Hereafter

[Wayne23]

3/31: #1 seed, #2 ranked, #2 NET Gonzaga is 37-2. They're the real deal and we need to play our very best game. No idea why we're meeting them in the semis and not in the finals.

4/1: Close early, as expected. Tied after 10. 33-32 at the half. A real edge of your seat first half! Their inside game is dominating ours but our guards are really outplaying theirs. +3 for our bench. Hasi has 3 fouls, as do both of their starting guards. We're +5 from the line. Too many fouls being called, 23, but it is favoring us so far. +7 RBs. Each team has 11 TOs so it's a sloppy game. We need more from our big guys and from our bench.

“Give it all you've got!”

Down 2 with 10 to play.

78-70! We slowly expanded the lead late and then held on.

29, 8, 2, 3 for Howe, but he had 7 TOs. Tony fouled out, but there were only 27 seconds left when he did. +6 for the bench, +6 from the line (49 fouls called; too many). +13 RBs, -10 in the paint. Their startinmg bigs beat ours 43-16 but our starting guards beat theirs 39-10.

[Wayne23]

4/2: It's #1 seed, #4 ranked, #3 NET Kentucky, 34-5, for the title. We beat them by 11 at our place in November but that was a very long time ago. They're 6-4 vs. Top 25 teams. They score outside. We think we have a big advantage inside.

We won our 5 tourney games by 21, then 41, then 15, then 8, then 8. We played extremely good teams in the last two games and beat them both. One more step to take.

4/3: Slow start for both teams. Down 5 after 10; shooting 21.1%. 25-38 at the half, the most we've been down at the half all year. Not making shots, 25% to their 43.5%. Webb has 3 fouls. Bench is -11. No one has more than 5 points.

“Just get open for good shots and knock them down. You can get back into this one.”

The shots just won't fall. Down 13 with 10 left, shooting 26.7%.

59-69. Season low point total, season worst shooting %, 30.5%. You can't win if you can't put it in the hoop.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

“This has to be disappointing.”

“The shots wouldn't fall. It's really that simple. 1-11 for Howe, 4-12 for Tony, 1-7 for Wie, Webb was in foul trouble all night. Nothing went right for us tonight. Congratulations to Kentucky. They deserved this win.”

“Coach, you're losing Howe, Wie, Hasi, and Pane. What does next year look like?”

“Given the transfer rule, it's hard to say. If we keep the rest of our guys, we have some good looking freshmen coming in. I can see us challenging for the title again. We could be thin at guard unless we're lucky enough to pick up a good transfer.”

[Wayne23]

4/4: Awards: I get National COY but we have no All Americans this season.

In the Big 10 Shay Webb is Def. POY, Ric Tony is frosh OY (I thought it should have been Howe), and I get Conf. COY. Tony is 1st team. Webb and Howe make the 2nd team. Not the way I would have voted but...

4/9: I'm looking to see what offers come my way but probably will stay here. I do want to rebuild a low rated team but maybe not quite yet. We'll see.

I looked at Rhode Island, but I'm staying. We'll probably move to the ACC.

4/23: Still want enough $ in the budget to buy the International Premium.

No.

39-2, made it to the title game. After 22 seasons I'm 645-156, .805.

[Wayne23]

5/1: Preseason #3. #4 recruiting class.

Moving to the ACC.

We buy the National Premium, International Basic.

Just as an update on the dining halls, they have all continued to offer terrific meals with great service. Comfort Heaven was impossible to get into for awhile but things have settled down. As I've said none of the dining halls do reservations but the web site is very helpful in letting people know which ones are full and/or have a long wait time. Hali, June, and I like the Indian, Asian, Mexican or other Hispanic, Italian... restaurants. We don't do comfort food very often, but occasionally we're in the mood for meat loaf, shepherd's pie, turkey dinner with all the fixings, fish and chips... We almost never do fast food, but every couple of months we want pizza.

