It says below that my car broke down Sunday afternoon. I spent three hours waiting for the tow truck, writing aimlessly, and then two days running around without a car.
I’ll be homeless in 10 days.
There could hardly be a less convenient time for the most emotion-charged month of the basketball season, but here we are.
5 Colorado vs. #12 Oregon
Washington State and Colorado were within 3 points for more than three quarters. Colorado eventually regressed to looking like a team that peaked more than a month ago.
The Buffaloes are so talented, I wouldn’t wager against them against Oregon, and then Oregon State. Besides Sherrod, though, the whole herd looks hesitant with the ball.
I was most impressed with Sherrod Friday while play was stopped. She was charged with a foul, after which she chased down the referee with her palms up. The official mimed the handcheck she saw, and they discussed it for a moment, smiling.
I got the impression Jaylyn would’ve enjoyed changing the referee’s mind in small increments, but Coach Payne appeared in the picture to remind at least one of them of the job at hand.
8 California vs. #9 Washington State
Cal, I think, has the most untapped potential in the league (along with Oregon State, USC, and UCLA — a scary thought), and despite the Cougars’ win at Boulder last Saturday, this is the place to look for an upset (er, #8 over #9 isn’t an upset, is it?; when did Cal sneak ahead of WASU in the standings?).
7 Arizona vs. #10 Washington
As the Wildcats visited the Huskies Jan. 19, I thought the game might not reach 100. Then Washington won the first quarter 21-11, and at the end 62-60.
And since Washington had squashed Washington State the week before, I thought it hinted at a big season. They lost eight of their next nine.
It occurred me to me late in the season that the Huskies were occasionally an exceptional defensive team — against Utah last Saturday, the Huskies filled the empty spaces before Utah could make use of it, and without space, the Utes couldn’t cut, pass, shoot, or recover loose balls — but I couldn’t name a single player on their roster.
That sort of togetherness in which no one stands out is probably just what you want, though sometimes you’d like to wield star power.
As it happens, I think of the Wildcats the same way, with the exception of Pueyo. They’re similar teams, and their most recent game against each other went to three overtimes.
If you’re looking for a narrative hook, there it is — you can bet three overtimes between two teams so alike will be the focus of the pregame banter, but Washington is on the rise. The Huskies could win this one in confident fashion, setting up a classic vs. USC.
#6 Utah vs. #11 Arizona State
While the Utes were sputtering against Washington, the talking heads clung to the idea that Utah lacked energy, and needed someone to serve as a catalyst.
Consider the field goal shooting by the Utes’ low-key starters. Pili, McQueen, and Johnson shot 6-of-23. Only Wilke — an eye-catching player — shot .500 among the Utes. Vieira is the most fiery of the Utah group, but something has gone awry if she’s taking the bulk of the shots. (While Utah made its last stand in the fourth, she dove from behind a Washington ballhandler to knock the ball away. It’s well documented that a baserunner going home from first should run through on a close play instead of dive into first. Hell, maybe Ines left her feet to slow herself down.)
What happened to the sparks off the bench, Young (who came so alive against the SoCal teams the week before) and White? Lani White had her best game of the season against Washington State Thursday — welcome to the party! — but couldn’t keep that going for the whole homestand.
Ross, the freshman, perhaps cut a path into Coach Roberts’ doghouse. As far as making things happen, there’s never a dull moment while Ross is on the floor, but she played 3 minutes against the Huskies.
Should Utah win tonight, their road to the championship is UCLA, USC, Stanford. I don’t think South Carolina would run that gauntlet undefeated.
Stranded on the side of the road with nothing to do but wait for a tow and babble into a notetaking app
A couple miles from home, four red lights went on in my dashboard. I think I did the right thing by stopping the car.
I consulted a manual, which said one of those lights means the car probably won’t start again. This is true, so I’m sitting in a dead car in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
I have to pee, which will make this lots more interesting very soon.
The funny thing is that Plan B was to live in the car for a while. Plan A was to find a studio apartment for $5 per month, and that plan was going nowhere. I think the car got fed up with the idea.
Or it could be the basketball gods saying: Dude, you need a new place to live in two weeks, your car is suddenly dead, and you lost your last game of chess to a little kid — and you think losing to Washington Saturday is a problem?!
