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Middle of the road

Well, after the first round of the Tourney, I’m right at the middle of the pack in two of three pools in which I’m participating. I’ll know about the third tomorrow. Middle of the pack is ok with me. Two years ago, when I won it, I was in about the same situation after the first round, so I feel it’s possible I can repeat this year. I’ve only lost one Sweet 16 team–Florida–so that puts me in good position for the rest of the tourney if the second round goes well. From here on out, I’ve pretty much picked favorites, so I guess I’m just hoping for as few upsets as possible. One exception is that I’m hoping to see Manhattan make it to the Elite Eight. If they pull that off, then I’m no worse for picking Florida to go so far.

Playin’ ball in the morning

I haven’t played basketball in a couple weeks, so I’m pretty anxious to get back out there. Last time I played, I had a miserable day, so I can only hope to improve tomorrow. By “improve”, I mean “score at least one point”, although I’m sure I won’t be satisfied with just a point. We’ll see.

Time to play catch up

And now it’s time for me to try to make up for some of the sleep I missed this week.

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Up and down Florida basketball season ends way down

What a horrible showing today. What a disappointment. “There’s always next year.”

Mediocre brackets

I picked a pretty conservative bracket, but I’m still getting burned by the few upsets I picked. I think the good news is that I only picked those upsets to win one game and then lose the next round, so they’ll each only cost me a point. Hopefully, I can make up ground with my Final Four predictions and the few upsets I do get.

Wired outta’ my mind

I tried to take a nap after work today and couldn’t fall asleep. I said yesterday that I was sure my lack of sleep would catch up with me tomorrow, and I think that’s inevitable now. I guess it could hit me tomorrow night, but I’m expecting to feel totally exhausted all day at work tomorrow. This is gonna’ be a rough Friday.

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Bummed about basketball

Apparently, because CBS does regional coverage of the NCAA Tournament, I won’t be able to see the Florida game tomorrow because they’ll be showing the Texas Tech game instead. So, I guess I’m going to proceed as though they are showing the Florida game–keep my cell off, stay away from IM, avoid e-mail and keep out of earshot of any potential basketball conversations at work–and TiVo it, so I can watch it when I get home. Of course, by “it”, I mean “any little segments or tidbits they might show during the Texas Tech game.” If I remember correctly, CBS tends to sort of bounce around and show bits from games in other regions all day. Hopefully, they’ll show some of the Florida game. Also, I’m thinking that if the game is close down the stretch or goes into OT, CBS might show it. I’ve made my picks and I’ll try and post my bracket once they’re “public.”

Sleepometer runnin’ low

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night, I’ll be lucky to get 6 tonight, I slept horribly on Sunday night and Monday night was only a moderate night’s sleep. So far, I’ve been feelin’ great, had plenty of energy and haven’t felt like I needed a mandatory naptime. But, I’m afraid my lack of sleep is going to catch up with me before the weekend is here. I spent all day today (almost 10 hours) in a meeting and I’ll be in the same meeting tomorrow, although “they” say it’ll only run about 6 hours. I just hope they’re right, ’cause if they’re not, they might have to adjust their voices to compensate for my super loud snoring.

Tunin’ up the workouts

I took last week off from the gym and came back this week with a whole different philosophy. For the past several months (years?), I’ve been training primarily to build some strength and secondarily to build some tone. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting pushed around when I played basketball. Last week, I realized it’s been a really long time since I’ve worked out really hard and pushed myself to do a lot of reps and a lot of exercises in short time. So, I decided I’d go back to a workout similar to what I was doing in high school, but only three days a week instead of five. I’m hopin’ to “lean up” a bit and maybe get some of my speed back on the basketball court while maintaining a reasonable amount of strength. I’m also trying to eat better by eating lots of veggies and focusing on not consuming ridiculous quantities of unhealthy food. We’ll see how that goes…

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Fun out west

Turns out my friends live about 65 miles away, so the drive out and back was a beast. But, I had a great time and got dinner with them and the trip was well worth it. It’s always great to see faces from home, or the other side of Texas, that are familiar.

