Category: Personal

AAU Basketball in Vegas: Day 2

As I posted yesterday, I’m in Las Vegas for several days for the Adidas Super 64 basketball tournament. The teams play in age group categories (17 and under, 16 and under, etc.) and the first two days are pool play to decide which teams make the Championship bracket and which ones play in a lower bracket.

In the case of the 16Us (where my son Joe and nephew Tom play for the Minnesota Fury Gold), there are 88 teams in pools of four. Four of those (Pools A-D) are “Super Pools” in which all four teams make the Championship bracket. Those 16 teams all happen to be sponsored by Adidas. Coincidence?

In the remaining 18 pools (E-V), after the four teams play each other in round robin format, the two top teams make the 52-team Championship bracket. Our Fury Gold boys won big yesterday, and had a nice 46-32 win this morning against a team nominally from Texas, but which had a strong international flavor. Here are the highlights:


Since our boys are 2-0 in the pool, they’re now guaranteed a spot in the Championship bracket. They play the Utah Pump-n-Run 16s (also 2-0) tonight for the Pool P top seed. See the tournament site for bracket seeding. Check out what happened in Pool H, for instance. Three teams finished 2-1, and use a tiebreaker of cumulative victory margin. So even though they all had the same record in pool play, and a winning record at that, Iowa Pump N Run misses the Championship bracket by a single point. Our Fury Gold boys had exactly that experience earlier in the year in a tournament in Lawrence, Kansas.

The Super Pool teams get an advantage in that they all make the Championship bracket and the top three teams in each Super Pool also get a bye to the round of 32. Even so, I have to say this is the best-run tournament I’ve experienced. In addition to the 88 16U boys teams, they have about 180 17U teams here, as well as smaller brackets in the boys’ 15s and 14s, and also 17U and 16U girls. They have a neat iPhone app too, that updates scores and gives directions to the game venues.

It’s also fun to see some of the top national college coaches here scouting the talent. At one game I watched today, Coach “K” from Duke was just across the court (he’s in the white shirt in the middle):

And just a few feet away was his rival, UNC Tar Heel coach Roy Williams (standing in pink):

If the Fury win tonight, they’ll play the #4 team from Pool A. If they lose, they play the winner of Pool J.

I’ll update this post with video after the Utah game.

Updated (7/24/11): The Utah PNR win was so impressive it deserves its own post.

 

AAU Basketball in Las Vegas

I’m in Las Vegas today through Tuesday for the Adidas Super 64 basketball tournament, as our Minnesota Fury Gold 16U team (my son Joe Aase and nephew Tom Aase, as well as their Austin High teammate Zach Wessels are members) is participating in one of the largest events in the NCAA July evaluation period.

The tournament organization seems to be making full use of technology and social media (here is its Twitter account, and it’s using the #Super64 hashtag).

More updates to come as the week unfolds.

Update: The Fury Gold defeated San Pedro, CA this morning in their only game today. The final was 67-39; the halftime score was 46-20 and the Fury coasted the rest of the way. Here are the video highlights:

Tomorrow’s games will be tougher.

Search for the Dumbest School Fight Song

Our basketball games in the Chicago suburbs this weekend in the King James Summer Showcase (my son Joe was playing in the 16U division) were held at Lake Zurich (IL) High School. As I was reading the list of conference and section championships won by the Lake Zurich Bears, I also couldn’t help notice the words to their school fight song, on a placard donated by the class of 2005 (click to enlarge):

We’re loyal to you, Zurich High

We’re white and we’re blue, Zurich High

We’ll back you to stand against the best in the land

For we know you have sand, Zurich High (Rah! Rah!)

So bat out that ball. Zurich High

We’re backing you all. Zurich High

Our team is our fame protector on bears for we expect

A victory from you, Zurich High!

Chatee, Cha Ha! Cha Ha Ha!

Fighting Bears, Fighting Bears, Rah, Rah, Rah!

“For we know you have sand?” Really? And while I’m sure some of the punctuation and phrasing was missing, I was scratching my head at “Our team is our fame protector on bears….”

When I was growing up in Austin, Minnesota I always thought our school fight song was pretty solid, with maybe just one glitch:

Win, Win, Win for old Austin High!

We’re gonna win this victory!

Win, Win, Win for old Austin High!

