Hereafter

[Wayne23]

3/10: We're sleep walking early. Up 4 after 10; I think we woke up. Shay is hitting everything. Up 10 at the Half; Shay has 20. Up 30 with 10 left. Time to clear the bench.

78-61 but it wasn't that close. A season high 34, 4, 5 for Shay, 21, 9 for Bond. +8 RBs. I wasn't happy with 17 TOs.

All the favorites won so we play #25, 22-10 California in the semis. We won by 14 at our place. We shot well rebounded well but could have played better D and could have taken better care of the ball. We owned the paint. They would need to play above their heads while we had a bad night.

The Council put out application forms for people who want to be part of the mating. The agreement with the Tralmorians was for 6 males, 6 females from each side. WE had 93 men apply and 89 women.

The applicants will be screened by our medical and psychology people. I don't know or want to know how that process is going to work. Other people are working out the details of how we handle the artificial insemination both medically safely, and without danger of the process contaminating the ship in some way. The Tralmorians are in a huge rush but we're not doing this until we're sure it's safe.

[Wayne23]

3/11: They take an early lead. Shots are not going in. We come back. Up 5 after 10. Up 17 at the half. Shay has been in foul trouble all night but Doon is lighting it up. +21 with 10 to go. We'll empty the bench again.

79-59. A walk in the park. 18, 7 for Doon13, 10 for Bond, 13, 6 for Dunn.

+8 RBs but 15 TOs. We hit 13 more shots and we were better down low.

#3 seed, #20 ranked Stanford, 24-8, 12-6, for the title. Beat them by 28 and 17 but we expect a challenge this time. We match up well with these guys though. They'd need to really play well and hit a lot of threes to beat us.

We're chasing the recruit HARD. We think we're in the running. He came to campus for a visit which went very well, and he'll be in Vegas for the title game with Stanford.

[Wayne23]

3/12: Back and forth. A run puts us up 11 after 10. Shay is hot. 43-28 at the half; Shay and solid D are getting it done. Up 19 with 10 left; I may be able to clear the bench again. WAIT! They get back in it!

73-70. They missed a 30 footer at the buzzer. We almost relaxed our way out of the title!

17, 5, 6 for tourney MOP Scot Shay (I would have given it to Bond), 17, 6 for Rama, 9, 6 for Bond, 11, 5 for Dunn, 12, 5 for Fox.

+6 RBs but 14 TOs. I was not happy with our ball handling in this tournament. +8 in the paint.

We should be the #1 overall seed.

#1 East, #1 overall. We play #16 seed Penn, 16-17. This won't be pretty.

The committee has selected the 12 participants in the mating exchange. There was a LOT of heat from those not selected, but that's no surprise.

The committees working on safe exchange need more time.

As we get to know the Tralmorians better they seem similar to us in outlook, motivation, personality... Of course they're complex and not all of them are the same, but they seem to have the same personality types we have. They are hard working but they also know how to relax. They have hobbies, play games, have social events... They have learned a lot of the games we play in tournaments and they have gone loco over both poker and volleyball. From what we can see, the six offspring that will be raised by them should experience an upbringing fairly similar to what they would get here. That, of course, has been a primary concern. We feel pretty relaxed about it now.

[Wayne23]

3/16: It's always exciting to be in the Big Dance! My players, especially the freshmen who are here for the first time, are reminding me of how young they really are. I've let them enjoy themselves during their free time. Now, in the locker room before the game, I'm working hard on getting them focused. Given that this is a near certain win, that's not easy, but hopefully we'll be fine.

As I feared we're so flat we're two dimensional. We finally wake up. Up 8 after 10. And now we're flying! Up 20 at the half. The bench is going to see some PT. Up 19 with 10 left. The O is mediocre but the D is stopping them cold.

67-52. We'll need to step up the O if we're going to go deep in the tourney but I'll take the D I saw tonight.

19 for Shay and he held his man to 2. 15, 9 for Rama who guarded their best scorer and held him to 9. 10 and 10 for Dunn. Bond couldn't hit a shot, 2-10.

10 TOs. We took 12 more shots. +10 in the paint. +12 from the line.

#8 seed Florida ST in round 2. We played them at our place in November when they were ranked #17, and beat them by 12. We shot well but didn't take care of the ball. We controlled the inside. There were a LOT of calls by a mediocre officiating crew. They doubled Shay all night and held him to a dozen. They have very good guards and both of them can score. We should have a definite edge inside. Their bench is strong. We didn't get much from ours against Penn.

[Wayne23]

3/18: 3-2? I'll try it from time to time. I always play it some, but may play it more tonight. I'm going to start with it

Close early. Mini-run puts us up 9. 3-2 is working so far. Big lead! They come back; up 12 at the half. Staying with the 3-2 all the way so far. Up 8 with 10 left. Switching to a man.

