A Season to Remember About: Installment IV

The Marauders suffered crushing defeat at the hands of "Way 2 Real" on Monday night. Their opponent was, in fact, Way 2 Real - as opposed to the Marauders, who are kind of "real" but with more of a healthy moderation. The game itself was for the most part an unremarkable blowout. The most noteworthy development came during a Marauders' timeout, when Victor announced to the team that he had appointed a coach, and we were to do as the coach said.

I personally enjoyed having a coach. There was no discernible improvement in any aspect of the team's performance, but the coach spoke English as a second language, and his vocabulary had some limits, in which great entertainment value was to be found. For instance, coach divided our team into two player categories:

1) Forwards. It is the job of a forward to "get dee boards"
2) Guards. The guards are the players who get to "bounce dee ball, ok?"

During timeouts, he would use this terminology to lay out the game-plan. Coach wanted me to get the boards, but I assured him that I was both able to get the boards, and bounce the ball - much in the manner Magic Johnson was said to have possessed the ability to do. Coach accepted this - in fact, he embraced it and appointed me "point guard". I later learned from coach that it is among the duties of the point guard to "yell" at the other guards "when they bounce dee ball wrong".

From that moment on, I was on the lookout for instances in which the ball was bounced improperly, fully prepared to yell at the perpetrator. To make a long story short though, the Marauders fell on the losing end of a 50-72 final score. For anyone interested in playing "point guard" for the Marauders in their season finale, it will be on Monday, at 6:30. Bring a blue shirt and $3, and just tell them George sent you.

A Season to Remember About: Installment III

MARAUDERS FALL TO 1-5 IN BACK-AND-FORTH BATTLE

SAN DIEGO, CA (turns out all of the games are in San Diego; team doesn't travel apparently): It was an emotional game of ups and downs, but the result was a famliar one for the Marauders: disappointing defeat. The final score of 42-103 doesn't really tell the whole story, as the Marauders kept it close for most of the first 5 minutes. Right about at the five minute mark SD JAMMIN's fifth player arrived and the Marauders started to lose control of the game.

The Marauder's made an impressive first strike by disqualifying two of SD JAMMIN's players just before tip-off (one of them was WAY over 6'2" and the other was about 15 years old). This shrewd maneuver brought SD JAMMIN's roster down to just four players, and helped the Marauders stay in the game early, playing five against four.

League-leading scorer "Roman" finally arrived about 4 minutes into the game, hurriedly put his shoes on amidst urgent cries from SD JAMMIN, and then proceeded to escort his team to a commanding 20 point half-time lead.

To their credit, SD JAMMIN had their heart in the game till the final buzzer sounded, and never lost focus. It is a rare spectacle nowadays to see rec-league teams run such effective full-court presses. Especially when they are carrying 30+ point leads, as SD JAMMIN did. Some in attendance speculate that SD JAMMIN turned up the intensity late in the first half. At that point, trailing by 20, Marauders leading scorer Phil performed a perfectly executed, AND1-style klowning against aforementioned SD JAMMIN star Roman. Phil accomplished this by scooping the ball past Roman's right shoulder, and then running around his left to retrieve the ball on the other side. While a crowd pleaser at the time, one can imagine that this was a hurtful and emotionally difficult event for Roman. It is easy to see how a team such as SD JAMMIN might be able to use something like this for motivation. Or perhaps they are just classy competitors who believe they are doing themselves and their opponents a disservice by not giving it all they've got for 40 full minutes regardless of the score.

Whatever the reason, the Marauders' win-streak has been broken, and many are again looking for a winning solution. Following the game, power-forward Victor suggested that the Marauders should hold practices. Please see my response below:

A Season to Remember About: Installment II

Disappointment: PB Ballers 75ish - Marauders 50 or so

San Diego, CA: The third time was not a charm for the Marauders, as the losses just keep on coming in the BOSS 6'2" and Under Men's Basketball league. The PB Ballers easily overcame a variety of zone defenses, and the Marauders could not keep up with prolific scorer Jeff Pucci. As matter of fact, the Marauders are still not sure exactly which one of the PB Ballers was actually Jeff Pucci. Says utility reserve guard shipping + receiving manager Gary "Last week they had this short guy with a crew-cut, and I figured that guy had to be Pucci, but he's not here this week".

While the point total improves on their last game's paltry 26, Maruaders fans shouldn't put too much hope in that statistic. As power forward/assistant coach Luis puts it "In the second half they were just (putting forth less than a full, sincere effort) around with us".

There could be a long list of reasons for why the Marauders are struggling to win games: inexperience, lack of chemistry, uniforms identical to opponents', Caucasian grandparents at guard spots matched against college kids from a certain ethnic background considered to have a genetic athletic advantage - all of these factors have been adding up to lop-sided defeat. As the Marauder's beat writer, my conclusion is that the biggest concern is mismanagement of talent. Certain players best suited for particular tasks are not performing those tasks enough, and instead other players not as well suited are performing those tasks more. For example, I am a good scorer. The rest of the team is not good at scoring. The solution is that I should stop passing the ball to the less capable teammates, and try to shoot more. Furthermore, I have proven to be the only Marauder who, on a consistent basis, is capable of dribbling the ball across the court in the presence of defenders and then passing to an open teammate. The intelligent thing for the Marauder's to do is to designate all ball-handling activities to me.

These changes ought to be made for the Marauders from the top. Under the current system, the coaching staff consists loosely of two guys named "Luis". The best case scenario would be an official coaching switch, wherein I take the place of both Luises. It may be difficult to explain the benefits of this to the Luises and the rest of the team though (I don't think they read the blog), so the next best alternative is for me to implement the changes from the floor without "running it by" the team first per se.

Marauder's fans might have reason to look forward to Monday night's showdown with Kappa Alpha. The changes should go well, and if nothing else, will lead to an interesting blog entry next week.