The Washingtons beat both mountain teams at the mountain sites, where they’ve both been nearly invincible. (Utah had won almost 30 straight against unranked opponents at the Huntsman Center.)
I said weeks ago that maybe Colorado was over the hill. That is, the Buffaloes peaked with a #3 in the AP poll, and were beginning a descent.
Perhaps the same is true of Utah, who might’ve reached their limit when they swept the SoCals.
In the Utes’ losses to Baylor and Colorado, they could be described as lethargic. Sportscasters have their favorite cliched terms for it: flat, low energy, lacking the crispness at this time.
David B. Flemming is a Stanford graduate with the enviable position of sharing the San Francisco Giants broadcast booth with Ford Frick Award winner Jon Miller. He’s an idiot, despite those two most high credentials. Flemming can’t describe anything as ‘negative’ — he can only say ‘not positive’ because he belongs to the broadcast school that says dead air is unacceptable, so one has to use six words when one will do.
When a pitcher hangs a curve, Flemming’s go-to is some variation of “we’re not seeing the usual Shlabotnik movement on his breaking pitches, which are lacking the crispness at this time”. Which drives me nuts — 20 words instead of “hanging slider”.
The Pac-12 Network equivalent is Ann Schatz, who never shuts up despite having nothing to add. I’ve said often that I hate watching basketball on the computer because a director in the truck insists that I see what he wants me to see, while there’s an announcer who thinks it’s his job to describe the obvious.
After Raegan Beers’ nose broke, Ann Schatz repeated that news seven times if she thought the action on the floor might’ve been different, had Beers been playing. Or when she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The opposite of Ann Schatz is Krista Blunk. I tuned in to a Stanford game, and when play stopped 20 minutes later, Blunk used that timeout to recap the game, and include Cameron Brink was out with illness.
Dave Flemming and Ann Schatz will inform you repeatedly that Cameron Brink is not playing. It’s not vital information — they don’t tell you the 11th and 12th men aren’t playing; they’re just filling air with it based on media fascination with blonde girls who are friends with Stephen Curry. Blunk, on the other hand, tries to tell you who is playing.
Utah was as lifeless against Washington as they were against Colorado (in Utah’s first home loss in two years).
When Utah plays well, they stretch the defense left and right, in and out. Their ball movement is like a string being coiled, gathering potential energy until it snaps forth with kinetic energy, an open 3FGA or an attack on the basket.
Mikhail Botvinnik was world chess champion from 1948 to 1962. In those days, that was a long effing time. Today’s players think it’s commonplace, after the long reigns of Kasparov and Carlsen.
When Botvinnik was young, he was a boxer. Botvinnik said bad chess is when the fighters go out, trade a few punches, skirmish a bit, retreat to their corners, repeat. Good chess is when you take your shot, and floor him.
That’s a very hard thing to do at chess, to store the energy in your position until you recognize the time to punch.
Basketball is a little different because teams are aiming for constant pressure, though games are often exchanges of runs. I told myself that Utah isn’t a championship team Thursday, when they beat Washington State rather easily, in spite of lapses in the second and fourth quarters.
Championship basketball teams, championship boxers, and championship chessplayers don’t have those lapses. They turn out the lights, slam the doors, put the mofos down, choose your metaphor.
The TV director in the truck was smart enough to cut to Coach Roberts during that fourth quarter letdown. Coach looked equal parts angry and dismayed.
If media asked Coach Roberts for a soundbite — because that’s what media wants: soundbites from others while never shutting up themselves — Coach would say: “It’s March”.
The usual hard-hitting sideline includes “what will you tell the players in the team room during this halftime”.
This is often my favorite part of a broadcast. Oregon State coach Rueck UCLA coach Close can go over most viewers’ heads. Colorado coach Payne usually looks like she wants to say “what do you think I’m going to tell them”. I think Coach Payne sees the perfunctory LaLooshian dialogue as laughable. UC Davis legend Sandy Simpson called it an obligation, “the media/coach song and dance” (and that’s why I love that guy).
Coach Roberts likes to say: What can she tell them during this 15 minutes. It’s March.
That is, they should know by now.