5/29: We lose 1 guard. We red shirted him and he didn't get better, so no loss. We hope to pick up a good guard.

Round 1: No standouts. We scout and contact lots of guards but no offers.

Round 2: We offer to a PG from Stanford. He's a B. No.

Round 3: We offer to a PG who's a C. Got him. Probably just a practice player.

6/25: Going to Indy and all of the regional camps.

Clear “sailing” for the ship. None of the probes are showing anything anywhere within their ranges.

6/26: Recruiting begins. 4 scholarships. We need 3 bigs or 2 and 2.

Aus Howe went #3 in the draft.

8/7: Shay Webb is #4 on the Norton list.

8/21: We offer to a PG, a PF, and 2 Cs.

At the request of Kelly Geer, our Rec. Director, and with the approval of the Council we've out out a poll related to holo programs. There are two kinds of holo programs, 1. Pre-designed. Participants use the program exactly as designed. 2. Pre-designed but amendable. Users make changes to the program and use it with the adaptations. 3. Sadly, we do not yet have the capability of allowing tech savvy users to completely design their own, original holo programs. This has been discussed but the necessary review would be way too labor intensive. Too many things to check for.

So, Question 1: When using holo programs do you typically use pre-designed, pre-designed but adaptable, or both about equally.

Question 2: Name your three favorite holo programs, in order.

“We won't get accurate data.”

“”Why not, Mick?”

“Not that many people are going to list porn related programs they use. That's pretty private.”

“That's a very good point. Jed, can you, Hali, and your staff design a way for voting to be completely anonymous, and yet restrict people to voting only once?”

“Sure. All our polls work that way.”

“People don't seem to be aware of that.”

“We put it in the disclaimer-”

“Nobody reads the disclaimer.”

“Jed, how about leading with it, something like, 'For this poll, as with all of our polls, voting is anonymous. There is no way for the Statistics Department to know how any individual has voted.'”

“Sure. We can do that with all polls moving forward.”

“A lot of people won't believe it.”

“There's nothing we can do about that.”

“Do you track usage?”

“We do. We know exactly how many people use which programs, and how often each program is used. We collate that data monthly and keep a record of it.”

“But not by who the users are?”

“No. But we do track whether a person went into the holo program alone or with others, and if not alone, with how many others.”

“I'd love to see that data!”

“We have never made that available and we really do NOT want to do so.”

“Why not?”

“There is no 'need to know.' Suppose a group interested in censorship, or in restricting program availability for some other reason became the majority of the Council.”

“Then they'd vote to have you show them the data.”

“Unless we're ordered by the Council to do that, we won't.”

“I move that the Council see the usage reports for the holo programs for the past 5 years.”

The motion was seconded and there was a very long, sometimes heated discussion.

“All in favor? … All opposed? … The motion is defeated 3-9.”

[Wayne23]

9/11: Home visits. It's nice when we have 4 or fewer scholarships to offer because we can actually visit everyone every week.

The holo usage poll runs through the end of the month. Not many voters yet. This is a hugely important time of year. We're going after #1 in the country and we think we have a shot. Also offered to # 15, 20, 25.

9/18: Lost #1, got the other 3. Looking for a guard.

We offer to a PG, #13.

Going to the Alaskan Classic vs. Cal. Irvine. Lots of ranked teams on the schedule.

9/25: We get the PG. GREAT recruiting class!

The votes are coming in. Haven't checked to see what they're saying but 77.3% of eligible voters have submitted the poll. I voted for the piano room first, my favorite hiking program second, and the small yacht we spend time on third.

Haven't talked about the yacht. It's big enough to sleep 8. I LOVE being on the water but I don't want to be bothered setting the course taking the helm... so we have a robot to do that except that sometimes June is in the mood to do it. She does, with the robot checking everything. On the rare occasions that we can get away we really like to go for a long weekend, 3 or 4 days.

