Elbows: Still Pointy

The Hoops squad took on the number two team in the division today. We're either last or second to last.

Just like last week, we had to spot the other team 4 free throws for 2 non-compliant jerseys. One of which was mine. This time the other team buried all four. Boo. Why punish the irresponsible players like myself? I tried to argue with my team to show up in whatever shirts we wanted next week and spot the other team 16 free throws or so and tell them to go fuck themselves.

Just like last week, I drew the matchup of the other team's stud. This time a little shorter guy, but a dead-eye shooter off the dribble and the spot-up. Bad news. It meant spending all of my energy keeping the ball out of his hands. Got a couple of steals and buckets out of it though.

As the game progressed, I found myself distributing well, but shooting really poorly, like a classic point guard. Got a couple of boards, a couple of steals, held my guy down and only had one TO. Maybe two.

As the clock wound down, they were inbounding the ball with 16 seconds left. My guy straight up jacked me in the chest with an elbow. The breath left my body for a bit and I was stunned. Luckily, the other ultimate player on the team was on the inbounder and essentially point blocked the pass. Second chance, and Zac (the aforementioned ultimate player) deflects the ball!

He gets a hand on it as I'm breaking to the other bucket...

Tips it toward me...

I've got a clear path...

I reach my hand out to push it ahead in that open-court dribble...

Suddenly the ball is back to the other team.

As it turns out, I couldn't quite get the handle. In the paraphrased words of an ultimate captain, I did not "catch the [ball] before it caught me." The other team got it back and then we had a last second heave-ho after a missed bucket to try to win the game. Didn't happen. Painful, of course.

Ultimately a bad loss, and if I really, deep down still cared about basketball the way I cared about ultimate, I'd be beating myself up. But I don't.

On the other hand, I can tell my chest is gonna be killing me for a couple of weeks. That guy got me right in between the ribs. That will help me remember.

As always with these games, the refs stood out. They weren't bad, but the inability to call my own fouls was frustrating as there were some horrible hack-jobs that slipped through the cracks on both sides. This leads me to the ref discussion I had with Bill Mill right here on this very blog in the Pluot entry. I want to try my hand at a project that I've been mulling over for a couple of years.

The paradigm that I want to work in for with this attempt at the rules is to use the concept of "best perspective" to determine which calls should be made by a third party of some kind and which calls should be made by the players. I'm in the process of coming up with guidelines for this. Players can *feel* things that third parties cannot see. Third parties can see things that players cannot see or feel. The primary thought is that Visual calls should be made by third Parties while physical calls should be made by Players.

Of course, all sorts of complications arise from this premise, but that's where the fun comes in. How can we close the holes in what players can accurately perceive with what a dedicated Third Party can perceive to best cover all aspects of the game? As a second governing principle, how can we best maintain the ability of the players (however nancy-like they are) to determine the way that they prefer the game to be called.
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Workout Total:
44 Minutes of Basketball