Hereafter

[Wayne23]

1/27: 81-62. Up 8 after 10. Up only 3 at the half. Big early 2nd half run. Up 17 with 10 left. Easy road wins are unusual. We'll take it!

Pete Andy has his best game in a long time, 24 and 13. 16, 2, 6 with 5 steals for Thop. 113, 9 for Lee, who has been steady. Del King outplayed their PG, 8, 3, 8 to 4, 2, 2.

+8 RBs. 47.1% to 37.3%.

2 game lead in the AEC.

7-12, 5-3 Albany comes to town. We score 17.5 more a game, and they turn it over.

My college hoops career at UMass ended in the Sweet Sixteen. I thoroughly loved playing college basketball and had a really good and fun senior season. I decided to take my mentor's advice and to go for the Master's here at UMass, in statistics, of course, and to accept the offer to serve as a grad assistant in the hoops program. I am definitely going to miss playing but I'm not good enough to play at the next level, and the time has come. I really look forward to learning more about coaching from our head coach as well as Coach James, and to being part of the coaching staff.

1/29: We're chasing three guys for our last scholarship. All three hit our SAT score, including the one we've offered to. All three guys who've accepted also hit our score.

[Wayne23]

1/31: 68-63. Down 8 with 10 played. Down 10 at the half. We're sleepwalking. I kicked ass in the locker room. Down 3 with 10 left. Took us WAY too long, we made this much harder than it had to be, and we never got any offense going.

16, 4, 4, 3 steals for Thop, 15, 6 for Andy, 14, 3 for Bond. +5 RBs. 5 fewer TOs.

9-12, 5-4 Vermont is here. We score 12.9 more per game. Other stats are close.

Halfway through AEC play we're 17-3, 8-1, NET #56.

12th in PPG, 23rd in RBs, 36th in off net rating, 40th in overall NET.

+6.2 PPG, +1.9 RBs, -3.8 TOs.

Andy leads us with 17.5 PPG and 6.7 RBs. Thop gets 14.2 PPG, King 10.9. Next 3 go from 9.6 to 8.3. Mill gets 6.5 RBs and Lee gets 6.0.

We're headed for Callisto after nothing interesting at Ganymede.

Lacy and I seem to be headed toward a relationship. I think. I never actually know about these things.

[Wayne23]

2/3: 80-69. Up 3 after 10 played. Still close at the half; up 5. Up 4 with 10 to play. We led most of the way but the final score was our biggest lead.

21, 7 for Andy. 3 guys had 11, Thop, King, and Bond.

3 game lead in the AEC.

At 2nd place Stony Brook, 11-10, 6-4 next. Beat them by 13 at our place. We score 10.6 more per game. We feel like we're better inside. But it's a road game with a good team.

[Wayne23]

2/7: 81-89. Close early. Down 1 after 10 minutes. Up 2 at the half. Staying close. Down 2 with 10 to play. It was like we stopped playing with about 8 minutes left.

19, 6 for Lee, 19, 5, 3 for Thop, 12, 6, 4 for Mill. Their bench destroyed ours, 31, 14, 9 to 8, 7, 3. They won it on threes, 9-5, free throws, 24-18, and bench play.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

Q: Not the result you were looking for tonight, coach, but you're in pretty good shape, 2 up with 7 to play and most of the games at home.

Coach Clark: I guess there's some truth in that but you always want to beat the top teams and we didn't do that. And you don't want to back into the title. Also, it's February. You don't want your kids looking ahead to the post season but you want them peaking, playing good ball. We didn't play very good ball tonight.

Q: Any thoughts of switching Lee and Andy? They're both natural Centers.

Coach: Nope. I'm on Pete Andy constantly about rebounding. I'm hoping that at some point it will kick in. Having said that he's our best rebounder.

9-13, 5-6 Hartford is at our place. They beat us by 11 there. They **** down our O, beat us at 1, 3, and 4, and their bench was much better. Hopefully the home court will make a difference. We need to do a better job on both ends of the court this time.

Callisto is another icy world. The question of whether it has a buried ocean is about to be revealed to us. We'll explore and find out.

I asked Lacy out.

Her reply? "What took you so long!"

She said yes. As I said awhile ago, I never have the slightest idea whether a woman has feelings for me. Evidently Lacy does. That's good.

[Wayne23]

2/10: 86-70. Back and forth but we're mostly chasing. Down 2 with 10 played. Up 1 at the half. Tied with 10 to play. We caught fire in the last 9 minutes. The exact opposite of our last game. At the media time out about midway through the 2nd I mentioned our late collapse last time. Did that help? Maybe.

28, 5, 5 for Thop and he held his man to 4, 0, 3. 18, 12 for Andy. His man was their best player and Andy matched him overall. 14, 5 for Bond, who doe a great job as our first big guy off the bench.

We shot an impressive 54.8%, 7-14 on threes. +17 RBs. +14 in the paint.

The lead is back to 3 games, with 6 to play.

At UMBC, 9-14, 4-8. They have fallen apart after a good start to AEC play. 2-7 in their last 9. On paper this should be an easy game but I'm always leery about facing a team that is on a down streak, especially at their place. At some point they're going to snap out of it.

Holo romances... what to say... First the holos here are so advanced that only intense testing can differentiate a holo being from a "real" person. So... people have affairs with holo beings. They're programmable so you get what you want in a partner, but it is very difficult NOT to make it... too easy. Relationships in the real world are difficult and messy but without any of that there's no challenge. Still, I'm guessing, and remember I'm the chief statistician on the ship so I have the data, anyway,

I'm guessing that many, perhaps most of the people on board engage in holo romances... even those in relationships with other crew members. Is that cheating? I guess ideally the people in question would discuss that and come to some sort of agreement. I doubt how frequently that happens though.

