch that game on the MSHSAA website (www.mshsaanetwork.com). While high school girls basketball may not sound like a good way to spend Saturday evening, you might be surprised how good these girls are. They run the court and move the ball faster than any high school girls team I've ever seen - and some boys teams for that matter.

The Cowboys had an uphill climb on their hands facing #7 OU who had beaten them twice (as recently as last Saturday) this season with this one coming on a "neutral" floor in Oklahoma City - a solid 15 miles from the OU campus. The Cowboys kept it close throughout and even surged ahead during the second half behind some solid play by Byron Eaton and key three pointers by Keiton Page (who I can't believe is playing D-1 basketball). I honestly didn't think they could finish it and were fortunate that Blake Griffin missed a good look from deep and then a tip from the guy whose name I don't know, but he wears sleeves (yes, sleeves) rimmed out. The controversy was that in that whole final sequence, the clock didn't start until after the tip. After review the officials correctly declared the game over, having determined that the 2.3 seconds on the clock should have expired. What would have been bad is if the first shot had missed and the tip gone in. I think they'd have allowed the tip based on what happened, but I'd love to see someone put that footage on a clock and see if he got the tip off in time. Thankfully it doesn't matter in this case. I'll pass on the stab about checking to see where the clock-keeper went to school.

I have heard it theorized that 2 wins in the Big 12 tourney might be enough to get OSU into the NCAA tournament as an at large team. I wouldn't count on that, I'm sure there's a 9th C-USA team that needs in or something. I do think this win probably opens the possibility of a bid. It is nice to see them close a season playing well, rather than limp through the last few games, lay an egg at the Big 12 and then cry about not making the dance. We'll see what happens.

Weekend update

- I wish someone had been recording my dad and I yesterday afternoon as we were finishing up some work out at the barn. We (he) had moved some of the horses so they wouldn't be in our way as we were doing some work in the barn. As we were finishing up they had to be moved back to their normal places. He had put a mare (a mom horse for those not literate in horse-ese) and week-old colt out in this larger lot (it's probably between 1 and 2 acres) for the day. They needed to be brought back into their enclosed stall. So he started walking out around them to sort of herd them back to the barn. Now understand, dad has an old knee injury that he re-aggravated a few weeks ago, so he's not moving too terribly fast. I could see this taking a while and had finished what I was doing, so I went over to help. It must have looked like we were playing a 2-deep zone in prevent coverage (yes, I just connected a horse story to football). We were basically running back and forth until they decided to run into their stall.

- I didn't get to see WC's girl's win this weekend, but the highlights looked like they played well. I hope they continue their run in Columbia next weekend, that would be pretty cool to see them win a title.

- I really detest the celebrity culture in this country. There are celebrities that I like, but very, very few. The ones that annoy me the most are the ones that are famous either:
1. For being famous (i.e. come from a famous family, but have no discernible talent and have contributed nothing to society as of yet)
2. Reality TV "stars" - you had your 15 minutes, go away.
I think one of my favorite segments of celebrities to pick on are R&B stars. Well, musicians in general, but especially rappers. I don't understand why we listen to these people. They are either criminals or doing their dead level best to convince you they are or could be. Whatever! Here's what I'm trying to get to:
What happened to Rihanna is terrible, no woman should be treated that way. And I hope someone around her can talk some sense into her so that she doesn't end up dead, that would be tragic. Chris Brown - assuming momentarily that all the smoke around this is indicative of a fire - is a massive wanna-be. He's not a thug, he's a punk. Yeah, we're all really impressed that you smacked Rihanna around. I'm sure that gave you lots of street cred. If he's guilty, this should be a career killer. But mark my word it won't be. The R&B industry will welcome him back with open arms.

WC Guys Pick Up District Title

All season I've felt like the WC guys were just a breakthrough away from dominating someone. I've documented their physical dominance, that much is easy to see when they walk on the court. Saturday night I saw them play the way I thought they could for the first time this season.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Harrisonville (who has to be starting to not like WC, remember we ended their forever long home winning streak in football back in week 1). They had put up 90+ points on Thursday night against Carl Junction, so we knew they could score in bunches. But Saturday seemed to be less about Harrisonville and more about the Cards playing their own game.

