Best Game Of My Intramural Career

It's been the typical time in between posts so I figured since I had something to talk about I would go ahead and give an update on the week's events. It hasn't been too bad of a week. The only problems come because of my own lack of discipline and self-control rather than anything or anyone out to do me wrong.

I had a pretty bad night the other night though. I could not figure out why it happened the way it did but it was just not good at all. I could not fall asleep because these images kept spinning inside of my head. That is not a bad thing most of the time but it was just plain horrible that specific night because of WHAT was inside of my head. All my indiscretions from the past 4-5 years of my life were being replayed constantly in my mind. I was not thinking about them at all. They just popped in and I could not stop what was going on. I think it went on for about two hours and I noticed how in every situation there was an escape route that I did not take. Possible things that could have been said or done to avoid the scenarios or events but the carnal self took over. I know I've been forgiven for those actions, but there's something inside of me that still feels certain failure because of it. I did know better, I was raised a certain way, I have firm conviction in what I believe and what I have been taught, but why was it that I did not do the critical thinking when it was happening? Another thing to ponder in this life of mine...

I would say more on that, but I'll save it for tomorrow when I have some more time to write. I have some astronomy homeword due on Friday by 5pm that I have yet to start. Way to procrastinate Martin...you sure know how to get your school act together. Three weeks into school and I have read a total of 2 chapters for all my classes combined. And that was for my political science course! Agh, I'll definitely catch up this weekend since there's no sports on TV to keep me distracted, but it seems like there's ALWAYS some sort of distraction. You know what I am talking about. It is God's way of showing His sense of humor on us guys and they are called girls :) Not a bad problem to have though, they keep you humble ;)

So we had our second basketball intramural game on Thursday night and it was a good game. I got to Beyer Hall at around 10:30pm and started shooting around so I could get ALL my bad shots out of the way before the game :) When I play basketball it seems like the first five minutes of the game I have some sort of nervousness or anxious energy and I do not play under control. It was not like that at all this time around and it showed.

We start the game and the other team was much better than the first team we played last week. They were taller, quicker, better shooters, and they set some good screens. Nonetheless, I come out of the gates on fire making the first 10 points for our team. It didn't matter where I was shooting from. I hit a couple of threes and a couple of jumpers and kept the team close since we came out of the gates a bit slow. It was by far the best I had played in an intramural game at ISU in my 4 years of playing.

Even though I was making my shots (and they weren't easy ones either, some of them were right in the defender's face), I knew that it was going to be a problem if I was the one doing the only scoring for our team. It would have helped too if the refs called a foul on my defender once in a while since he was hitting my arm on almost every three-pointer I took. Grrrr, I don't shoot line drives on purpose...it's probably because I got fouled. Our defense was pretty good for the most part, the help defense was solid but the other team was bigger and basically grabbed every rebound because of our inability to box out. It was a team-wide thing too, we were just not as quick to the ball as they were in the first half.

We got down by about 15 points at one point in the game, but we were able to fight back and we actually cut it down to about 4 or 6 points at one instance. We started to lock down on defense, forced some turnovers, rebounded, hit a couple of key shots and made a good run. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and ended up losing by 6 I think. Considering that we did not play our best game collectively and lost by only 6 points, that's not too bad. The way the game was called though would have maybe resulted in a different score at the end although I still have doubts about that.

Something I did not appreciate at all during the game was how some of the guys on the other team were talking smack. It usually was the people who have the least game to back it up that were talking the most and it made me enjoy it even more when I would hit a jumper or a three right in their face. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I could just nail a clutch shot right over them and shut their cocky mouth. The problem with games like that though is that since I am an expressive person and I wear my emotions on my sleeves, I don't always say the "correct" thing. I mean, if there's somebody cocky on their team or they are grabbing my jersey when they screen or there's a bad call, I'll usually say something (mutter it to myself) in a politically-incorrect manner. Apparenly I say it loud enough that other people could hear me but that's because I am harder on myself when I play than anybody else.

So I ended up with 17 points, a block or two, a couple of steals, a couple of assists...overall it was the best game I have played since I got to college. It was not flawless though because even though I scored a good amount of points I was not aggressive enough. I know I forced some shots instead of driving to the hoop and passing it to one of our big men. I could have worked harder for the ball at times, I could have driven more to the basket instead of settling for the long distance shots, I could have helped out rebounding more, I could have made better passes...little intricacies of the game that have to be done in order to consider it a great all-around game. I know I am getting better though and part of it is because I am working out this semester. My legs feel a lot stronger and durable during the games, my shot has improved and now I just have to put everything together: offense, defense, rebounding, passing, play-making, ball-handling, blocking, communicate...put everything together into one game so I could be happy :) So if I play like I am capable of playing and Jake does his thing as well and we get the ball to our big guys down by the basket we should be ok. It's a good start though, and even though there's no such thing as a "good" loss, it's not something to hang our heads on.

There is my great sport story for the week. It's still very fresh on my mind so I figure I should post it and then tomorrow I'll give a more well rounded update. I love basketball though, it is what makes the physical part of life simple for me. God keeps the spiritual stuff in order, basketball does the same for the physical aspect.

God, girls, and basketball (or whatever sport you are into)...life as it should be. It's simple, straight-to-the point, and purposeful. Although I am still debating on whether the girl aspect is simple. Track record and 6,000 years of human history suggest that it is not very simple but we shall see.