I HAVE mentioned the piano and how much I love to play, but haven't talked about it lately. I try really hard to play for at least a half hour every day but I'm lucky if I get to do it 5 times most weeks.

As for hiking this is a network of moderately difficult trails with some definite challenges but not to the degree where they qualify the trails as “dangerous.” We sometimes hike other trails but these are our favorites.

I also have a program with a pet cat that I get to now and then but not often enough to get a vote. There are other programs I use, but again, not often enough to beat out my top 3. We DO go to concerts in the holo. Plays and movies set back on our home planet just don't have any relevance to the way we live now so we don't do any of those. But music is timeless, and the concerts feature the actual singers from way back when.

We also have live music here on the ship, as well as theatrical productions. Movies made on the ship never really became a thing.

Obviously my coaching takes place in the holo but I didn't see that as something to vote for because I was thinking more leisure time/recreational activities.

10/2: First day of practice. I think we'll contend for the national title again this year.

The results of the poll are in. Very interesting.

First: Pets! Programs that allow you to be with a pet, usually but not always a dog or a cat. Second: Music concerts. Third: A program that allows you to interact with, or in other cases to observe safely but at close range, various animals. There are everything from farm animals to lions, tigers, and all kinds of other wild animals. Elephants score very highly. So two of the top three vote getters involve animals. Not surprising given that there are no non-human animals on board the ship.

Porn programs of various kinds definitely got some votes, but Mick was right, most people didn't want to admit they use them or how much they use them. I can tell you that the most popular holo programs are pets, and the second most are the porn programs, if you add all of them up. The poll did not reflect that. The activities labeled as “dangerous” got significant votes.

[Wayne23]

10/30: Practice is going really well. I like this team. There are 10 guys I'm very comfortable having on the floor. The downside of that is some players will definitely get frustrated because they want more minutes than I can give them, so we may well have a few transfers out next season.

Lots of buzz about the poll and lots of joking about the porn programs under representation. Everyone knows it, of course. And what we in the stats department know is that many times people go into a holo porn program in groups. Now this is not about watching, it's about participating with holo "people." So yeah, groups are doing this. Not a problem for me as long as everyone is a consenting adult, which they are.

11/13: Here's our lineup:

Junior Shay Webb is back at PG. He's our best player and a potential All American.

Soph Aqui Marn just transferred from Gonzooga. We didn't expect him to play much but he really impressed us in practice and in the exhibition games. It's his spot to lose!

#3 guard is senior Joe John. He came to us as a juco last year and didn't play much but he really worked hard in the offseason and he's got game now! #4 is junior Gary Syes, and #5 is frosh Ike Thoo; his D needs work so he's really not ready.

Senior Nat Gard finally gets to start, at SF. He came to us from Seton Hall where he started as a freshman; he was our 1st big off the bench last season and he is ready!

Frosh Jim Rich is at PF. He's a natural C, and we may play him there. He's a real glass eater.

Soph Ric Tony is back in the middle. He's a potential superstar. Last year lack of discipline really hurt him. Let's see if he's matured.

1st big off the bench is senior Brad Gain. He started at Memphis as a frosh and hasn't managed to crack the lineup here. He should get lots of minutes this season. #2 big from the bench is junior Bri Evan. He barely played at all last season after coming here from San Diego ST. He has looked very good in practice. #3 big sub is senior Trev Meil. He's a juco who came to us last year and didn't play much. He won't play much this year unless we have injuries. The guy on the end of the bench is frosh Clif Niel. He isn't close to ready. Not sure why we didn't red shirt him...

[Wayne23]

11/15: We start tomorrow with Xavier, here. Not much to go on. They won both of their exhibitions. That tells us what they run and what defenses they use. They shuffled everybody in and out but we have an idea of who will play most of the minutes.

11/16: After every game this year I'm going to report on my post game conversation with at least one player. Let's see how that goes!