Parker Graham spent a lot of minutes on the bench because every time he looked at someone they called a foul on him. He ended up on the floor one time (how that happened I'm not sure) and instead of calling the foul on the other guy, they called a double foul. Ordinarily Parker watching from the bench is a really bad sign, but last night it led to a couple of positive things (let me be clear, I'm not suggesting that WC is better with him out, only that him being out allowed a couple of other guys to step up and that I believe they're going to be a better team going forward because of the experience).

Austin Lepper has played well all season, but at times I've felt like we needed to give him his shoulder pads back to make him feel more comfortable on the floor. Like Graham, being so much stronger than his opponents makes it tough not to get a lot of fouls because the moment he touches someone they're probably going to go flying. At times I've felt like he was being too cautious, trying to stay out of foul trouble (and who can blame him?). Over the last few games I've seen him play, however, it has seemed that he's started figuring out how to channel his inner pass-rusher and become a defensive force on the court. He had a couple of blocks on Saturday that were awesome. You knew when he went up that some combination of ball and shooter were going to get redirected. The only real question was what was going to land where. He was about 50/50 when it came to getting a clean block and shutting the whole thing down while getting his money's worth on a foul. But, and this is key, he picked up his first foul in the third quarter. That's a sign of strength playing with discipline, but there was nothing timid about it. Austin's success on defense led to success on offense. He finished with at least 15, may have been more than that.

Hunter Luna - another WC football guy - has played in spots when another big body was called for, but had yet to show (at the games I'd seen) that he could come in and really play a big role. Last night he did. He played a bunch of minutes, was good on defense and made some plays on offense as well. This is a big deal going forward, because it should give the coach some confidence when it's time to put him in the lineup.

Trey Laveroni played better than I've seen him play this season. This is important going forward if the Cards are to make a run in the playoffs. He should cross the 1,000 career point mark early in their game on Wednesday night.

Patrick Drake (brother-in-law) played well and continues to show a lot of poise handling the ball. He's a good shooter and play-maker, but in a crunch they need him handling the ball against pressure. He's cool under fire and tall enough to see the whole court.

Maddy Johnson gave the Harrisonville point guard fits in the second half. That was fun to watch.

All of this led to a dominant performance. The Cards played with confidence in ways I've not seen since last year's team. If they play like they did Saturday going forward I think they have a fair shot of making a run.

WC Lady Cards District Title

The following is really my advice to coaches in the class 4 playoffs.

First, if you're a coach and you see that the WC girls are your next opponent, I'm sorry. If you don't have superior athletes up and down your roster, you're probably going to get beaten - and quite possibly soundly. WC goes about 9 or 10 deep and they all play about the same way.

Second, the worst thing you can do is speed the game up by pressing them. What you're dealing with is a group of girls (mostly sophomores) that have been playing together for years now and play at a speed that few girls teams can. They are fast and they know how to run the floor better than some guys teams do. They can move the ball around the perimeter quickly enough to expose the holes in your defense. So, for goodness sake, don't beat yourself by pressing them. I'm not sure they shot more than a half-dozen shots that weren't layups last night. Every time Nevada pressed them they'd beat them for a layup. Every time Nevada would step out to guard on the perimeter someone would cut to the basket for a layup.

So if you're in the difficult spot of having to play these girls, here's my advice (and I'm no expert). Spend all of your practice time working on handling the ball against full-court pressure. Don't worry about your offense, you're not going to play any half-court offense anyway. You're going to get pressed from the word go and if you can't handle it, you're done.

On defense, drop back into a zone and don't ever leave the lane. I mean it. Don't step out to guard on the perimeter. Why? Because the moment you step out of the paint you're going to give up a layup. If you stay inside you will force them to beat you shooting the ball - which they'll probably do, but it's your best chance.

Good luck. Did I mention they're mostly sophomores?

By the way, they rolled over Nevada last night. At one point they were up by 38, it was never close.