82-78. They got back in it, got it to 2. Kal King made an old fashioned 3 point play with 3.3 left, and that sealed it. It was an amazing play. He wouldn't let them catch him and foul him until he put the shot up; amazing ball handling and use of picks.

18,6 for Bond (He's back!), 16, 4, 6 for Shay, 15, 4, 4 for King, 11, 6, 3 for Dunn. We led by as many as 21 but we relaxed late and it nearly cost us!

10 TOs. We won it at the line, +12.

#5 seed, #14 ranked Xavier, 25-10, is our Sweet Sixteen foe. We beat them by 22 at our place in Dec. We did just about everything right in that one. They were solid inside though; their C had 26, their PF had 13. We were +8 on the boards though. We're a solid favorite and if we play our game we should advance. No guarantees at this point, of course.

Very strange occurrence during the “night.” The rest station left at very high speed. No idea why or what it means. So much for the mating exchange, at least for now.

3/22: No message. The station is really going at a very high speed.

[Wayne23]

3/23: Lots of excitement. Back and forth early. Down 3 after 10. Up 2 at the half. Hell of a game so fare; Shay and Rama are scoring. Big run! Up 12 with 10 left.

84-66. We were in total control in the 2nd half.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

Q: Coach Clark, you kicked a pretty good team's butt.

Coach: We were determined not to let their C beat us. I thought Dunn and Fox defended him well. I was very happy with our D overall, 38.6% shooting!

Q: What about the offense.

Coach: Nothing wrong with 52.5%. Sany Rama had 22, 6, 3, 19, 3 for Bond, a terrific 12, 7, 7 for King. Shay had 15, 2, 4 with 4 steals. Those guys were very determined. And we were in charge inside, +16 in the paint.

Q: #2 seed, #6 ranked Maryland in the Elite Eight. Good team.

Coach: All that's left is good teams, although a lot of good teams are gone.

Q: Thanks Coach.

Maryland is 30-5, NET #6. They're 5-1 vs. top 25 teams. Good guards, good inside. I think Shay and Bond both need to have good shooting nights, and we need to do all the usual stuff- take care of the ball, defend, hit the boards...

[Wayne23]

3/25: A battle early. We take a lead. Run! Up 10 after 10. Up 11 at the half but Shay had 3 fouls in the half. Not good! Down 2 with 10 left and we're in trouble.

93-94 in a shootout. They hit a backdoor dunk with 1.2 left and that did it; a definite defensive lapse and we go home.

Shay played 10 minutes and Dunn 13 due to fouls and we damn near overcame that, but not quite. Rama was immense in his last college game, 25 and 14. 17, 8, 3 for Bond.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

Q: Tough way to go out, Coach.

Coach: You know, Ed. I always thought they used the good refs in the tournament... Yeah, tough way to go out when they take your best player and one other guy out of the game. Congratulations to Maryland. They played hard and I wish them every success in the Final Four.

Q: +14 RBs, +10 on 2nd chances.

Coach: Yep. Good bench play, too, which we needed with 2 starters on the bench most of the time. But 16 TOs really hurt, and obviously, we played no D.

Q: You're losing Rama and King.

Coach: 2 pretty big slots to fill, and we lost out on that big guy we were after. We'll need to go with a three guard set up next year unless one of the two bigs we recruited really steps up. It could happen.

Q: You got the #1 recruit in the nation.

Coach: Whish leaves us with two SGs and no PG. We think the #1, Carr, can play the Point and we KNOW Shay can play it but it's good to have a natural PG. We're going to be hell on wheels outside with those two and then Noel Bond at SF.

Q: A 6'7” PG would be something to see. Best of luck, Coach.

4/3: We lost to the national champs.

4/4: Awards: National COY. Scot Shay is a first team All American. In conference, Shay is POY and 1st team, Bond is Frosh OY and 1st team. Rama and Dunn made the 2nd team. I am Conf. COY.

TP goes from 72 to 80.

I am not going anywhere.

4/23: I ask for another budget increase. It would take a lot of money for me to be able to afford the International Gold but it would be nice.

We get $5000. Meh. I'll take it but I need another $100,000 to get the International.

35-3, Elite Eight. Great season but it should have been better. Overall, 326-93, .778.

[Wayne23]

5/1: #2 recruiting class. Preseason #1. We buy the National Gold.

6/5: 2 slots open for transfers (Not sure how. We filled all but one scholarship and nobody transferred out. The game has been acting funny today and yesterday.). We need bigs but it's more likely we'll draft them than get transfers. Never know.
Nobody we want in the transfer pool.