Winners we’ll always be! Rah! Rah! Rah!

Go, go, go for Scarlet and White!

Our colors stand for might!

Waving for those courageous and bold, so

Fight! Fight! Fight!

“Winning this victory” seemed a little redundant, but overall I think it’s a pretty solid fight song.

Here’s your chance to get in on the fun as we crowdsource the best and worst of school fight songs. In the comments below, post the lyrics from your school song (whether high school or college) and/or those from your arch rival. Depending on the level of response and interest we may select some finalists and vote have a public vote.

I know I’ve seen some pretty bad school song lyrics in high school gyms throughout the midwest, and I’m sure there are many more like them. This is a chance to bring them all together in one place to give them the recognition they deserve.

Let’s get this contest started! Rah! Rah! Chatee, Cha ha!

Update: Just to clarify, I’m not calling Zurich High’s the dumbest school fight song. I hope the revised headline makes that point. I would like to know what the context of “we know you have sand” is, but maybe there’s a really good explanation that would be extraordinarily meaningful. I’m just using some song lyrics that struck me as funny to crowdsource (and celebrate) a list of interesting and peculiar fight songs that may have made sense at the time they were written, but for which the lingo is way out of date. And it’s all in good fun.

Further update: This from a reader in Illinois: “The Zurich song borrows heavily from the Illinois fight song – Illinois Loyalty. Illinois Loyalty was written around 1906, when “having sand” alluded to the strength and utility of sand bags on the farm.”

Basketball Recruiting Season Begins

My son Joe has just finished his sophomore year of high school, and so as a member of the Class of 2013 this was the first day he could receive calls from Division I basketball coaches, according to NCAA rules. Today he’s talked with coaches from Cal Poly, Illinois-Chicago and South Dakota State. It’s an interesting process, and our first experience with it at the D1 level.

Joe has had a fun spring season with the Minnesota Fury Gold 16U team (along with two other players from his Austin High School team – his cousin Tom, also a sophomore, and freshman Zach Wessels.) Their Fury team is 35-4 on the spring and is playing great team ball. They resume tournament action in July, playing the King James Summer Showcase in Chicago, the Best Buy Pump N Run tournament in Minneapolis and the Adidas Super 64 in Las Vegas.

In June, Joe, Tom and Zach are playing with their Austin High School teammates in several team camps. This weekend they play at Iowa State University in Ames, and last weekend it was in Cedar Falls at University of Northern Iowa. Here are Joe’s highlights from the game against the Howard Pulley 16U team, one of the top AAU all-star teams in the state. Joe was 11/14 from the field (8/9 from three-point range) and had 30 points. The Packers dropped an 86-84 contest on two free throws by Siyani Chambers with :06 remaining.

Note: This video includes every shot Joe took in the Pulley game. I thought it was helpful to show the misses as well as the makes. And at the 1:00 mark I missed the finish on his breakaway dunk. It’s kind of hard to get all the action when you’re sitting under the basket instead of at midcourt.

Here is a more extended highlight reel that is mostly made up of footage from Joe’s sophomore season in high school.

We’re looking forward to what should be a fun Summer. I’ll occasionally post some updates here in the coming months. See the Packer Fast Break Club site for more in-depth coverage.

United Breaks Guitars. Delta Saves iPads. And Psyches.

Dave Carroll’s experience with the baggage handlers (and customer service staff) for United Airlines has become legendary thanks to his ballads about the matter, which have accumulated 12.9 million views together. Here’s the first and most famous of the videos:

And here’s the sequel:

And finally the third installment:

I had a somewhat different experience this week on Delta, as I flew into La Guardia for a couple of days in New York. It seems I had tucked my iPad behind me after using it during the flight, and I hurriedly got off the plane and left it behind. About a half hour after I left the airport, I got a call from the gate agent who said they would hold it at the Delta baggage office until I got back to the airport on Friday. Definitely nicer than Ms. Ihrlweg.

I hadn’t yet noticed my iPad was missing, and wouldn’t have until i got to my hotel room and wanted to use it. Then I would have freaked out and been frantically calling Delta, or possibly would have resigned myself to the loss, or at minimum would have been anxious and distracted for two days until I could back to the airport and check at the baggage office. So it was great that Delta saved my iPad. Also great that someone called to tell me they had it, to save me the anxiety.

Thanks, Delta!