Bracket almost done

I’ve been working on my bracket since Sunday when the Selections Committee made their choices for the 65 teams competing in this year’s Tourney. It’s always stressful because it’s difficult to know the difference between a bracket that is simply “all favorites” and one that is “the right blend of favorites and upsets”. Someone should figure out a mathematical way to determine how many favorites and how many upsets should be picked. Maybe a points system could be devised so that the differences in seeding are taken into account (to compensate for the difference in likelihood of a 16 upsetting a 1 versus a 9 upsetting an 8 ). So, it would be something like: You get a total of 14 points in upsets. A 9 upsetting an 8 is worth a half point, a 10 upsetting a 7 is worth a full point, an 11 upsetting a 6 is worth 2 points, a 12 upsetting a 5 is worth 4 points, etc. (Of course this method would really need to be based on statistics, so these number have absolutely no meaning.) Then you pick your bracket, count the upset points and see if your bracket is balanced. Of course, this would only get one through the first round, but then, that’s the toughest round to pick. I’m sure a similar method could be used for picking subsequent rounds, but I don’t feel like thinking about this anymore.

I’m pretty happy with my bracket and I also realize that a lot of it comes down to dumb luck and freak occurrences, so I ain’t losin’ any sleep over it.

Finishing Prince Caspian

I’m about to finish the fourth book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, so I’m out. That’s all I have to say about that.

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Bad night’s sleep

I slept pretty badly last night, so I’m hopin’ for a better night tonight. I think the culprit may have been a combination of things, not the least of which was all the light coming in my windows. My bedroom is the best lit room in the apartment and I hate it. I like my bedroom to be as dark as possible because dark means more sleepy time. I think this weekend I might have to go buy some curtains… or at least something to put over the windows (I’m hoping for something other than garbage bags or tin foil).

Off to Ft. Worth

I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth “metro” area, but that title is really pretty deceiving. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving over to Ft. Worth to see a friend who’s in town, but I doubt that drive will feel as though I’m in a “metro” area. It’ll probably be about an hour and a half with lots of traffic and plenty of tolls. I’m not looking forward to the drive, but I am looking forward to hanging out with my friends.

March Madness is here

This post is actually a few days late, but I kept forgetting about the Madness until now. I’ve almost got my bracket finalized and then I’ll be entering at least two pools (both for small stakes: one for 5 bucks, one for 2 buck, winner take all). I won it two years ago and got demolished last year. That’s probably because I feel it’s necessary to take risks to win the pool, and last year’s risks didn’t pay off at all. I’ve tried to educate myself a lot more this year, so hopefully my bracket will look pretty good going into the Sweet 16 (if my teams are good into the round of 16, I feel confident I’ll pick pretty well from there on out).

I guess anyone could say that, though…

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Back from my ~~vacation~~ business trip

All in all, I had a great time and met some great people. While I was there, I went ahead and did some work and spent some time layin’ around my hotel room like a bum. Before I left, I had grand plans of seein’ the sites and hobnobbin’ with the celebrities. Well, as I said in a previous post, I did get to hang with a celebrity for a little while, but that was the extent of my glamorous experience in Hollywood (or en route, really). I really don’t have much to report except that I had a good time, California is beautiful and I hope I can go back some time soon.

Finally bought some clothes

Since I was in middle school, I’ve been in a clothes-buying routine that landed me at the mall every couple years and rarely afforded me any significant changes to my wardrobe. Well, before I graduated and headed out here, I decided that was gonna’ change and I was going to have some sort of a respectable wardrobe. Now, I’m not really into having tons and tons of clothes for all occasions, but I would like to have a good amount of clothes for the situations I encounter regularly: work, workin’ out, sittin’ around my apartment and going out with friends. Although I don’t feel I’ve got everything I need, I’m starting to make progress and much of that progress was made this weekend at the GAP. I bought a few shirts and some pants and such and I’m well on my way. The thing that slowed me down most was my tendency to be picky when selecting clothes. It’s nice to be limited by my tendency to be particular rather than my wallet for a change, though.

