Before I begin, let me just say you're welcome for providing you with entertainment during my finals week. I've taken my extremely valuable time and dedicated it toward something that has less to do with my education than Mike D'Antoni has to do with the Lakers' failure of a season (Kobe still doesn't know what an assist is and Da White Howard can't even dream of making a free throw). I could be studying for my last final, but I'm currently boycotting it because it happens to be on Saturday. In the words of Momma Boucher, Saturday finals are the Devil. On another note, don't get used to the continuous updates of the blog because some days there isn't enough to write about, but it would be in your best interest to check back at least ten times a day because you don't want to be left out of the loop when the cool kids are talking about it at the lunch table. Because its finals week, our turnout of practice guys is a little lower than usual. Some guys have exams during practice, which really isn't an excuse for missing because what we do is a team effort and there is no "I" in team.
Today's practice was one of those that seemed like it took all day. I blame this on the fact that I didn't go over and ask the managers what time it was, which I do about 2-3 times per practice. We had two guys including myself show up today, so two coaches had to step in and be a part of the coolest, relatively unknown, and somewhat exclusive group that we call the RIP Squad (RIP technically standing for Ready Intensive Practice but I've always thought we were walking to our death when we go to practice). The entire coaching staff could play against the girls and probably be just fine, but today assistants Nadine Morgan and Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton were the chosen ones. If you've followed Purdue women's basketball at all for the past few years, you know that Coach Wisdom was just an okay basketball player, and by just okay I mean she's a stud and would still be playing in the WNBA had she not taken the open assistant job. Also, to mention Coach Morgan, I'm 99% sure she could fight literally everyone in the gym MMA style and come out on top without question. Back to the action. We played offense against the girls most of the day because from what I could tell, their last game against UT-Martin wasn't their best defensive effort. In turn, today was sort of like Christmas that came early for me. If you're reading this, you've probably read my first post where I compared myself to JJ Redick, although at that time I was the version where he could only shoot off a screen. I hate to be that guy, but my game at this present time is a lot like Redick's during his senior year when he was fighting Adam Morrison and his Dirty Sanchez mustache for the scoring title. So, whenever we go against the girls on offense, the coaches always make sure somebody is on me like white on rice. I won't lie, the girls guard me just as hard if not harder than I was ever guarded in high school, so it's a challenge (but one that I usually pass with flying colors). I know I've really built this up to where you're thinking something really cool happened, like me posterizing one of the players, but I really just knocked down some shots. There was actually a point in practice today where I felt totally out of place.
Bill Shakespeare once said, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." I would say today was as close as I will ever get to being able to mention that quote in my blog. The team gets split up into golf and black teams for practices so the players can develop chemistry by playing with different teammates every day. The gold team happened to be one guard short today so at the last second, your's truly had greatness thrusted upon him and had to fill in for a transition drill. The only problem was, the team doesn't run up and down and play like a bad intramural team. They actually run plays. Now, my mind used to be trained to remember and execute plays. Since then it has been molded around things like supply and demand, debits and credits, and other things I really hope I never have to use in the future. Coach Versyp comes to me and says I need to fill in, so I watched one of the wing players run through the different offensive sets during the drill. I had them down, but, I was soon put into oh shit mode when she said I was running the point. To say the least, it wasn't the greatest performance by a point guard anyone has ever seen. I literally threw the ball to the wing and cut to the opposite side every time no matter the play, and they ran four different plays. Luckily for me, I've got enough swagger (from now on will be swag) to make it look halfway decent instead of really making a complete fool of myself. I got the congratulatory high five from the players, but in the back of their mind I know they really thinking "Well that was a complete waste of time and energy. That idiot practices with us every day and hasn't memorized our plays yet?" I don't blame them for thinking it because I was thinking the same thing myself. When I play defense, I know what play is coming and really try not to cheat but I'll sometimes do it anyway. I'd compare it to getting the answers to a test before and trying not to just circle the answers and as I leave the room yell "suck it" to everyone who studied for hours on end.
I'd like to take this time to personally apologize for making the gold team run a down and back. I was the elementary school famed all-time offense for the purpose of a drill and hit shots for the black team but couldn't hit water if I fell out of a boat for the gold. To make my rebuttal, it wasn't like the gold team was run out of the gym (the goal was to score as many points in a certain amount of time). I also spent the entire day trying to work off the rust from not practicing for five days. From what I remember it ended up being 15-11 and me so fittingly missing a buzzer beater for gold. You should be proud, gold. You fought back at the end without any help from me. We can just say you lost by four basically playing down a man (or girl but I can't call myself a girl because that just won't fly). I did pay my dues, though, I ran the down and back because I'm all about dedication.
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