sunday night baller

i honestly sat here trying to think of a post to appease a few people who want me to update my post more than once a month so it can officially be called a blog. So i settled on talking about my favorite winter past time of late....basketball

- I played in an 18+ basketball league this season with a mix of former and current Young Life leaders in Columbus. The league was held at Olentangy Liberty and we played on Sunday nights. This was our second season in this league and we were looking to build on our disappointing season of not making the playoffs the year before. We had a decent regular season finishing a respectable 5-2. I say respectable because our team consisted of guys who had no experience playing college ball....wait that's a lie we had 1 guy play 1 year of D3 ball for Defiance College....but other than Adam nobody else was even offered to get paid to go to school to play basketball. I only mention this because a slight run down of the league will give you an idea of who we had to guard on a weekly basis

-The Phoenix Foundation...aka Otterbeins 2001/02 National Champ. team...their big men could play inside and shoot from 3 (aka not fun to guard). This team went undefeated in the regular season.

-Average Joes....defending champs of the Powell 18+ league featuring Tim Schafer starting tackle for Ohio State in football c. 2005-6 (roughly 6'5" 290 pounds)...also featuring multiple guys that could bench press a fiat

-West Side Shooterz...not the best team but they had multiple people who played college basketball...although we did beat this team

-Mosher...they had a guy who was 6'6 230. This man showed up at 7:01 when we played at 7. At approx. 7:02 he had already won the opening tip and dunked on us...good start eh?

-The Lost Shepherds...this team had a guy who played at UNC...yes like the Dean Smith/Michael Jordan UNC. I should probably mention that said guy was at minimum 55 years old but was without a doubt the best shooter in the league. I watched him in pregame warm ups walk around the arc and didn't even hit the rim for like 15 shots....Yours truly guarded him and held him to 2 points all game (those 2 came on foul shots he hit after i fouled him shooting a 3)

-Abbington All Stars...this team was made of up a couple guys we knew and the rest were just their friends. This team had some talent but never really put it together. They had a guy who was not shy about pulling up and launching 3's from right around Sunbury (that's a joke that probably only 1 or 2 people will get...sorry)

-There was 1 other team but they were awful....i mean Detroit Lions bad....they didn't win a game and actually didn't show up the last two weeks because they were that bad

-Finally there was our team....the Cbus YL team.
Justin Wilson - our only real size at 6'4" but more of a natural 3-4
Chris Welter - our leader. 6'2" and probably drew their best interior player most of the time
Chris Ramsey - probably our 2nd best pure scorer
Ben Woerth - shut down defender and back up point guard.
Brian Baertsche - probably our main point guard....felt bad for barch because he has shoulder and back problems and actually got his shoulder popped out in a game this season.
Chris Light - 6'1 and a fierce rebounder...
Adam Konsat - our assassin...our only college level baller...he hit 7 3's in one game this season true story.

Then there was me....#00. I was actually only supposed to be a sub for this team...i never payed but went to every game. The guy who ran the league actually joked one game, because i left on my fleece pullover when we had enough guys to where i didn't need to play, that i got in trouble with the coach and was being benched for disciplinary reasons. I did have a career high game of 8 points but probably averaged right around 1.7 ppg for the season.

Wow....looking back that is a lot of crap i just wrote....I'll just try to sum up the regular season and playoffs because that's just ridiculous.

The regular season we finished 5-2. We lost to The Phoenix Found. (team otterbein) and to Average Joes (defending champs) but we actually beat the team where we got dunked on by the man who should probably be playing pro ball in Europe (Mosher).

The playoffs were another story....we were happy to make it since we missed out last year. Since we finished 5-2 we drew the #3 seed. We took on average joes a couple sundays ago and i was actually nervous walking into the gym....I'll give you a minute to regain your composure after reading that i was nervous to play in an adult basketball league playoff game.....but this was my first game that meant something other than getting to stay on the court for an extra 30 minutes. We had the lead from the start and were actually up 7 at the half. With the game winding down we kept floating around a 7-8 point lead but we were starting to tense up. The one peculiar thing about the Powell League was that the clock runs until the final 2 minutes of each half. This can either help or hurt you, if you're up and you get fouled you can take your time when you're at the line and drag more time off the clock and vice versa.

The final 2 minutes of the game was very tense....we turned the ball over. they made ridiculous 3's. we couldn't make foul shots. they couldn't miss foul shots. So here we are with under 10 seconds to go and they have just taken what i believe is their first lead of the game 45-44. We get the ball to Adam our best shooter and have him take the ball up the court....what you are about to read i am not proud of but have laughed it off and am now ok with publishing over the world wide web......and we get called for a charge on a play that if it happens 10 times get called a blocking foul 9 out of 10 times. I am on the bench and cannot believe that it was called a charge. This give the ball back to the other team to hit more foul shots to put them ahead more. I go from on the bench to on the floor and i am yelling at the ref that there was no way that was a charge. I tell him "i respectfully disagree with his call". I then get yelled at by Welter to get off the floor nothing is going to change the call and it doesn't matter. AND IN ONE OF MY MORE BRILLIANT MOMENTS IN 26 YEARS OF LIFE. I yell back "WELL IT KINDA DOES MATTER THEY GET THE BALL BACK".....i know i know great logic. So i get up and am walking around and i pick up my nalgene to take a drink (wouldn't be a YL based team if the nalgene wasn't present) and nothing is left in the nalgene so i just drop it to the floor. (note to self...there is really nobody sitting in the stands....there is at most 30 people present.....gyms kind of echo when you drop hard plastic onto wooden floors)

At this point they have hit 2 more free throws to make the score 47-44 and we now have 1.6 seconds left to do something about it. Welter draws up a play to get Adam a look...Adam gets the ball and from just inside half court lets a shot go, that no joke, rims in and then out. So Team YL goes from up 12 at one point in the second half to up 7 with a minute to go in regulation to losing by 3. That ladies and gentleman is how you play to "not win." After the game there were multiple significant others there to watch and we all decided to go out to Max and Ermas to celebrate a good season. I just want to point out that at M&E's it was 5 couples, Adam and myself. Adam has a gf she just had to work that night....i don't know if the phrase 13th wheel would have applied but that's what i would have been had Adams girl decided to show up. Good times.

So there it is.....our 2008-09 season boiled down to one meaningless and unnecessarily long blog post.

As of the time of this posting i am unaware of who won the league but the money would probably be on The Phoenix Foundation. They're used to winning things.

- My next post probably wont be another month from now....it will probably also cover a multitude of subjects...my problem is that i have so many random thoughts that i don't feel would necessitate their own post so i just don't post them. My next one will probably be a smattering of random thoughts and such

-Props to you for reading the whole thing even if you didn't like basketball.

-The Cavs - Pistons game is on espn right now.....the cavs cheerleaders uniforms look mysteriously like michael j. fox's team in teen wolf