Refs?

Skipped the explosive workout for today and went to play in my NY Urban Professionals League basketball game.

My team stinks. I might be the best player and I haven't played regularly since college (02). Back then I probably played an average of 4 hours a day. Sometimes as much as 8 hours. What a great escape from life-- just go play a game for hours in which everyone cares about the outcome yet one game flows fluidly into the next. Win, and you get to stay. Lose and you get to wait. Work consciously on your game for the whole time and you have your own month's worth of experience. It's like an AP course in Basketball.

This game was interesting. We were shooting pretty well for most of the game. We've got one bigger fella who is our best shooter, a fellow ultimate player who is probably the most-coached of us (good fundamentals), one athletic lanky lotsa-fouls-slasher-type with a weak jumper, and me. There are some other guys as well, but they're mostly liabilities in one way or the other. In this game, I took about 5 or 6 shots, passed well, had maybe 1 or 2 turnovers on miscommunications and spent a lot of time yelling at one of the refs. This guy was awful. He called carries after the ballhandler was fouled, watched 3-seconds like a hawk, missed calls near the basket, lost track of time, gave one of our players two technicals (not me, iIm still T-free) without ejecting him, didn't communicate clearly and lost track of the time. This guy was just plain bad. The other ref actually apologized to us for him.

So the game itself was a battle as the other team had one guy who had excellent stop-go moves, keeping us all off-balance. I got into a foul trouble covering him and no one else could stay near him. Not a shooter, but a quality player. Anyway, they tied it up and we missed the buzzer-beater from the corner to send the game to overtime. We got up in overtime, and then they came back to tie it near the end. I took this chance to drive the lane and get a quality shot. one of their bigs just laid me the hell out. I was laying on the ground looking up at the shot rim out when the opposing player apologized to me saying he didn't mean to foul me. No kidding. But then...

Silence.

No whistle. No foul. Everyone on the court knew that was a foul. I lit into this asshole ref, and that didn't seem to help. Double overtime. Sudden-death game to 3. (Weird rules) They bury a jumper or something and then one of our liabilities turns it over. Their good player gets fouled on a shot. Misses the first, makes the second, game over. Damn. That sucks. I'm over it pretty quickly (I care more about ultimate these days) but my team is pissed and still talking to the ref.
I've got some interesting ref/observer thoughts percolating as a result of this-- they'll come out soon enough.

In ultimate-related news, my brother and I decided to attend the Ultimate Coaches and Players Conference in Boston later this month. Nothing to lose, really. Presenters may be heckled.
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Workout Total:
45 Minutes Cross-Training (Basketball)