Enjoy the tail end of your spring break and enjoy some Final Four action tonight.
I’ll give you a potpourri of thoughts. My focus isn’t as intense as it is when I’m conveying convictions with 1,200 words.
College women’s basketball finals will be great to watch. Since I’m coming to you on a Friday afternoon, I’ll predict the finalists as Iowa and South Carolina, the latter being too much inside for the Hawkeyes. The Gamecocks will finish undefeated.
It will be funny if NC State drops South Carolina. This will make this read truly insane.
I watched a documentary about Pet Maravich, the previous men’s/women’s college basketball scoring leader before Caitlin Clark eclipsed his record.
Clark plays better defense than Pistol Pete, and she can shoot just as well, and pass even better, However, in Pistol Pete’s defense, he held that scoring record when college eligibility was three years. Freshmen were not eligible for NCAA action.
One of Pete’s former teammates said in his portion of the documentary, “It was like the rest of us didn’t even matter.”
Well, fella… you’re right. You didn’t matter.
Basketball is a funny sport.
You can have ten guys on the floor, but – especially at high school level – if you at least two athletes far above the talent levels of the rest of the folks on the floor, you’ll have what it takes to win a heft portion of your games.
Your weakest link cannot be so bad, though that he or she is a “fish” as we used to call people when they struggled on the field, the wrestling mat, or the hardcourt.
The term I’m referring to isn’t the urban dictionary fish definition. It is a “…player that is typically inexperienced or not skilled in the game.”
It’s good to see an Ohio State quarterback in the NFL whose fortunes are better than current Pittsburgh Steeler/former Chicago Bear Justin Fields. C.J. Stroud, whose rookie season was phenomenal, now has Buffalo’s Stefan Digs in his stable of receivers. These two gentlemen should have a solid campaign in 2024.
Of course, finishing first in the AFC South means the Texans will play three first-place AFC teams and an additional NFC first place team along with their scheduled first place NFC full division scheduled opponent.
I’m glad I sold my golf clubs in 2009. I couldn’t spend enough time practicing on the links, and consequently my game was terrible. This was a tine when I was still traveling often, and the last thing a gut should do when her returns from a 5-day business trip is tell his wife he is playing 18 holes on a Saturday after she solo-parented the entire week.
I spent some time riding in carts on courses with my vacation host in Palm Springs thanks to a very gracious and welcoming course marshal. It was the best two rounds I experienced. No pressure, no worries, and beautiful scenery.
The official enrollment classes among numerous high school sports are in place. I am happy to say the only Class 5A – Warsaw’s new postseason home in 2024 and 2025 – sectional alignment prediction I made that was not sensible was what to do with Fort Wayne North and Kokomo, whom I had in North and South sectionals in my predictions.
The football alignment will be released in the latter part of the school year, but in my February 10 Chip Shots column I did not consider how far North Side would have to drive to take on the Tippecanoe County schools (Lafayette Jefferson, McCutcheon) and Anderson.
It almost makes more sense to bring Kokomo to that sectional and figure out what to do with Northside given they can hop on I-69 to head to Indy.
Someone from the North will be schlepping to playoff games this year in sectionals and regionals, but I speculate it won’t be Warsaw, based on the pairings projections I made.
We’ll see. I’m one more step to see if I got it right.
I like the enrollment tranches among the four classes in basketball and volleyball, and the fact there will be a larger group of Class 1A basketball schools who shall cannibalize the sectional field. There were at least two dozen schools in 2A who belong in the smallest class.
Sectional fields will be similar in basketball as they are in football’s biggest class: five team sectionals instead of four team sectionals, so the hosts in 6A are going to only run four events from Tuesday or Wednesday through Friday and Saturday.
32 teams will have to play to get a semifinal berth.
Have a great Saturday and take time to enjoy some great basketball the entire weekend.
Additionally, I hope spring break doesn’t have you coming home spring broke.