Sports Journal February 2019

2-2-19

I had vague plans to hang out with Ron today, but I wasn’t sure when or where.  While I was sort of in flux, I decided to listen to the UTEP Miner Women versus the Western Kentucky Lady-Toppers (or Lady Hilltoppers?).  I wasn’t going to take any notes on this unless it got interesting, which it did.  It didn’t look good for the Miners even before the game.  They only had seven players available, but it was more like six-and-a-half with one of the girls coming back from injury.   

The Toppers are a good team in C-USA and showed it at the start of the first quarter as they went up 12-2.  But, the Miners came back.  By the start of the second they’d tied it up and took the lead.  They were even up by 12 at one point, but finished up 36-30 at the half. 

By the third, another Miner player was injured just as Toppers tied the score.  Still, the Miners were up by six going into the fourth.  The Lady-Toppers tied it up again, but the score remained close.  As the game became more dramatic, the good-sounding crowd got even more into it.  There was some fan by the microphone screaming his head off at the refs.    

The Miners regained a slim lead late, but were fouling too much.  Zuzanna Puc fouled out.  They might have only had five players available at that point.  Zuzy shook hands with the ref as she left the court.  The Toppers took the lead on free throws.  By this point, the Aggie Men’s basketball pregame was on that I really wanted to listen to, so I was flipping back and forth.

There was lots of contention on the final plays, but the Miners lost 64-61.  The announcers were happy with the competitive effort.  Even Coach Baker was pleased with his girls afterward against a much better team.  For some reason, the girls went into stands afterward to thank the fans.  Damn, why wasn’t I there so I could finally meet Katerina Zec!  I’d be there in an Aggie shirt telling her, “I still root for you, Kat!  I can’t help it!”

Meanwhile, the Aggie Men were playing an odd mid-afternoon game to accommodate some national TV coverage against versus Chicago State.  The Aggies are leading the WAC at 7-1, while the Cougars are winless in conference.  In truth, I was more interested in the pregame than the game.    

Former Aggie Coach Reggie Theus was back in town for an on-court ceremony.  The women in Las Cruces were all now suddenly basketball fans again.  Justin Hawkins, one of his former players and the color commentator, recollected a 2007 New Year’s Day game with Chicago State.  Coach Theus and actress Tara Reid were both throwing parties at team’s hotel in Chicago the night before.  There like 40 people at game the next day and the Aggies nearly lost.

“He walks among us,” said Jack Nixon as Reggie came over to chat.  Again, I was flipping back-and-forth on the radio.  (This was the worst possible timing for me.)  Hawk was in awe.  Jack was a bit more skeptical, but happy to see him.  Reggie said he would “school” his players out on court in practice, playing for money, just to prove his abilities.  Reggie said he wasn’t necessarily “the smartest guy in the room,” but he always tried to know what his players were capable of and would then put them in a position to where they could succeed.  His former players still call him, even a kid he’d kicked off the team and took away his scholarship (he came back as a walk-on).     

Here’s where I’d like to recap the game, but I can’t do it with any honesty.  Ron came by about ten minutes into the first half to watch some TV shows he’d downloaded, and he brought food (that was very nice of him).  The reason I was willing to turn off the game so easily was because it wasn’t much of a game even early on. 

It sounded like a good, happy crowd.  (No doubt there were a bunch of women there standing in line wanting to talk to Reggie.)  Clayton Henry was popping three’s early.  According to the newspaper account, the team did well with 15 made-three’s for the game.  83-39 Aggies was the final.  Terrell Brown led the team with 19 points.  I’m assuming the bench got in a lot of work today. 

The Aggie Women were also playing Chicago State today on the road.  I’m going to assume it was still cold there with aftereffects of the polar vortex.  There wasn’t any live coverage of the game, but when Ron called me, he told me that they’d won big from the final posted on the team Twitter.  The final was 87-66 Aggies and was announced during the Men’s game coverage.   

From the paper, I got more details.  Gia Pack was still playing thankfully, so her injury in the last game wasn’t enough to take her out.  She had 11 points and scored her 1,000-th point.  Brooke Salas led with 28 points.  Monique and Dominique Mills both scored in double digits.  That is awesome.  Usually it’s only one sister or the other doing the scoring in a game.  I wouldn’t count on all four of these young women scoring that much in a game against the other teams in the conference, but it’s good to know they’re capable of it.  I forgot to mention last time, but this Aggie team is also in first place in the WAC.

2-3-19

I thought I would be doing extensive Superbowl coverage today.  I had planned on watching all eight hours of pregame coverage.  Somehow, that didn’t work out, but I was sure I would be watching the game itself.  But then, I noticed TBD was doing a marathon of Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop show and I had to watch that instead. 

I started flipping around during the commercials, but I just couldn’t find the game.  I don’t know where it was.  The closest I could find was an MLS match between the New England Revolution and the LA Galaxy.  The Revolution went up 3-nil at halftime, but the Galaxy made a great comeback and tied it 3-3 with 15 minutes left in the match.  This must have been the most exciting and highest-scoring soccer match of all time.  I missed the end though, since it was soccer and I don’t care, unless Alex Morgan is playing.  It probably just ended in a tie anyway.  Typical soccer. 

Okay, enough jokes at the NFL’s expense.  BECAUSE I HAD $10,000 ON THE OVER AND NOW I HAVE TO GO BACK TO PROSTITUTION IN MY SPARE TIME INSTEAD OF WRITING!  I wasn’t really rooting for the Patriots, but congratulations to Tom Brady for making all of those sports “experts,” who have been throwing dirt on the Patriots’ grave all season, puke all over themselves with yet another Superbowl victory. 

I really only watched the end of the game.  I did watch the postgame on TV Azteca so I could see the annual ritual of Ines Saenz charging on to the field to interview random players with her heavy accent.  At least the Mexican network has the good sense to have a glamorous blonde doing this, certainly the most likely candidate to engage the players whether they could understand her or not. 

So much for football this season.  I hope we can get back what the NFL does best next season: head injuries, domestic abuse, and social justice.  I do think the league broke some new ground with poor officiating this year though.  They can build on that.