The Always Improving

As I sit here in my apartment with Manti Te'o's girlfriend looking at the thermostat that reads slightly below freezing, I realize that I missed on my prediction about the team going undefeated in the Big 10 this year. Then again, undefeated teams in sports are boring and fascist, like strikeouts in baseball. Unless you're a fan of Connecticut or Baylor, you weren't at all excited about the seasons they went undefeated. The majority of America hates teams that win all the time, such as the New York Yankees and Duke's men's basketball team. Although I'm sure a loss at Iowa wasn't exactly pleasing to the team, just remember that eight NBA teams have lost to the Washington Wizards this year, so it happens.

I explained in my last post about the week leading up to Ohio State and how I portrayed their leading scorer. Turns out, I should have gotten the flu and sat on the sideline all week, as this is what Tayler Hill did against them last week. I get the feeling that I took an unhealthy amount of unnecessary shots in a period of four days, and then I remember I did what I was told and don't feel the slightest bit of regret. Word around the gym (I would say around the locker room like a normal teammate but I'd guess if I said that it would raise some suspicion and it wouldn't turn out well) is the team found out Hill wasn't playing until right before game time. I credit this and only this as the reason they went into multiple overtimes against the Buckeyes. I suspect Hill wasn't actually sick, but their head coach made her sit to play mind games with Coach Versyp's squad. This probably isn't a very likely situation, but we can all dream (how great is it that I worked the word dream into my blog on Martin Luther King Jr Day).

While I was waiting for some of the players to come out of the locker room after the game, I saw former Purdue standout Stephanie White getting ready to leave from announcing the game for the Big 10 Network. When I was in first grade, White did a basketball camp at Lafayette Jeff with my dad who was coaching the girls program there at the time. If I remember correctly, the camp was for fourth and fifth graders. Being the stud I was (if anyone would like to explain what happened from then to now, I'm all ears), I was allowed to participate in most parts of the camp. You could say that it was my destiny to play basketball with girls. I'm sort of like Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon who declares himself the "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion". In my case, I'm a "Inter-Gender Basketball Champion" of sorts. I introduced myself to her and she remembered me (who wouldn't remember the only boy who participated in a girls camp?). We had a nice conversation about an internship opportunity with the Indiana Fever (where she coaches now). But, that is neither here nor there. I figured this would be a good time to tell a personal story of mine.

After the Ohio State win, the team began preparing for a so called improving Minnesota group. Improving is probably the right word because they weren't much of a match for the ladies. I would love to say that we practice guys prepared them incredibly well, but I'd be lying. The Golden Gophers' offense consists of a lot of cutting and filling spots on the perimeter. When we would cut during drills and other segments of practice, it was mandatory that we run into each other at least twice. This is not at all how Minnesota ran the offense during the game. It was probably the worst job we've done of running the scout team. Luckily, the girls came to play against the Gophers. The girls played so well that at some points it was like Minnesota had Lennay Kekua playing for them (that's two if you're counting).

According to announcers across America, every team that plays Purdue is improving. This makes me worried for the team because if the media doesn't say they're improving, then they aren't, right? Of course, Iowa is another improving team, an improving team who seemed to shoot a ridiculously high percentage from the field during the first half. Combine that with a rough start for the girls and you have a 20-point deficit at halftime. They only had one day after Minnesota to prepare for this ever improving Iowa team (tired of hearing how they're improving? So was I) so I partly blamed the events on that. The other part I blame on the fact that one of Iowa's players' mother is a Big 10 Network analyst. In other words, I'm saying the game was fixed from the beginning. The girls fought back in the second half to make it interesting, only to have their comeback efforts thwarted on the worst charge call I have ever seen.

To set the scene, freshman center Taylor Manuel catches the ball in the post almost right under the basket. Remember, NCAA basketball now has the circle under the basket that a player can't stand in and take a charge. That reminder is mostly for the referee crew of that game. Manuel spins over her left shoulder to shoot a right-handed layup, and Iowa's center falls toward the Purdue bench while standing in the dead center of the circle. I've always said the team wearing the white jerseys (the home team) gets the calls, and this was never more evident than that play. This essentially ended the last run Purdue was able to make and fell 62-46.

The RIP Squad will be back at it this week preparing for Northwestern and Michigan, two assuredly improving teams. Hopefully we decrease the number of concussions our guys get in practice and actually help the girls in some way. Michigan State has improved (last time I promise) so much so that they crept into the Top 25 rankings this week. The bad news for them is they probably won't be in the Top 25 next week. To decipher that, they're going to lose Sunday when the Boilers come to town.

