Hoops

Over the past few days, I've been playing a little basketball with my friends or "shootin' hoops" to borrow a term from the Fresh Prince (coincidentally, it was also "outside of the school"). Right in the backyard of the GSD is a basketball goal with about a half-court (probably more like 1/3) where sometimes people shoot around to relieve the stresses of graduate school. Some of the guys are pretty decent having maybe played in high school or something. And then there are people like me.

When I was a kid we had an adjustable goal post out front, so it isn't as if I've never touched a basketball before. I just never got any good at it--my sport was soccer (although, truth be told, I never got good at that, either). I am a decent shooter. Sometimes I hit the rim . . . occasionally the ball goes in. I make a lot of bank shots, but I usually don't intend to. My dribbling ability is a little hard to describe. The best I can come up with is if you were to imagine a border-line autistic child trying to make some moves, that's basically what I look like. Which isn't all bad because when I make a drive down the lane for a lay-up, the defense is already a little off-kilter from laughing.

Earlier today, I was playing 2 on 2 with some friends from the GSD--Justin, Benny, and Chris. Justin and Benny are two tall, lanky guys who have played basketball a lot in the past. Chris, I'm not sure about, but people don't laugh at him as much as they do at me when he plays, so I figure he's got more experience than I do. Anyway, our version of 2 on 2 is relatively relaxed. We'll make a drive to the basket here and there, run around aimlessly trying to get open . . . you know, just enough to get a little winded and then slow it down. We played for about 30-45 minutes before we were out of breath and sat down.

In come these three guys from the History school--big guys . . . with dark, curly hair (I don't know what their hair has to do with anything but I thought it might give your imagination a little more ammunition to play out the scene). And they want to play a 3 on 3 game with us--Chris volunteers to sit out, great sportsman that he is. Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to catch our breath and figure a way out of impending humiliation. The three history buffs shoot around, proclaiming their inadequacy at the sport for a bit, before we reluctantly accept their challenge.

The game starts and these guys just start running all over the place like actual basketball players--moving in formations, setting up picks, making ferocious efforts for rebounds--the works. Honestly, I didn't think they'd be moving around so much, so it was hard to keep up. Within about a minute they scored on us 4 times. Every time we got the ball, it was tough to get open. Hell, I couldn't even see anything because the dude covering me was twice my size. Any time I got a semi-open look, I just threw the ball in the air, praying that it would at least hit the backboard. Luckily Justin and Benny were able to prevent us from being completely annihilated by taking shots from outside. I did my best to just run around so the guy defending me would maybe wear out or something. All that did, however was make me more tired and want to go in and grab some Diet Coke from the vending machines. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the game to end. And even though we lost, I like to think that if we were playing fresh that we could have won--especially if I were any good at the damn game.