6/25: We'll go to the Indy Camp.

We're a few weeks away from a solar system with 2 planets in the Goldilocks zone. We're getting some info but not a lot yet.

6/26: 3 scholarships. We want 2 bigs and a PG.
In a different season I would red shirt at least one guy, maybe two, but we only have 11 scholarship players so no.

We have never heard from the station. So weird!

7/4: The 9 guys we're looking at most seriously all attend the Indy Camp. We take LOTS of notes and get to talk with all 9.

7/7: The videos and photos from the probe looking at the solar system we're approaching show that neither of the planets shows much light at night so most likely no advanced intelligence on either, but that's not an absolute.

8/7: 3 on the Norton list, one of whom won't start: Scot Shay is #4, Lex Carr is #17, Ken Doon is #45, which is a little weird given that he hasn't ever started here, and the voters have to know there's zero chance he'll start this season.

We're in the solar system, headed for the outer of the 2 planets in the Goldilocks zone. We'll be there in a few days. We have a probe orbiting each of the 2 planets. We're not seeing anything indicating intelligent life although both planets have atmospheres that could support life like ours, and there is vegetation in all but the polar regions of both planets. We'll send probes down to the surface, and most likely human explorers as well, eventually.

[Wayne23]

8/13: We're orbiting the outer planet and 4 probes is on the surface, in various locations, taking video and photos. The videos are sound recordings as well.

8/15: We've analyzed the first few videos. Nothing that sounds like animal life. There's wind here but no rain, at least yet. But there has to be rain because there are bodies of water. The biggest one has been analyzed by the probe. It is not salt water and there's no life in it. We'll do similar testing in other bodies of water. The vegetation is abundant but I wouldn't call it lush or exotic.

8/18: We've now tested 11 bodies of water on all parts of the planet. No l;ife forms of any kind.

There are rocky formations but no sign that there has ever been volcanic activity here.

We're thinking maybe we'll just go on to the other planet but not quite yet.

8/21: We offer to 2 Cs and a PG, #3, #13, #36. They all have us high up on their lists.

8/24: Nothing on the planet to indicate sophisticated life. The vegetation is all gigantic colonies of one celled plants.

We're heading for the inner planet, which has temperatures very similar to those back on Earth and an atmosphere almost identical to that of Earth. We actually think we might be able to walk around down there in our regular clothes and be just fine. We will, of course, test that theory extensively before anyone tries it!

9/1: We're orbiting the inner planet. The probes have landed in various places. 3 of the 4 indicate that the plant life around them is sophisticated and varied. Flyovers and landing show no sign of intelligent life but animal life is possible here. It would naturally hide from the probes for a time.

9/3: All KINDS of animal life here- insects, small amphibians and reptiles, fish in the water- oh, there are oceans of salt water, two of them, and fresh water rivers and lakes. All of them have fish of various kinds. The life forms are like those on Earth but we haven't seen anything identical to an Earth based life. There are differences. Lots of birds.

We haven't seen any mammals yet, and nothing bigger than a raccoon on land or a trout or bass in the waters. Of course we haven't gotten down deeply enough in the
fresh water to see catfish, and we haven't gotten far enough from shore in the oceans to see if there are things like whales, dolphins, sharks...

We have a lot more exploring to do before we send humans down but every test of the atmosphere says we can breathe it. We've simulated it in one of the holos, put people in there, and they're fine. Now we're doing an extensive study where four people stay in a holo, breathing the air, for a long period of time.

9/7: I got an email from a student:

To: Coach Clark

From: Lucy Bell

Subject: A project

Hi Coach Clark. I*'m a senoir here at UCLA, majoring in Journalism. Our senior project has to be a major undertaking that lasts for the entire school year. I was wondering if we could meet to talk about me doing a journal on the Bruins season. I would need access to coaches and players (Subject too your limits, of course), and it would help if I could travel with the team, at least some of the time.

Are you willing to meet with me? I'm availabel most any time.

Lucy

I was not impressed with the sloppiness, especially from a future journalist, but I'm very big on helping students. I meet with her tomorrow.

9/8: Lucy Bell is a really nice, sincere kid. I told her if this turned out to be a hatchet job I would be very disappointed. But I did NOT ask for editorial control. I don't see how she can do this properly if she's not independent.

The limits I put on her were no access to the locker room for the first five minutes of halftime- that's when the kids use the john. No access to the shower room (DUH!), give me a chance to do what I need to do after practice and games before talking with me. It's okay to talk to me during practice, but not to the players. During games she will sit behind the bench but can't talk to anyone on the team or any of the support personnel who are actively working during games.
As to travel, we'll take her with us whenever her schedule allows it.