In any case, Lacy is the first human I'm in a relationship with. Even though we're still in the beginning stages, a holo romance feels like cheating to me so I've ended the ones I was involved with. I guess I just confessed, but whatever.

Callisto was looking like dead world. Then two things happened.

First, our robotic shuttle to the surface screwed up and crashed into the surface, destroying itself. We have others, of course, and we can build other robots to do what those on board did, but that's not supposed to happen. It's not even supposed to be able to happen... It happened. There's an investigation going on and we're staying in orbit until we figure out what went wrong.

Then we saw something that we shouldn't have seen. Well, that's the rumor. As happened on Phobos the leaders of the mission are being very quiet about this.

Whatever was seen is not being talked about and the other rumor is that the people manning the telescopes who saw it are sworn to silence. What does it mean? No idea, but we got the hell away from Mars really quickly when whatever happened there happened. Let's see what happens here.

[Wayne23]

2/14: 82-74. 12-1 early. Up 8 after 10. Up 9 at the break. Up 10 with 10 left. It was never in doubt.

22, 3 for Thop, 17, 2, 3 for King, 14, 6, 4, 3 steals for Andy.

+13 RBs. We shot 50%, 6-13 on threes. +15 at the line. Threes kept them from being totally slaughtered as they hit 11-25.

9-15, 5-8 Binghamton is here next. We won by a single point there; their bench was the difference. We have big edges in RBs and TOs. We score more and give up fewer.

Up 3 with 5 to play.

Something strange happened again today. We're still orbiting Callisto but something major happened on Jupiter and it sent shock waves way out to here and shook our ship pretty substantially. We were about to leave Callisto's orbit and move farther away from Jupiter when the shaking stopped.

No idea what this is about and if it has happened before the instruments on Earth were never sensitive enough to detect it.

It's getting weird out here. Still no word on whatever happened on Callisto, either to the shuttle that crashed or regarding that other thing, whatever it may have been.

[Wayne23]

2/17: 85-77. Tied after 10. Then we go on a run. Up 8 at the half. Up 9 with 10 left.

21, 9, 3 for Andy, 19, 5 for Thop.

-1 RB, 9 TOs. WE won it at the line, +11, and in the paint, +16.

3 up on Vermont. 4 or more on the rest with 4 to play.

At 10-15, 5-9 Maine next. We won by 19 at our place. They turn it over a lot and they score 9.7 fewer per game.

Lacy and I have been to dinner in the holo- yes there are all kinds of restaurants in there with all kinds of food. We also went for a run together, and we watched a play put on by some members of the crew who have formed a theater group. Oh, and we play bridge every week unless something work related prevents it. We're getting along really well... I think. I really don't ever know.

No further ship shaking, thankfully. That was weird. We're still orbiting Callisto. I don't think anyone has figured out what caused the shuttle to crash. Another one was sent down to examine the wreckage and to retrieve the "black box" and yes, there is such a thing on all of the shuttles.

Anyway, the 2nd shuttle also did the experiments the first was supposed to do, collected data, about both the crash , and the moon, and is on its way back up to the ship.

[Wayne23]

2/21: 76-66. Early lead. Then they come back. Up 6 after 10. Up 15 at the half. Up 16 with 10 to play. WE were in total control in the 2nd half.

19, 10, 3 for Juwan Lee, 19, 8 for Andy, 11, 13, 4 for Thop, 15, 3, 5 for King.

+20 RBs. Easy win on the road. Those are rare!

4 game lead in the AEC with 3 to play.

14-12, 8-7 NJIT is here.

[Wayne23]

2/24: 83-76 but it wasn't that close. Back and forth. Down 1 after 10. Up 11 at the half. Up 10 with 10 to play.

22, 9 for Andy, and solid D. 16, 6 for Bond. 12, 5, 3 for Thop.

+4 RBs, 11 TOs. We won it at the line, 32-48 to 12-17. +12 in the paint.

14-13, 8-8 New Hampshire is here. We won by 19 there. They play pretty good D, and they don't score much.

No helpful info from the testing re Callisto. No sings of life in the ice. No cause determines for the crash. We're moving on to Amalthea. It is small, oddly shaped, and very red, the reddest object in the solar system, probably because it is constantly releasing heat from, well, there are several theories. Maybe we can figure it out.

Amalthea is really pretty much a big rock in most ways.

[Wayne23]

2/28: 65-77. Down by 10 early on. Down by 5 after 10 minutes. Up 1 at the half. Down 3 with 10 to play. We seemed to stop playing with about 8 minutes to go.

15, 8 for Mill but he didn't get much help. Most of the stats were slightly in their favor and we never got any offense going, and what little we had disappeared late, 5 points in the last 7 1/2 minutes.

Still a 4 game lead with 1 to play. It's tough to motivate the guys when the games don't mean anything.

Pete Robb hurt his leg. Out for about a week. He doesn't play much after starting early in the season.

We end the regular season at 10-18, 8-9 Albany. We won by only 5 at our place. They turn it over a lot and are the lowest scoring team in the AEC.

Things are still going well with Lacy... I think...

Amalthea seems unstable as we examine it. We sort of knew that but we wonder if we just happen to be here at the time when their orbit is decaying significantly. We have three shuttles looking at the moon from different vantage points. We've done that at our other stops; I just never thought to mention it. The panorama or near panorama can be useful.