Hereafter

[Wayne23]

3/17: We take an early lead. Up 10 after 10. Up 20 at halftime. We're too big and too quick. Up 23 after 30.

80-67. Never a threat. 20, 4 for Sims and great D, 16, 4, 5, 3 steals for Blen, 11, 9 for Akpo, 10, 6 for Milt. Very good bench play.

+15 RBs. +12 at the line. We owned the paint.

#6 seed, #25 ranked Syracuse, 23-10, in Round 2. They have a solid backcourt. We look much better inside. They have trouble scoring but they defend well. We should have a big edge on the boards. If we do we'll be fine.

We get another good look at the rogue planet in a few hours.

[Wayne23]

3/19: Close early. Down 2 after 10. We're shooting poorly. Down 4 at the break. Can't make a shot. BIG trouble. Down 14 with 10 left. It's not happening.

55-69. We shot .339, 4-18 on threes, and they were +10 at the line. Terrible night.

Akpo ends his career with a terrible night, 2 and 6. He sprained a finger just before halftime and that was that. He tried to go but was ineffective. We scored a pathetic 24 in the 2nd half without him. He only played 5 minutes in the 2nd.

-3 RBs, 21 TOs. A disappointing end to a decent season.

4/3: #3 Duke beats #5 Memphis by 1 and is the national champ. Syracuse got to the Final Four.

4/4: Awards: Akpo is a 2nd team All American. In conf., Akpo makes the 1st team, Nat Sims makes 2nd.

Will I move after 2 seasons here? If the right offer comes, yes.

Shocking news from the probe. There was a civilization on this planet. There are ruins of all sorts of structures. Lots of data, photos, video coming back. The Captain has said that we'll explore the surface, first with robots, and then, if it seems safe, with humans. Exciting. I want to be part of the team. That will be in about 3 weeks.

4/9: We're staying here.

4/21: We are in orbit and the robots have been sent down to the surface.

4/22: The data being sent up to the ship indicates a fairly primitive civilization. The buildings are simple. The “cities” look small, maybe a few thousand at most. No transportation beyond the equivalent of horse and cart.

4/23: I ask for a facilities upgrade. It would help with recruiting.

Yes! C+ to B+.

28-7. 231-77, .750 overall after 9 seasons..

4/24: I am on the planet's surface. There's not much to see. It's hard to know what ended this civilization. They had markets, simple but useful buildings, for housing mostly. No sophisticated manufacturing or transportation.

Did they die of disease? Starvation? No sign that there was a war, but spears and bow and arrow seem to have been their most sophisticated weapons.

They never developed writing.

4/30: We're back on the ship. We never learned how this civilization ended. The assumption is disease since there is no sign of war.

The most important thing that happened here is that we confirmed what we kind of already knew. We are not the only intelligent life in the universe. That changes everything. We will inevitably encounter other sentient beings, sooner or later. That is fascinating and potentially very dangerous.

[Wayne23]

5/1: Only one recruit.

We buy the West Coast Gold, and the National and International basic reports.

Did the planet leaving orbit destroy the civilization. We don't think so. It seems like the civilization died of something else.

6/5: No one is leaving. So no open spots for transfers.

We're still looking at videos, photos, and analyzing the reports of those of us who went down to the rogue planet's surface. Nothing to indicate that we were wrong regarding the low level of technology on the planet. It seems to have been a very simple society. They died of disease or starvation, long before whatever happened that took the planet out of orbit.

6/25: We're going to the Indy Elite camp.

6/26: 5 slots to fill. We probably want 2 guards and 3 bigs, but maybe 4 bigs.

Akpo was not drafted. I'm shocked! 2nd team All American!

8/7: Nobody on the Norton list.

Things are going very smoothly on board the ship. It never lasts but it's nice while it's happening.

We have 8 probes out. We've sent them in 8 different directions and we'll keep them at maximum distance from the ship while still able to communicate. Now that it's clear there is other sentient life out there we want the earliest warning possible.

8/21: We offer to a PG, an SF, 2 PFs, and a C. All of them have us in their top 10.

8/28: I decide to red shirt Len Burd. He has a ton of confidence but he's simply not ready.

8/30: Burd is NOT happy. Hope I don't lose him. He has a lot of potential.

9/18: Got 2, an SF, #62 (our top rated recruit), and a C, #81. Close with at least 2 of the other three, maybe all of them.

In the WS Midwest vs. Morehead. Definitely a challenging schedule.

9/25: Got the other 3 (Recruiting is set at Normal, FYI), Our only PG, #73, a PF, #80, another PF, #94.

Nothing from any of the 8 probes. No news is good news.

[Wayne23]

10/2: 1st day of practice. Jay Ward is a soph transfer from Kansas ST. He'll challenge Tim Smid for the PG job. Mal Mann is a junior transfer from Syracuse. He looks like our best player. Sims and Blen will battle it out for the SF spot. Maxx is solid at SG and Hart will start at C.

10/30: I like what I'm seeing. We're picked to win a tough PAC 12. We'll see.

11/14: We start tomorrow. Here's the lineup:

Junior Tim Smid and soph Jay Ward will divide time about equally at PG and as backup SG. Let's see who wants it more.

Junior Kent Maxx is back at SG.

Senior Jon Blen has looked better on D than senior Nat Sims and he'll start at SF, but Sims is breathing down his neck.

We expect big things from junior transfer Mal Mann at PF.

Senior Flip Hart is back at C.