Happy online dating and see you next week.

The Hobbit, But Not Really

I haven't gone into great detail about how or why the idea of RIP Squad Pains came to be. Since I've already written five different posts, telling this story is basically the RIP Squad version of The Hobbit. So, I might as well drop some knowledge on you to start. To paraphrase a series of quotes from Inception (a movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio's plays the same type of character he has played in every movie since Titanic), an idea is the most resilient parasite, can transform the world and rewrite all the rules, and be stolen by someone. I make this reference because the idea of this RIP Squad Pains idea first came from me. Taylor Jenkinson, a senior member of the practice squad last year, went deep into my brain and stole my idea. Actually, to be honest, I said in the locker room one day "Guys, we should make a Twitter account about what we do and call it like RIP Squad Pains or something cool like that." I swear, that night I get a new follower on my Twitter called "RIP Squad Pains". My genius idea had been stolen. I knew it was Taylor because I texted him asking if he took my idea and I got no response until the next time I saw him and he bursted out laughing. The icing on the cake was he wouldn't give me the account information so I could take over last year. He legitimately committed intellectual property theft and wouldn't admit it (exactly like how Mark Zuckerberg stole the Winklevoss twins' idea in The Social Network, and I guess in real life). The only difference here is, he finally gave me the login information at the beginning of this season and I finally have what is deservedly mine. So now when I become filthy rich off this idea, I don't have to go to court with anyone.

If there's one thing we learned from watching the Nebraska game, it's that senior center Drey Mingo has passed the MCAT's, has applied to Emory University in her hometown Atlanta, Georgia and that Emory should "just go ahead and accept her already". If you watched the game, you know that CBS announcer Debbie Antonelli mentioned this series of facts at least 15 times, and that is not an exaggeration in the slightest bit. Nebraska missed their first 16 shots and looked like a fifth grade elementary gym class team for the first eight minutes. Of course, by the time the Cornhuskers made their first field goal, Antonelli had mentioned Mingo and Emory together in the same sentence five times, wrote a letter of recommendation for her, and joined Emory's review board to accept her.  Once they decided warmups were over and they were a quarter into the game, Nebraska made it game worth watching (at this point Branden Dawson had already punched Travis Carroll in the Michigan State vs Purdue men's game on Big Ten Network). As this obsession with Mingo was going on, senior Sam Ostarello was, as Antonelli continued to say over and over again, "silently killing the Cornhuskers". I'm not sure, but I wouldn't say that Ostarello was still "silently" beating Nebraska when she has 17 points and 19 rebounds and the game is about over, yet Antonelli insisted that it was silent (I said she was silent but deadly, kind of like something else). I'm not going to explain the rest of the game because you can read a newspaper to find out what happened (they obviously won). You chose to read this because...well, I'm actually not sure why.

In a week where hockey unfortunately signed a bargaining agreement, Alabama showed why cousins are absolutely better than Catholics, and an entire era of Major League Baseball was apparently played without a Hall of Famer, the RIP squad crew has been back at it. I'd like to point out that I'm currently still on track in predicting the girls' undefeated Big 10 season. It may have taken one overtime apiece at both Illinois and Nebraska, but a win is a win (I know it is cliche and used by anyone who thinks they know sports but it applies here). The win at Nebraska was especially important, and it gave more publicity to the team (CBS broadcasted it, kind of a big deal) more than this blog ever could even though Purdue's student newspaper The Exponent just started including my blog on a weekly basis. 

Its been a busy week for us, we had Monday off because we had such a tough weekend of doing nothing. Tuesday, on the other hand, was one of those practices that I wish I would've been sick or injured (then again how could I be injured, and if I was nobody would care). Since the next game for the team is against Ohio State, the coaches told us what players we were and their style of play. I was dubbed as, supposedly, Ohio State's best player Tayler Hill. Coach Versyp's exact words were, "Courtney is Tayler Hill for the next 800 days." I found this to be totally preposterous because for one, she's a senior and will more than likely have a job in 800 days, and two, this Hill girl doesn't play for every team so I don't understand why I have to be her when the team plays Penn State and Wisconsin, for example. Anyway, I feel bad for Hill because she is more than likely going to get chased like a three legged cat running from a pack of dogs. I'm not saying I didn't get any shots off and didn't score in practice, because I hit my fair share of tough shots, but most people (guys for the most part) don't understand how good these girls are on defense. I've given the girls enough credit for one post, so its time to move on to Thursday. I missed practice Wednesday and I don't have a scout to tell me what happened. So if you're bummed about not knowing what happened during Wednesday's practice, I suggest you take a hike.