Close early. Up 4 after 10. 41-31 at the half. Shay Webb has 5, 1, 8, 4 steals. SG Aqui Marn has 11. Ric Tony doesn't seem to have learned a thing, 3 fouls in 12 minutes. Brad Gain has 10 from the bench. +14 in the paint, 6 fewer TOs. Stretched the lead to 33 with 10 to go.

90-47! 26, 4, 3, 3 for Marn; hell of a debut! 18, 6 for Rich, 14, 5, 3 for 6th man Brad Gain. 8 TOs to 23, +28 in the paint.

Spoke with frosh C/F Jim Rich after the game. He'd like more minutes at Center, and he's going to get about ½ of them. That may help
Tony to stay out of foul trouble. It's worth trying. If it helps, I'll just switch Rich to C and Tony to PF.

[Wayne23]

11/18: At #16 Cincinnati, 0-1. They lost to #5, 65-74. They have a very good SG so this will be an indication of how good our SG, Aqui Marn, really is. Their C looks very good as well. They turned it over 18 times in their first game.

11/19: Back and forth early. Up 2 after 10. 48-44 at the break. Gain has 3 fouls and every other one of our bigs has 2. 15 fouls on us, 7 on them, -10 from the line. 18, 2, 4 for Webb. No one else is doing much. +8 for the bench. +14 in the paint, 4 TOs. Up 8 with 10 left after a mini-run.

101-84. A late run brings it home. Great offense but not happy with our D.

Shay Webb had a big game, 32, 3, 8. 17 for Rich but 4 fouls; Tony had 2 fouls, 10 and 8. 10, 4, 3, 3 for Marn. 8, 9 for Gain. +20 in the paint.

I spoke with Aqui Marn. He was down about only scoring 10 while his man had 23. I explained to him that his +/- was +10, and the other guy's was -15. I said he was playing a world class SG, and he held his own, and that I had huge confidence in him.

11/20: All but one recruit sign. The one who didn't doesn't appear to be in danger of failing to hit our SAT score but we won't know until late January.

We drop to #5 in the rankings, no idea why. Doesn't mean a thing this early.

The probe at 9 o'clock says something is approaching it very rapidly. Whatever it is is barely visible and seems to be small.

[Wayne23]

11/22: 1-1 Kentucky is here. Definitely a rebuilding year for them. They give up 4 more than they score- against two unranked teams. Both their SG and SF can score.

11/23: It's close early. Down 2 after 10. Shooting 28.6%. Down 2 at the half. Both Tony and Rich have 3 fouls and I'm not hiding my anger about it. We're shooting 34.6% to their 54.5%. Down 3 with 10 left.

75-69. They hung with us all the way.

19 with 4 assists for Webb. 14, 4 for Rich but 4 fouls. 13. 3. 3 for Marn. 10 TOs to 20.

I'll take the win but we didn't play very well.

I spoke with Shay Webb. He's having another terrific year and I wanted him to know how much we appreciate how hard he works. He said he hopes to stay here next year and finish his degree but if it looks like he'll be a lottery pick it will be a tough call.

The probe now says it's ship approaching them, and it is going at a speed our ship could never attain.

[Wayne23]

11/24: Off to the Alaska Classic. We're the #1 seed and we play #8 seed UC-Irvine, 1-2. They give up 2 ½ more than they score.

11/25: Early lead. Up 8 after 10. 42-27 at the half. 9 each for Tony and Webb. +14 in the paint. Shooting 50% to 38.1%. Up 19 with 10 to play.

83-50. Very good D tonight.

19, 8 for Gard, 15, 10 for Tony, 13, 1, 7 for Webb. Good bench play.

+22 in the paint, +18 RBs..

Tony strained his abdominals. Out two weeks. Rich will play C, Gain will start at PF.

The probe that saw the ship is gone. We can only assume it was destroyed by the ship, which is headed our way. Oops, ships, not ship. At least three, maybe more. They are hitting incredible speeds.