I watched
a basketball game the other night. The Georgetown Hoyas faced off against the
Syracuse Orange in the semifinals of the Big East tournament. Full disclosure:
the Hoyas are the basketball team affiliated with the university that I
currently attend. That might explain any overblown, hateful bile I eventually
eject towards the group one might expect me to hold so beloved.
The Hoyas
and the Orange had faced off twice before during the season. The Hoyas won both
games, the second of which was a complete blowout in which Syracuse score the
least points in a game ever. For these reasons, it was expected that Georgetown
would win again last Friday night. These pundits forget the perpetual
disappointment that is associated with the Hoya basketball program during the
postseason.[1]
So the
Hoyas lost. And they deserved to have lost. They played quite terribly.
I've
never seen a basketball team do what Georgetown did and expect to be
successful. Three players stood at the top of the three point line whirl two
stood on the baseline. The ball was passed between the three stationary players
at the three point line and the two payers closest to the basket basically
stood still and watched. Not to get to technical, but this is a terrible
strategy, especially when the other team is player a 2-3 zone defense (as
Syracuse famously does). Nobody went to the basket. Nobody tried to overload
areas of the court to try to create mismatches. Everyone just stood still and
waited. It was terrible to watch, even from an objective point of view, like
seeing an old lady at the supermarket push with all her might against a door
that she needed to pull. The Hoya fans with whom I watched were apoplectic.
The
absolutely weird thing about the game on Friday is that Georgetown had
dominated the previous games against Syracuse. Not only that, but they had
played pretty fantastically during the rest of the season, finishing with one
of the best records in the Big East and a top five national ranking. The genius
"stand in one spot and pass the ball around the perimeter of the
court" had somehow worked all year, which is a stunning testament to the amount
of talent Georgetown puts on the floor.
Maybe
Syracuse finally figured something out, resulting in a pretty stunning result.
Maybe, as their dominant performance in the first half of their game against
Louisville the next day would indicate, they got in a groove and were playing
above their true level for a few games in a big tournament. Or maybe the Hoyas
offense, although successful, is actually terribly and irrevocably flawed. I
think it's the third one.
Who knew
that standing around while waiting for something good to happen but never
actually doing anything to enable something good to happen does not generally
result in something good happening?[2] I certainly didn't.
It's a
little funny how things can work out that way too, when we discover that
something we think is so good is actually pretty terrible. I imagine this is
how the Chinese felt when their government finally allowed McDonald's and KFC
to build food shacks in Shanghai and Beijing, or how Republicans in the US felt
when they finally heard Sarah Palin speak in public.
It feels
good when we operate under the paradigm that what we are and what we do and
what we believe in isn't stupid crap, right? Unfortunately that isn't the case.
We might not never play a game in which we get shut out or run in an election
during which we find out a vast majority of the voting public hates us and what
we believe in. But those are the moment s worth having. Because, obviously,
those are the moments we have an opportunity to learn from.
Maybe
(hopefully) Hoya coach John Thompson III draws up a few plays for the big NCAA
tournament. Maybe (hopefully) the throws in some pick and rolls or some slash
and kicks to spice things up. Maybe the team will start to move, start to work
for some points instead of waiting around for the other team to make a
defensive mistake.
But that
might not happen. Habits are hard to beak and it's easier to ignore our
mistakes than acknowledge that we are wrong.
But what
am I doing here on this blog if not perpetuating that horrible, whine-filled
reality.
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