Thursday's events are the reason we show up to practice every other day. Thursday, was scrimmage day. We scrimmaged against the girls for a solid hour and a half, and to put it lightly, we got hosed at our own place. We couldn't catch a break with the referees, and I don't know who hired them, but they looked identical to the assistant coaches. I was clearly fouled on a shot and all the referee said to Liza Clemons was "you can't foul him like that". I responded by asking the referee (assistant Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton) if she swallowed her whistle and I got no response. We were playing a game we couldn't win. Sure we missed some shots around the basket that we should've made, but we don't do drills to make ourselves better (unless you're me practicing Dirk Nowitzki shots for no reason). The assistants gave us three plays that Ohio State has to run against the girls in the scrimmage, and it only took about five minutes for them to figure out that every play was essentially for me. Again, I hit my share of shots (probably more than the girls would like to admit), but I will say they got us probably four out of the seven segments we played. They didn't blow us out, that's never going to happen. We're a lot like the Butler men's team, except Brad Stevens isn't our coach and they would probably beat us by 60 in a real game. It was frustrating to lose like that, but tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow would actually be today and we had the day off so that statement makes no sense. 

To end this latest installment of RIP Squad Pains, I'd like to give Ethan Foxworthy a shout out. Ethan finished his managing duties over Christmas break and is now student teaching some poor, unfortunate souls (just kidding dude). I'd like to say that not only do I miss having Ethan around, but apparently so does Coach Versyp because one of the managers messed up the clock during practice the other day and the volume of her voice rose substantially. On that note, tune in next week for more and do yourself a favor by picking up a copy of The Exponent next Thursday.

For the last time, Roll Tide

New Year Resolutions

For the record, I never once bought into the fact that the world would end in 2012. I found it about as ludicrous as Ludacris (clever, I know). So, when I stepped out of my makeshift bunker made of four chairs and a blanket in my family room, I immediately removed anything I learned about the Mayans from my brain because they lost all credibility, kind of like how Lou Holtz will lose what little credibility he has when Alabama rolls over Notre Dame in the National Championship. In the words of the lifetime, and somewhat mentally insane, Alabama fan (Harvey Updyke) who poisoned the Toomer's Corner trees on Auburn's campus, Roll Damn Tide! The important thing here is we all survived December 21, 2012 by doing nothing more than what we do on a daily basis, which for me was watching the team play IUPUI (obviously Purdue doesn't play IUPUI every day but I figured I would clear that up for those of you who have an IQ equal to that of Forrest Gump's). 

This is probably a good time to give an update on the ladies' season for you people who don't really follow them (and if you don't follow them religiously I pity you). With an 11-2 record and the two losses being to number one and five Connecticut and Notre Dame, respectively, the team begins Big 10 play tonight against Illinois. I'm going to go on record and say they'll finish undefeated in the conference during the season. You're probably thinking, "That's a bold statement Courtney, I highly doubt that will happen." You're right, it is bold, but I figure that if the girls can guard our group of practice guys, they can guard whatever Penn State and Nebraska throw at them. If they don't finish undefeated, I'll admit I was wrong and go on with my life. But, if they finish undefeated, anyone who reads this post will donate $10 to my college fund. I will, in fact, track every one of you down. I have a very particular set of skills that I've acquired after watching both Taken movies, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. 

At this point, I really wish I had a new, funny story about practice to tell. But, the fact is practice has been somewhat uneventful over break. I really haven't done much except drink Gatorade and talk to the managers. With that said, I've decided to share my experiences at the team banquets so far. As a sophomore, I've only been to three, but let me tell you those three have provided more than enough entertainment. If you played a high school sport, you're banquets were probably really, really lame. Like, lame as in people brought KFC and Pizza Hut for dinner because they were too lazy to cook, and these people were probably the parents of your lazy ass teammates. Somebody always brought some kind of casserole dish that looked so awful everybody made a face and scooted away from it as they walked down the line. I always believed dessert was the way to go because, for one, everybody likes dessert, and two, even if you bring a bad dessert, its still better than 75% of the main dishes brought. Then, after you ate the three things that looked like it wouldn't give you chronic diarrhea, your coach got up and talked...and talked...and talked about the season. My high school basketball banquet always happened to fall on the Sunday of the final round of the Masters. So, naturally, I would put my phone in my lap and watch Tiger and Phil go at it and fist pump along with them. I got the "put your damn phone away" look from my mother but I didn't care. I was just passing the time until I got my letter then I could get out of there. 