“Well, honestly, this is a twelve credit project each semester. My professor wants it to be really thorough. My only other course this semester is online, and that will be true next semester too, so I should be able to make all the road games.”

This is the last time you'll here from me directly this season. I hope I don't regret this!

9/10: Okay, I lied; I'm back. I spent a couple of hours with Lucy today. She actually knows quite a bit about the game. Her dad played at San Diego ST and coached her high school team. She says she got to be the first guard off the bench. She and her dad were basketball junkies and spent hours talking about the intricacies and subtleties of the game. I was afraid I'd need to start with the real basics but nope, not a problem.

I WILL be talking about everything non-basketball related, of course.

[Wayne23]

9/11: Lucy's Journal, 2nd post: As I said last time I'm following the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team for the 2034-2035 season. You already know all of the rpelimanary stuff so I'll just say recruiting is BIG right now. We're chasing 3 top notch guys, and we should know soon. Coach Clark has a great history as a recruiter. (Journal entries will be titled “LB” from now on.) Coach and the Recruiter, Gil Hale, are visiting the recruiters they've offered to.

9/14: Coach here. We finally saw mammals, or at least the probe videod some. Like everything else we've seen on the planet, they're small, squirrel size, chipmunk size.
They scurry around, no longer fearful of the probes. Still no sign of advanced life forms.

We sent a probe into the ocean. It's gotten fairly far from shore. It has seen nothing bigger than the fish we saw earlier. There do seem to be shellfish. I guess there would have to be, or at least something to scavenge. Pretty cool.

The four people in the holo are showing no signs of difficulty breathing the planet's air.

9/15: LB: I'm doing short interviews with all of the players and coaches. Since my target audience is UCLA students I'll start with the players. Today its soph guard Joel Ston.

“Hi Joel. What brought you to UCLA?

Ston: I wanted to play at a really elite school.

“You didn't play much early on last season but you wound up starting a dozen games and avreging 20 minutes.”

Ston: I'd love to start but with Shay and Carr ahead of me that's not going to happen. I hope to be the #3 guard.

“Are you happy here?'

Ston: Very! I really like the coaches. They're tough but fair, and I KNOW they're making me a much better player. I get along with all the guys.

“You're really short for a college player, even a Point Guard. Has that hurt you?

Ston: I have a really good vertical leap. I'm only 5'6” but I can dunk.

“Wow!”

Ston: Yeah. It probably has hurt a little but not that much.

“You're from Phoenix. What's it like when you go their to play a game?”

Ston: Actually it's great. My folks get to come and some of my friends from high school come, too. Coach lets me go out with them after the game unless we need to catch a plane right away.

“How's the food here?”

Ston: Awesome! And you can eat all you want!

“Do you have a significant other?”

Ston: I'm dating a really nice junior, but it's still new.

“Can you guys win it all this year?”

Ston: That's the plan! Honestly, I think we have the talent to do it. If we stay healthy and have decent luck it could definitely happen.

9/18: LB: We get 2 of the recruits. We get a C, #13, and a PG, #34. We need a big guy, and all of the ones we were seriously after went somwhere else. Doesn't look good for the guy we REALLY want, #3, so we added a couple more big guys to our list.

We're going to the preseason NIT. We play New Mexico first. Very challenging schedule but most games are at hoem.

9/22: Coach: The four people in the holo still show absolutely no ill effects from the planet's air. The Captain, and he decides this, not the Council, says it will be a while longer before he's ready to send humans down to the planet.

We've now seen some snakes, fairly big but not huge. They feed on the chipmunk size creatures but not the squirrel size.

9/25: LB: We get #3! Coach was jumping for joy, literally! He was not optomistic.

10/1: Captain says one more week with no ill effect for the four people and a crew goes down. I'm lobbying HARD to be part of it.

10/2: LB: First day of practice. These guys are GOOD!!! We're definitely going small whenever we need to sub.

“I'm interviewing red shirt freshman Jay Winn, a 6'8” CD/F today. Hi Jay, you came a long way to attend UCLA. All the way from Illinois.”

JW: Yes I did. I wanted to play for a top notch team and I wanted Southern California. This school was my first choice.

“Are you concerned about playing time.”

JW: Well yeah, I guess I am. But I knew I'd really have to work hard and maybe catch a break to get a lot of PT here.

“So I saw the first practice today. Wow!”

JW: Yeah, they work us pretty hard. But I knew that from last year and I got in shape before it started.

“What's the best part of your game?”

JW: I'd have to say my inside shooting. I'm real confident in my shot down low.

“What do you need to work on?”

JW: I'm not that tall for a big guy so it's my rebounding- maybe my D, too.

“Are you happy here?”

JW: Oh definitely. Everybody's great. If I get to play some, even better, but I'm glad to be here.