On The Road Again
Man, I'm tired of seeing our kids play five-on-seven.
One aspect of grade-school league basketball is that there's not a "league" as such, to the degree of there being referees who are actually unbiased. Most of the time the refs are high school volunteers, but the last couple of weeks (both road games for our kids) the teenagers have been supplemented or supplanted outright by adults from the home schools we've been playing.
The result has been amazingly lopsided officiating that got so bad last week that my son's coach almost got ejected. The homerism wasn't quite as bad yesterday, but it was still sufficiently egregious as to have another dad on our side (not the same one as last week) loudly heckling the opposing school official that was supervising the high school zebra crew.
Amazingly, our boys managed to win both games, yesterday's by a lackluster final of 20-16. But whereas last week the other school did its level best to screw us like a three-dollar Democrat provisional ballot collector, yesterday's close result was largely a function of our own poor play.
I fully realize that these are only fifth-graders, and they're still just starting out in the game, and that they have a lot to learn and a great deal of physical maturation to undergo, but is it really an unreasonable expectation of them that they either (1) have more than one play they can run or (2) that they call more than that one play every single fraking time down the floor? I mean, sure, in the first quarter the strong-side pick & roll was working, and even to a degree in the second quarter, but eventually the other team started to catch on to it. Yet our kids kept going to the same play, over and over and over again, and by the fourth quarter it was producing one turnover after another. If the opposition hadn't been so offensively inept, it would have cost us the game far more comprehensively than the biased refereeing.
Short of interrogating the coach (No, I'm not one of those parents), I have no explanation for this play-calling, any more than I could fathom why he had the kids playing a weak zone defense last week that the other kids were penetrating at will. All I know is that we barely got a shot off in the fourth quarter as the officials were bending over backwards to help their own boys pull off the upset.
As Hugh Hewitt has said in a whole other context, "If it's not close, they can't cheat."
As the schedule happened to work, my daughter's sixth grade team was scheduled in the same gym right after my son's team finished, which simplified the commute. And after facing quasi-Amazons the past couple of weeks, and getting drilled both times, the girls were facing mortal opponents once more, and cruised to a 22-3 win, improving their record to 6-3. Li'l Sweetie had another of her emblematic games, not showing up much in the box score but playing energetic defense and otherwise doing the "little things" that it takes to help one's team win.
What of my son? Well, let's just say his mind's already looking ahead to baseball season, even as his team is one win away from an undefeated campaign. Which is what happens, I guess, when you're by far the smallest player on the team, you don't play much, and don't get the ball much when you do.
I hope he gets a growth spurt soon. He's almost entitled to one at this point.
One aspect of grade-school league basketball is that there's not a "league" as such, to the degree of there being referees who are actually unbiased. Most of the time the refs are high school volunteers, but the last couple of weeks (both road games for our kids) the teenagers have been supplemented or supplanted outright by adults from the home schools we've been playing.
The result has been amazingly lopsided officiating that got so bad last week that my son's coach almost got ejected. The homerism wasn't quite as bad yesterday, but it was still sufficiently egregious as to have another dad on our side (not the same one as last week) loudly heckling the opposing school official that was supervising the high school zebra crew.
Amazingly, our boys managed to win both games, yesterday's by a lackluster final of 20-16. But whereas last week the other school did its level best to screw us like a three-dollar Democrat provisional ballot collector, yesterday's close result was largely a function of our own poor play.
I fully realize that these are only fifth-graders, and they're still just starting out in the game, and that they have a lot to learn and a great deal of physical maturation to undergo, but is it really an unreasonable expectation of them that they either (1) have more than one play they can run or (2) that they call more than that one play every single fraking time down the floor? I mean, sure, in the first quarter the strong-side pick & roll was working, and even to a degree in the second quarter, but eventually the other team started to catch on to it. Yet our kids kept going to the same play, over and over and over again, and by the fourth quarter it was producing one turnover after another. If the opposition hadn't been so offensively inept, it would have cost us the game far more comprehensively than the biased refereeing.
Short of interrogating the coach (No, I'm not one of those parents), I have no explanation for this play-calling, any more than I could fathom why he had the kids playing a weak zone defense last week that the other kids were penetrating at will. All I know is that we barely got a shot off in the fourth quarter as the officials were bending over backwards to help their own boys pull off the upset.
As Hugh Hewitt has said in a whole other context, "If it's not close, they can't cheat."
As the schedule happened to work, my daughter's sixth grade team was scheduled in the same gym right after my son's team finished, which simplified the commute. And after facing quasi-Amazons the past couple of weeks, and getting drilled both times, the girls were facing mortal opponents once more, and cruised to a 22-3 win, improving their record to 6-3. Li'l Sweetie had another of her emblematic games, not showing up much in the box score but playing energetic defense and otherwise doing the "little things" that it takes to help one's team win.
What of my son? Well, let's just say his mind's already looking ahead to baseball season, even as his team is one win away from an undefeated campaign. Which is what happens, I guess, when you're by far the smallest player on the team, you don't play much, and don't get the ball much when you do.
I hope he gets a growth spurt soon. He's almost entitled to one at this point.
posted by JASmius at 6:29 PM
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