Purdue being the classy university that it is, takes athletic banquets to a new level. The first one I attended was the preseason banquet last season and was held in the Ross Ade Stadium press box. I had only been practicing with the team for a couple weeks at the time, so I wasn't sure how things worked and what people wore to these banquets. I decided to play it safe and go with a dress shirt and tie Good decision right? Well, other than one of the assistant coaches, I was the only person under 60 years old wearing a tie. The other practice guys were wearing a polo and dress pants. In fact, I believe Jed Hasselbring (fellow practice bitch, you'll be hearing his name from time to time, so learn it) was wearing white Jordan's. I felt about as out of place as Kobe Bryant in a room full of the NBA's greatest passers. 

They sat the practice squad and the managers at the back two tables in the room, which was fine by me because we were the closest to the buffet line and made it easier when I went back for seconds and thirds and maybe fourths. I figured I would be sitting with the rest of the practice guys, but that would only make sense right? I got the s-h-i-t end of the stick and got stuck with one other practice guy (which was fine) and six fans who apparently wanted to play an extended version of 20 questions with us called 10,000 questions. Like I said, I hadn't been practicing with the team for long, so I knew next to nothing about the team and barely knew who was who. They kept asking Corbin (the other practice guy) and I these questions about the players and how good we thought the team was going to be. Luckily I've had a lot of practice when it comes to making things up, I get a lot of chances in the classroom and it finally paid off. I fed them  I distinctly remember how these ladies were obsessed with point guard KK Houser, but the problem was they kept calling her Kiki. I didn't have the guts to correct them and sort of wanted this to continue because it was very entertaining but eventually it became annoying. I kept looking at the table next to us with everyone else and they were just having the time of their life watching me lose my mind. It was like being stuck at the kids table at a family gathering and looking over at the adult table thinking how cool it would be to sit with the cool people. 

The last two banquets have been at the Four Points by Sheraton in West Lafayette, which ironically is where my high school also held a banquet for the top 50 students in my graduating class (I happened to be at table one). College banquets differ from high school banquets in multiple ways. The most obvious being the food. I give props to the Sheraton, they don't serve KFC and Pizza Hut. Its usually some kind of meat with red potatoes and green beans. They give us the dessert on our table at the beginning which I believe is code for dessert first. Someone at my table always ends up without a chocolate cake and never knows why. The best part of these banquets is by far the rolls, and anyone who has ever been at one of these banquets will back me up. In fact, they're so good I slipped a $5 bill into the waiter's pocket (big spender) to keep a steady dose of them coming our way. 

The team banquet usually consists of Coach Versyp saying some words, as well as athletic director Morgan Burke and radio announcer Tim Newton. Then comes story time from the players, a time when they share team events with a group of people who paid to sit, eat, and listen to their idols speak. If you're expecting me to remember a particular story told by one of the players, you should realize that's not my job. I will say this, I sat next to the kid who wears the Purdue Pete costume at the last banquet and it ruined my childhood, kind of like finding out Santa...well never mind. Purdue Pete always seemed real even though his head isn't at all proportionate to his body. 

As we enter the new year and you all break your resolutions this month, I have big plans for the blog. The biggest being that The Exponent, Purdue's student newspaper, will be including parts of my blog posts on a weekly basis beginning next week. From there, I plan on getting interviews with ESPN and 60 Minutes. I don't think getting Erin Andrews to interview me is asking too much. College football season is practically over and she's bound to be bored. Maybe I'll be offered a job to write nonsense for a magazine, which would really make getting my education at Purdue somewhat pointless. At this point you've figured out this post has absolutely nothing to do with New Year resolutions. But, I got you to read this far because you thought I would have a witty and interesting resolution. Sorry to disappoint, but I don't.

Happy New Year and Roll Tide

The Lone Ranger

With doomsday approaching, I write knowing full well that this could be one of the last things I ever do in my life and you, as the reader, could read this and at the same time look out the window to see meteors crashing to Earth or zombies attacking your house. At that point, you're better off finishing reading this because your life is over. That is, of course, unless you're one of those doomsday preppers who we've all laughed at on television and in that case, I'm coming to your underground "bug out" location and eating all your food (I've watched the show once or twice or like every episode). I'm not saying I believe all this doomsday bull, but it could happen even though the odds aren't good. In fact, the odds of the world ending tomorrow are about the same as Mark Sanchez actually passing the ball to his own teammates.