Gators in the SEC Tournament Finals

Well, it seems we’ve decided to take a shot at winning our first even SEC Tournament. Yesterday, we played ok against Alabama and our team showed a lot of heart as we held on to win in overtime on a tough baseline jumper by one of our freshman. Today, we struggled early against Vandy, but we pulled away in the second half and turned what could have been a nailbiter into a cakewalk. Tomorrow will certainly be the most difficult game we play, though. We’ve lost to Kentucky four or five consecutive times (although we should’ve beaten ’em earlier this season, but we choked late and totally blew the game) and they’re just the kind of team that gives us fits when they’re on defense. They’re really nothing special on offense, but they know how to jam our perimeter players and deny passes into the paint for our big guys. Their defense–in your face, fast, aggressive and constantly pressing–is the kind of defense that our guys have the worst time with. Essentially, we’re not fast or aggressive enough to take them out of that defense. We’re going to have to find some aggressiveness by tomorrow afternoon if we want to win.

I honestly think we can win, especially if Roberson and Walsh can combine for almost 60 points again, but I’m afraid we won’t. This season, I’ve only seen a few instances (and for very brief durations) where our team played with enough energy to potentially thwart an aggressive team like Kentucky. We’re capable of it, but I just think our guys are too young to understand the necessity of stepping onto the floor at 100% effort and maintaining that intensity for 40 minutes. I hope they prove me wrong.

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Another Florida Basketball loss

Well, I said earlier that I thought the game would be close, but that I couldn’t say who would win. Of course, that was before I saw that Anthony Roberson got 2 fouls in the first 2 minutes of the game. I guess today’s game demonstrated how much Christian Drejer’s departure hurt our team’s depth. Once Roberson went out, that was pretty much it for the first half. Our backup point guards–Ryan Appleby and maybe Lee Humphrey–are both freshman and neither is “battle tested.”

Today’s game was one of the sloppiest I’ve seen on both ends of the floor and for both teams. The up-side is that I think we can beat Kentucky if we keep out of foul trouble (ASIDE: I thought the officials had a huge impact on today’s game… they called Roberson for two early fouls while they seemed relatively quiet on the whistle regarding fouls on Kentucky. I was pleased to see that, later in the game, they began calling fouls on Kentucky for hand-checking, reaching and bumping, but I think it was too little, too late. I mean, it was good to see those fouls being called, but those same fouls were being committed throughout the game, only they weren’t called early. I think that ambiguity had a serious effect on the outcome of the game. END ASIDE) and take better care of the ball. I only hope we get a rematch in the SEC Tourney.

Weird work week

Tomorrow will be the only day this week that I report to work as I usually do. Tuesday through Thursday will be spent either on a plane or in El Segundo, CA and I’ll have the day off on Friday (because I will have my 40 hours in by then). So, I get a short week and I get to fly out to California on the company’s dime. I’m hoping it’ll be as fun as it sounds and hopefully I’ll get some chances to use my camera while I’m out west.

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Designing away

I think I’m about ready to start designing JoshDoody.com. I was going to wait on a friend of mine to help me out, but it sounds like he’s too busy and he may not be getting around to my site for a while. I’m very comfortable with design in general, but I’ve never been too good with aesthetics and such. So, lately, I’ve been reading a lot about different design techniques and I feel I’ve learned enough to design a decent site. I guess I’ll know in a bit.

Lazy Saturday

I played basketball this morning, but I only got two games in. That was frustrating, but what was more frustrating was that I didn’t score any points in either game and I was 0-2. I usually expect to play poorly my first game–I’ve always needed a “warm up” game to get going–but I didn’t expect to play as badly as I did. Granted, I only took one shot in the second game, but that’s because I got so gun shy after my 0-for-5 performance in my first game. I think we could’ve won either game (I think we lost both games by a score of 12-10), but my team just didn’t seem to gel. In the second game, I was guarding my guy out on the perimeter when all of a sudden, I ran smack into a pick. I guess that would’ve been ok if I’d been warned and just didn’t pay attention, but since my teammates never called the pick for me, I was pretty peeved. What was worse was that the guy guarding the pick-setter wasn’t around to switch when I lost my guy. That was one of many easy buckets courtesy of our poor communication.

