20050223

It's been almost a week, but I haven't stopped thinking about my final FBC basketball league game I played in last Thursday. Definitely one of the most exciting and fun basketball games I have ever taken part in. In an attempt to never forget about it, and tell all of you about the fun, here is what occured.

First of all, the the season was pretty bad, we were 2-7 coming into the game, with both wins coming against the same Rolling Hills team (which just happened to feature former FBC players). All but one of our games were competitive, but we always came up just short.

Our final game of the year was against Tusculum Hills, who we had lost to earlier in the season by just a few points. In that game we had trailed by 15 at the start of the 4th quarter before cutting it to 4 points with a couple minutes left.

In warm-ups, our best player, my brother Keith, strained his hamstring and wasn't sure if he would be able to run or jump. His mobility would be limited, but he still played well.

The first half was close, with Tusculum Hills leading by 4 or 5 points most of the time. I had my best offensive half of the season, scoring 13 points. Keith was off, but with the bum hamstring, we couldn't blame him. We trailed 19-15 at the end of the 1st quarter, and we trailed by 8 with seconds left in the half. Tusculum double-teamed Keith as time wound down, but he found me on the opposite wing and I hit a 3-pointer (my only one of the season) as time expired. We trailed 33-28 at the half. A very high-scoring half for us, as our season high for points in a game was 56 which we had the previous week.

Keith decided at half-time, because of his injury, he would just stand at the 3 point line the whole time and see if they would guard him.

We came out flat as the second half started, had lots of turnovers, and their 5 point lead soon grew to 12. The other team was also killing us physically as Keith caught an elbow to the face, busting his chin open, and I got scratched in the eye (neither called fouls). At this point we decided to pass the ball to Keith as he stood wide open in the corner. He hit 3-pointers on three consecutive possessions and we cut the lead back to 5. We scored the last points of the quarter on a steal and lay-up by Jason to trail 50-47 at the end of the third.

The 4th quarter was close the entire time, with neither team leading by more than 3 points. With about a minute left we trailed 64-61. Ralph got a steal near mid-court, drove to the basket, made the lay-up, and got fouled. Ralph, a terrible foul shooter (along with the rest of our team excluing Keith and John), made the free throw to tie the game at 64. We held them on defense the following possesion. Keith made a great drive to the basket with about 20 seconds left, got hammered by two defenders, and for a second I saw a potential 3-point play. But the ball rolled off the rim, and more amazingly, there was no foul call.

Tusculum had the ball, tie-game, 15 seconds left. We played great defense once again, and as the clock wound down Keith had one of his many blocks. I saw overtime coming until one of the officials blew his whistle with 1 second left calling a phantom foul. One of their best free-throw shooters was on the line needing only to make 1 of 2 free throws to win the game. He missed both short though sending the game into overtime!

Overtime wasn't much of a contest, we were much fresher and quicker and drew a foul on almost every possession. Keith made 5 of 6 free throws in overtime and we won 73-68. Thus ended one of the best basketball games I have ever played in! I finished with 22 points, but a pathetic 1-5 from the free throw line. Keith probably had 28, and shot great on free throws as he did all season. I know in at least one game he was 10 for 10.

Pretty sad that a game like this can mean so much to me, but I love competition and rarely get it at this point in my life! I also keep being reminded of this game because of severe floor burn on my right hand and both elbows.

(Listening to: The Appleseed Cast- Two Conversations)
(for 5 free full-length Appleseed concert bootleg downloads, go here)