Its the first week of Christmas break practice, and for a townie it means I'm the only guy to show up for practice. Drey Mingo has been properly calling me the lone ranger for the past few days. When you're the only guy, you do a lot to kill time between segments where the coaches need you. Sometimes it could be half an hour before I'm needed for something, so I do a lot of nothing. Most of the time I sit on the bench seats and try not to be like Bobby Knight and toss one across the floor just for entertainment. Other than be a lazy ass, I do two things. One, I drink an unhealthy amount of Gatorade. You're probably wondering how this is possible since Gatorade is supposed to be healthy. Well, when you've drank so much to feel like you've just eaten a steak dinner, that's where the line is drawn. Today was a small victory because we got the blue Gatorade, and getting the blue Gatorade is worth some kind of celebration because I think the managers hide it and take it for themselves. So, I celebrated by drinking nearly all of it (water sucks, it really really sucks). I don't want to keep going with the blue Gatorade thing, but it's like the flavor of the month at an ice cream shop that you really like but only comes around like twice a year so you savor it by eating as much as possible. The other thing I do to kill time is just shoot around. Shoot around time is essential to my development as a practice player. The practice schedule allows time for the girls to work on their game, so I have to create my own time. Now, I'm not going to fool anyone and say that my shoot around time is productive, because its not. I spend most of my time shooting Dirk Nowitzki turn-around, fadeaway jumpers, banking in free throws, and imitating Larry Bird by shooting it over the backboard. In no way shape or form does this help improve my talent level. The only thing it may help is when it comes to playing h-o-r-s-e, or as Whitney Bays likes to play, h-o-r-s-e-s because she spells horse too fast. 

Instead of being a bum and doing nothing while I wait to jump in a drill and get elbowed in the face, I came up with somewhat of a bucket list of things to do when I'm the only RIP guy at practice. These things may be foolish, stupid, and just dumb in general, but I could really care less what you people think.

1. Trick shots 

Trick shots are usually saved for after practice, but since I would probably get kicked out of the gym if the team wasn't in there, I'd have to show off my talents during practice. Let's ignore the fact that I would interrupt practice and get yelled at by the coaches. The average person can stand in the bleachers and hit a shot, so I've decided to separate myself from the pack. The rafters in Mackey Arena don't look like the sturdiest place to stand which made them the obvious choice for the ultimate trick shot. As much as I would love to climb up there, sway my way across the catwalk, drain a shot and instantly become a campus celebrity, I have to realize one thing; I have an ungodly fear of heights. This fear can be explained by telling you I have to take a pill that basically puts me to sleep in order to get on a plane. So, me hitting a shot from the rafters would be more of a miracle than the 1980 US hockey team beating the Russians. 

2. Not show up for practice

To be honest, I've already accomplished this by not showing up yesterday. When I decided not to go, I kept saying to myself "It's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off" (if you don't understand that reference, you've been caged your entire life and should go watch Dodgeball) Some of the players told me that I wouldn't have been used for anything and it was a good decision to not come. That's good to know and all, but I've got to tell you I probably did less on my day off than I actually do at practice. I would tell you all what I did but I'm not about to have people stalking me when this blog becomes more popular than Tim Tebow.

3. Play the band drumset

If any of you band people are reading this, it would be much obliged if you hid the drumsticks where your's truly could find them and shred on the drums for a while. If you do, I swear I won't make any jokes about you (in public). Every day we practice in Mackey I look up where the band plays and see the drum set just sitting there. I don't think the team would like it right away, but they would come to enjoy the harmonious sound of my drumming. It would be identical to the music they play during NBA games, except ten times better. On the other hand, I could sit on the drums and wait for either Camille Redmon or Liza Clemons to unnecessarily fall to the ground then play the comedic rimshot like at the end of a joke. One of them, if not both, will fall at least once per practice and it kind of looks like this:

Luckily for me, I only have about three weeks left of being the only RIP guy to be at practice. If you're a math person, that equals a lot of Gatorade, pointless shots, and riding the bench kind of like I would if I played for the men's team. To end, I have a message for the last minute Christmas shoppers, like myself. The best way to save money and make people happy is to wait until the day after Christmas, then buy what everyone would have wanted. Just tell them you lost the present and forgot to put it under the tree, they won't think twice about it.

Happy Holidays

Finals Week Dedication

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.