game 7: moving on up

we entertained the top team, Hobas, on saturday. they were veteran laden and experienced a team we had to beat with our brains not our brawn. was pretty nervous before the game this week. a bit more so than usual for whatever reason.

i caught a few early fast breaks, then 3 minutes into the first quarter this ref calls me for 2 quick fouls, the first of which i can understand, the second one nothing, and he was 8 feet away from me so no excuse for bad angle or anything. this dude just made prick call after prick call all game on us, blatantly too. the other ref was good but it was like this one dude was in their pocket. he looked like rickey gervais from the original bbc version of the show the office(ref on the right in picture below)he called an intentional foul on our power forward vendelbo where he was chasing down a guy on a break and as the dude went to lay it in... he comes from behind and blocks the shot outta bounds. sure, he got his hand at the same time and it was a foul.... but he calls an intentional with no body contact. then later in the game the exact same play, exact, happens to us and he just calls a regular foul. they were getting away with slapping the ball outta our hands on made baskets and stuff. then at the end of the third quarter we are up by 8... get the ball on the side with 4 seconds left. we call a play and corrie nails a three. go to the huddle. come back out ready to start the Q. the refs say that the clock operators hadn't started the clock properly on the final play of the third so they make us run the play over, the basket hadn't counted. so of course we don't get shit the second time around. then they send us back to the huddle again. i swear i have never seen such garbage refereeing that i see here on a week in week out basis. it sucks as an import player because you don't get the calls that the danish players would and they are of the mentality that if you are bigger than the other player that you don't get as many calls, i see it watching endre get hacked every week. i feel sorry for danish players because thats all they know and must just get accustomed to thinking that that is just the way it is. i really don't care if they call it tight or call it loose, i just can't stand when they call it inconsistently and with bias.

anyways the coach decides to sit me for the final 17 minutes of the first half which was tough. i could understand till the end of the first quarter or a few minutes into the second but in a game against one of the top teams that you are losing and watching the deficit grow i don't agree with sitting one of your best players for that long. i wasn't really trying to say anything about it, trying to stay positive but it was a big risk not worth taking, basically you ice the player and take them outta the game mentally. its different if a players strength is defense cuz that can be turned on easily but an offensive player needs to stay in the flow. luckily i came in and was able to be effective, we flipped an 11 pt halftime deficit into a lead by outscoring them 36-16 in the third quarter. i hit a bunch of three's and was hitting on drives and posts. i didn't do much defensively, after the first couple fouls my ankle got rolled and was pretty tender and i was kinda glad they never really tried to come at me offensively cuz i wasn't even gonna breathe on them defensively with those refs eyeballing me. we went back and forth in the final quarter, hit some free throws when we needed to and got some timely scores. we won 100-94. its not often the opponent scores 94 and loses. but i give them credit, they knew how to pass, had good spacing and hit the glass. simple but effective.

we were well balanced on offense for once. i had 29pts(copped 25 in the second half) and 7reb. dieldler had a great game, this dude had 23pts and stayed settled and made good decisions, i was real proud of him. corrie had the pull up 3 working and had 21pts, carrying us along with vendelbo in the first half. endre had 17pts and his regular workhouse 15+ rebounds

our coach peter... probably pleading with us to play some defense

diedler on the break

Our second mens team that i coach is rolling. we are undefeated in their league and these guys are really looking better week by week. we need to start pulling more of them up to the top team to give us some spark and so we can get them some more first team experience. having young, hungry athletic players waiting in the wings is a great thing.

chris bailey: him and anders are wesley and woody

anders with a big block on a nice pic

lasse coming is hard