Looking into the past

Playoff games, it’s what basketball players live for, the excitement of having the possibility to send the other team packing (eliminate them) while your team advances and keeps getting closer to that all allusive final in order to compete for the championship. This is the story of my teams’ playoff game, before you jump to conclusions, it doesn’t have your typical storybook ending.

It started when we entered as the eight and final playoff seed of course we were destined to become a great Cinderella story. Our rivals (the number one seed) had cruised through their season and came in undefeated, enough details lets get to the action.

As the game commenced the crowd, and my team, realized just why our opponents were the number one seed. These guys had skill, size, speed, and toughness. To cut it straight to the point, by halftime we were down by 15 points. The coach’s speech wasn’t the most inspiring piece you’ll ever hear he went from your occasional “These guys are not better than you” to “We have got to try harder” but in the locker-room it was quite clear that we had given up.

When the second half of the game begun all of the sudden our shots started going in, the opponents were now making mistakes that didn’t occur in the first half, and last of all, by the end of the 3^rd quarter we managed to cut the lead to 7 points.

Entering into the 4^th and final quarter we had regained our spirits, and all of the sudden we believed in the possibility of a comeback. To save you guys pages and pages of basketball terminology Ill cut my story down to the last 20 seconds of the game. My team was now down by 2 points, as I ran the office I found a wide-open teammate, I quickly passed him the ball and he managed to get an easy lay-up. The game now tied with 12 seconds remaining all we had to do was stop them from scoring, and we would send the game into overtime. As the person I was marking moved down the court I shuffled my feet according to his body movement, when out of nowhere he ran into me and lost possession of the basketball. My teammates, and the crowd jumped with excitement at the realization that we had a chance to win the game. Until it all came crashing down, with all the cheering going on nobody realized that the referee had blown his whistle in order to indicate a foul on me, with all the emotion around the court, and my adrenaline level being so high I lost control of my emotion and swore out the referee for the foul call. With my actions there came consequences as I was tossed out the game, and the referee awarded the opposite team with one free throw and only 3 seconds on the clock. I watched from outside as our opponent made the free throw, and the clock crumbled down to zero. There went our chances of advancing.

When I look at that situation in hindsight it was a pretty stupid decision on my part to stop playing basketball after that game, but from that moment on I learned one thing, cooler heads always prevail.

From your friendly (cooler head) frog at MRU goodbye.