An Orange Clockwork

[Wayne23]

11/29: 74-64 over Cal ST-Bakersfield here. There's no place like home! We were down 8 early, 3 at the half. We dominated in the 2nd half. 23, 10, 5 for Jay Saul, 22, 6 for Jack. +17 RBs.

12/2: 79-69 over Texas-El Paso here. We led all the way but never by more than 13. 19, 10 for Jack, 12, 9 for frosh SF Nate Hill, his best game to date. Maybe he's growing into the starting job. 22 TOs, but they had 22.

Our next 2, and 4 of our next 5 are on the road.

[Wayne23]

12/6: 74-82 at Coppin ST. We never led. We got it to a one possession game several times in the 2nd half but were never able to tie or go ahead. 22, 6, 5 for Jack. 11 each for Maxx, Wats, and Herr. 19 TOs hurt.

#3 guard Jon Herr hurt his leg. Out about a week.

12/9: 60-78 at New Hampshire. Once again we never led, and we trailed by as many as 29. SG Jay Wats had a terrible game, fouled out in 13 minutes and never took a shot. With our #3 guard out that really hurt. Nobody had a good game really. -10 RBs.

We're 5-4, RPI #187.

Jon Herr is back for our next game. Last pre-conf. home game.

[Wayne23]

12/13: 83-63 over Northwestern ST here. We were up 16 at the half. 29, 9 for Jack, 13, 12 for Saul. Herr had 12. He's going to start at SG for Wats.

Sports and games are really important in this "brave new world." So many people organize their lives around watching whatever sport is in season. In the U. S. it's football, basketball, and then baseball and golf, in order of popularity. In the rest of the world it's futbol (soccer) and basketball to a lesser extent.

And the powers that be make sure there are games every day during the given season.

There's talk of leagues made up of robotic players but no one has yet figured out how to make the robots less than perfect, which wouldn't really work. There's talk of a sort of point system, whereby the robotic players would be given skills according to that point system so that some were better than others and there was enough of a range to make the teams and games competitive. Maybe a draft every year of a certain number of players. I haven't followed that very closely so I don't really know the details.

[Wayne23]

12/16: 87-91 at Army. I don't like to blame the refs for a loss but they went to the line 26 times, we went 17, and both Saul and Hill fouled out and Maxx had 4 for a large portion of the 2nd half. No one on the other side had more than 3 fouls. The refs just wouldn't let us play D. 24, 11 for Jack, 24 for Herr in his first start. 11, 1, 12 for Maxx. Their bench outscored ours 29-15.

One more pre-conf. game.

12/20: 84-73 at Grand Canyon. 43-31 at the half. Don Jack was immense with 28, 13, 4. 13, 10, 3 for Saul, 13, 5, 6 for Maxx. +19 RBs.

We end pre-conf play at 7-5. +1.7 PPG, +5.5 RBs, -1.5 TOs, but 14.4 per game. Jack leads us with 19.3 PPG; 4 others average in double figures. Saul leads us with 8.8 RBs and Jack gets 7.3. Maxx gets 7.6 assists but turns it over too often- 4.5.

[Wayne23]

12/30: 72-49 over Eastern Michigan. I didn't expect this. We really rocked it tonight. 43-20 at the half. 8 TOs. 22, 8 for Jack, 15, 11, 4 for Sual, 10, 2, 11 for Maxx.

People like to gamble. They always have. They gamble on sports and games, on poker, on other card games, on casino games, on lotteries- on anything and everything.

They gamble in this society even though it isn't easy. No casinoes and no lotteries here. No public or sanctioned gambling of any kind. And there's not a lot of available cash to gamble with. The food vouchers are name and ID specific so they can't be gambled away. Monthly vouchers for other expenses- a blanket voucher for furnishings, clothing, video, phone... can be gambled away and, sadly, at times they are. That leaves the family with food and a roof over their heads but perhaps with no money for heating or cooling of the residence. There's really no way to stop this.

[Wayne23]

1/3/34: 70-69 over Miami of Ohio here. Whew! Good bench play got the win, 13, 5 for Chap, 12, 5, 4 for Wats. Our bench had 28, 11, 5, and theirs had 11, 5, 5. 11, 12 for Nate Hill, 8, 11 for Saul, 12, 4 for Herr. +19 RBs. We won it when Nate Hill hit a 17 footer off a great screen by Saul.

Don Jack has a back injury. He'll miss at least one game, maybe two. Not good, he's our best player. He got hurt midway through the 2nd half and we barely hung on without him. Wats will get most of his minutes.