Those are the 7 who will get most of the PT but I won't hesitate to play senior guard Hal Huss and junior C/PF Sam Milt if I need to.

We start off with Kona, here,. They seem to have a solid backcourt, but I like ours a lot. We're better inside.

[Wayne23]

11/15: Close early. Up 7 after 10. Maxx is scoring. Up 21 at the break. Up 17 with 10 left.

73-57. Solid D but the O was meh. 15, 6, 6 for Kent Maxx, 16, 4 for Blen. 13, 2, 5 for #3 guard Jay Ward.

Only 9 TOs. We took 14 more shots, made 6.

Decent start but not great. Mal Mann, from whom we're expecting a great deal, had 7, 12, and his D could have been better. If we're going anywhere this year he needs to do better.

1-0 FL ST is here. They have a very good back court. They looked really good in their opener.

Still nothing of interest from the 8 probes and all is well on the ship.

[Wayne23]

11/18: Close. They can play. Down 1 after 10. Up 3 at the half. Mini-run! Up 4 with 10 to play.

68-62. Early on we look like we're going to be a really good defensive team that needs to score more.

17, 13 for Mann, and that's what we hope to see from him! 19, 6, 3 for Maxx. 13, 4 for Blen. Hart needs to wake up, as does Sims. We need more from the bench.

10 TOs. We're taking care of the ball so far. We didn't shoot well but we took 13 more shots.

All 5 recruits sign. YAY!

We're off to the WS Midwest. We're the #2 seed. We play #7, Morehead ST, 0-1. This is a team we should beat.

[Wayne23]

11/21: We're ranked! #24.

They're hanging in early. Up 12 after 10, we went on a run. Up 24 at the half. We're running away with it. They just don't have the talent to match us. Up 23 with 10 left.

80-62. Great D again. 17, 4, 4 for SF Jon Blen. 10, 14, 3 for PF Mal Mann, who is a real glass eater; he's leading the nation in RBs with 13.0. It's early, of course. 14, 3, 3 for Hart, 13, 3, 4 for Maxx.

+7 RBs, 11 TOs. We shot 49.3%. 34-16 in the paint.

Jay Ward is simply outplaying Tim Smid. He's going to start at PG.

#6 seed Iona, 2-0, easily upset Vanderbilt. We play them in the semis. This was the only upset in round 1. They score a LOT of points but they don't defend the way we do.

They score many of the points inside. It's early but they're shooting 60% from the field! They get a lot of assists but they also turn it over quite a bit. We'll need to make that happen.

The food has been really good lately. Lots of Mexican, Indian, Thai... I love all of that. There are lots of choices and something for everyone when there aren't any supply issues, and there haven't been any lately.

[Wayne23]

11/22: I decided to go man-to-man all the way... well, all the way if it works!

They're shooting 50%, so it's not working. Down 10 after 10. I ramp up the level of D. Down 11 at halftime; not good. We take our first lead! Up 3 with 10 to go. OT! Double OT!

99-105. Damn! We played catch up most of the time and that rarely works out well. Our first game where there were a lot of fouls called and that was the difference, 30-39 for them, 22-25 for us. We didn't play our usual good D; my fault. I should have taken us out of the man and gone back to my usual switching of Ds. They shot 48.6% to our 42%. We took 11 more shots, which kept us in it.

22 TOs, by FAR our most of the season. They had 24. They outrebounded us by 3.

17, 10 for 6th man Nat Sims, his first really good game this season. 16, 9 for Mann, 16, 3 for Blen. They beat us outside; their guards scored more than we expected. Our best bench play of the season, but it wasn't enough. Hart just isn't getting it done. Thinking about giving Sims and maybe even Milt more minutes at C.

I hate to lose before the finals of an early season tourney!

Iona beat #2, #3, and #4 to win the tourney.

Indiana, 3-0, is here next. They're playing well but they haven't played anybody. They do play excellent D. They don't have a go to scorer.

[Wayne23]

11/25: Slow start for both teams. They take the lead. Down 9 after 10. Yep, they're D is good! Down 1 at the break. Mini-run. Milt is hot. Up 6 with 10 left. We take charge late!

78-63 but it took a while! 17, 4, for Milt, 15, 3 for Hart10, 9, 3 for Mann.

+8 RBs, 9 TOs. We took 14 more shots and made 5, but were +13 at the line. They made 8 more threes though.

We owned the paint, +26 in the paint, +11 2nd chances.

Bad news. Kent Maxx has back spasms and he'll miss 2 games. NOT good! Smid will start at PG, Ward will shift to SG, and Hal Huss will be the first guard off the bench.

3-0 Miami is here. They dropped from the top 25 for some reason, probably strength of schedule. We're #23, even with the loss. Miami has good guards and a very good C.

They score easily and play tough D. They shoot the three very well. On paper we're in trouble, particularly with Maxx out. We'll just need to dig deep!

[Wayne23]

11/29: Back and forth. Tied after 10. Mini-run. Up 9 at the half. Up 9 with 10 left. They make a strong late charge.

63-62. They missed a 12 footer at the buzzer. Whew! Another game where we show strong D but have trouble scoring.

18, 7 for Blen, 11, 10, 2 with 4 steals for Mann. +5 RBs, 12 TOs to 18. I'll take the win. With Maxx out any win is a good one!

At 1-4 Evansville next. This is a team we should beat, even on the road, and even with a starter out. But we need to play.