Later in the day, I took a nap.

This evening, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick up a little blanket to keep by my couch. The couch is right under a vent, so when the A/C comes on, I get chilled. While I was there, I realized how much easier it would’ve been to decorate my apartment if I’d gone there to begin with. I mean, Target and Wal-Mart have a decent selection and decent prices, but they’ve got nothin’ on the Triple-B. I saw a few things there I’ll probably end up going back to get: a couple bar-stools at 30 bucks each and a little “telephone table” that I would put by the front door and use as a place to drop all the stuff outta’ my pockets when I come home from work.

I’m going to sleep now.

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CA or bust

I’m officially going to El Segundo, California for three days next week. It doesn’t sound like all that much, but since Dallas is the farthest west I’ve been since I was about 10, I figure it’s kind of a big deal. Best part of it is that it’s not even on my dime and I only have to work one full day while I’m there.

Florida wins again–four in a row

Well, after losing a tough one to Georgia on their court a few weeks ago, it was nice to hear that the Gators stepped it up at home and split the series. It seems like our guys have really started playin’ big since Christian Drejer shipped out and they couldn’t have picked a better time. We have to play at Kentucky on Saturday, then we get a little time off before the SEC Tourney. A couple weeks ago, I’d have said we wouldn’t have a chance against Kentucky on their floor, but now I’d say it’s anybody’s game. With the offensive fire-power we’ve been able to rustle up, along with our new ability to refrain from choking away close games and small, late leads, I’d say we’re one of the better teams in the SEC.

Billy Donovan said [paraphrase], “Christian Drejer is a great player, but our guys are playing better without him for some reason.” After all the hype that Christian brought with him to America a couple years ago, it’s hard to believe Billy would say that. But he’s right and I’m almost glad Christian left. He was our leading assist man, but he wasn’t contributing too much on defense and he wasn’t being aggressive enough on offense. In the SEC, the more aggressive team often gets the win because of the up-tempo, quick-defense style of basketball that we play. I think Christian just didn’t really fit into that style of basketball. I think that, after a little time as a pro in Europe, he might be able to find a home on an NBA team with a slower, half-court based game. I think he has a lot of work to do before that’s a possibility, but I think it is a possibility.

I’m not going to make any predictions about the game on Sunday, but I will say that I think it’s going to be close. I think the game will be decided by 7 points or less and there will be at least two lead changes under the 10-minute mark.

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Won one on the road

Looks like the Gators pulled out another win today. Although Arkansas was one of the worst teams in the SEC going into today’s game, it was entirely possible that Florida could find a way to lose. They tried to, but managed winning in spite of a late-game meltdown that brought the Hogs within 5 points as the clock expired.

We had trouble with turnovers, just as we’ve had the past few games. I think that’s the one area of the game where losing Drejer has really hurt us. He protected the ball, made smart passes and always finished with several assists. Other guys–Roberson, Walsh–are stepping up and getting assists, but they’re not protecting the ball like they should be. I think we had about 20 turnovers today and that’s just unacceptable. The reason turnovers hurt us so much is that we simply can’t get back and stop the other team from scoring after we turn the ball over; we’re just not fast enough. Our defense is slow anyway, and giving the team multiple opportunities to explicitly exploit our slow transition defense is not a good way to win close games.

I think we’re doing pretty well offensively, but if our perimeter game goes cold for a day, we’ll be struggling to win. That may or may not be a problem with so many great shooters–Roberson, Walsh, Abukar, Humphrey–that can tow the line. I’m looking forward to closing out our SEC schedule against Georgia and Kentucky. If we can with both those games, it’ll give us a huge boost of confidence as we move into the NCAA Tourney, regardless of how we perform in the SEC Tourney.