[Wayne23]

1/6: 80-81 at Ohio. Damn! We could have and should have won this one. We blew a 9 point lead, and in the last minute took the lead back, lost it, took it back again, lost it again, and then threw the ball away with .9 seconds to play. The lack of a bench really hurt us. Wats did well filling in, with 12, 9, 3. Saul had 26 and 11. 19, 4, 6 for Maxx, but 6 TOs, including the one at the end. +12 RBs and only 11 TOs but the last one killed us.

1/10: 60-54 at Toledo. Great road win! We never trailed and led by as many as 20. They came back at the end but the final score was as close as they got. 19, 6 for Herr. 5 other guys had either 8 or 9.

Don Jack will play in our next game. I'll take 1-1 in two road games without him.

[Wayne23]

1/13: 77-69 over Bowling Green here. Down one at the half. It stayed close until very late, then Don Jack and Jay Saul started hitting every shot they tried. Jack wound up with 27 and 4, Saul had 18 and 16. 14, 1, 5 for Maxx.

A week off then on the road for 2 games.

Jay Saul: I was really feeling it tonight, especially in the 2nd half. I felt like I couldn't miss and I thought every rebound was mine. That's a good feeling. I really think Coach Winters has us going in a great direction. I'm only a sophomore and I'm thinking before I graduate some good things are going to happen here at UCM.

[Wayne23]

1/20: 92-88 at Western Michigan. They led by 9 early but we fought back and were up by 3 at the half. Not much D in this one; it was a real shoot out, and in the end we had more ammunition. We were up by 13 with 3 1/2 to go. After that they chipped away but never got closer than 4. 19, 7 for Jack, 18, 5, 4 for Hill, 17 for Herr, 12, 5, 6 for Maxx, and 14, 7, 5 for sub PF/C Clif Chap. 12 TOs.

We're up 2 games in the West Division of the Mid-American.

1/24: 107-116 in OT at Akron. 100-100 at the end of regulation. We shot 54% in regulation but we missed an open 15 footer at the buzzer, then just didn't have it together in OT. 60.5% from the line REALLY hurt-26-43, which means we missed 17 free throws, 15 of them in regulation. Even one would have made all the difference. 24, 11 for Saul, 22, 5 for sub Clif Chap, 15, 8, 7 for Jack, 17, 3, 7 for Maxx. Akron is one of the best teams in the conf, so we expected a battle. It's frustrating that we could and should have won.

[Wayne23]

1/27: 74-52 over Kent ST here. Up 16 at the half. A real team effort with 7 players getting between 14 and 7 points. Junior sub Clif Chap has been playing very well lately, and getting more minutes as a result. 12 TOs.

So in some ways the civil war ended a long time ago but in others it is still going on.

There should be less for people to be angry or even enraged about, but that hasn't lessened the rage of the "crazies," those people who feel there's a conspiracy against them, the religious fanatics who demand that everyone follow their teaching- which they cannot even agree upon among themselves, the bigots, the ammosexual gun nuts... To be clear, most religious people were and are not fanatics, most gun owners were and are not gun nuts. But there were and are enough fanatics in both camps to cause a huge amount of trouble, and that trouble is ongoing.

Gun ownership is now very limited by sane laws- no one is allowed to own a rifle, handgun, or other weapon that operates in any way other than one squeeze and one release per shot. In other words. You fire the weapon and one bullet emerges. You must then completely disengage from the trigger before being able to fire again. BUT, MANY assault weapons and other rapid fire weapons remain out among the citizenry. They are confiscated whenever they are discovered but there were a few hundred million of them in society at one point...

And the fact that there were far more guns than people is what made the civil war possible and what made it so difficult for the side favoring a free and open citizenry and government to prevail. There were 8 long years of war with several million killed and seriously injured. The forces favoring a republic only triumphed when the military entered the fray and even then it took a few years.

There are still pockets of resistance. Flare ups occur seemingly out of nowhere. Those causing them cannot possibly hope to win at this late date, but I suppose fanaticism is its own reward, and these maniacs would prefer to go out in a blaze of glory rather than living in peace and comfort in a society that both offers many freedoms, and ensures that no one isa hungry or homeless. It is indeed a sad situation.

And yes, there is a fascist underground. Despite ongoing efforts to infiltrate the various cells of the organization, it seems that there are large numbers of dissidents who meet semi-regularly to plot attacks against the system and against its given members and leaders.