As often happens when we get near the middle of a season, I'll get texts and/or emails with messages along the line of "Hey Tom, can we please have this week off? We've got guys who are hurt/sick/suddenly ancient." It's like what Richard Pryor used to say, "That old'll be messin' with your legs." Of course, being Richard Pryor, he didn't use the word "messin'," but you get the idea. These are the guys who are concerned that there aren't ENOUGH byes during the season.

One of the reasons (along with overwork and laziness) that I post the schedule on Thursdays is to cut down on the number of people who want schedule changes. We have long had a sign on the website stating that there will be no schedule changes, so please don't ask. But every week, sometimes within minutes of posting the schedule, the texts start appearing. "Hey Tom, we've got guys out of town and they won't be back until late Sunday. We need to have a 9:00 p.m. game." (There is no 9:00 game.) Hey Tom, we can't play at night. We have to get up early for work."  (Work sucks!) "Hey Tom, two of our guys play on multiple teams and you scheduled the two teams to play at the same time, but on different courts." (Yeah, wait until the playoffs. I'll schedule those two teams to play each other.)

It took me a while, but I'm caught up on all of the stats. One of my scorekeepers, a young lady named Mi Meh, used to input all of the stats. But she's now a Freshman at prestigious Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, so I've had to do them and they are time-consuming. The standings will also be up any minute now. My IT guy (son) is formatting them. We will also be going back to the old tradition of listing the stat leaders in each category (scoring, rebounding, free throw percentage, three pointers). Those will be up starting next week.

As for this past week, we had some great performances. They include:

--Zach Jones of Blue Coconuts scored 33 points.

--DeAndre Washington of Soul Snatchers had a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds. He has twice won the season award for Top Rebounder.

--Jovani Anderson (19 and 13) and Mike Dickerson (23 and 13) both had double-doubles for Elite. On the website, they're listed as Southside Elite, but when they realized how good they were, they decided to be Elite everywhere. I just haven't gotten around to changing the name yet, but I will.

--Junior Martinez hit eight three-pointers and scored 37 points for AAG.

--The guy with the coolest name in the entire Tucson Basketball League, Norman Wolfchief, had a double-double (14 and 10) but his Skoden team lost a heartbreaker, 65-63, to Icy Hots.

--Jared Timmons and Itury Kitt combined to score 64 points and grab 20 rebounds in the Freqz's 104-84 win on Sunday.

--Perhaps the most amazing thing from Sunday was the fact that Tre Bruner of the Smokin' 3s was a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line. That's amazing.

And this week, in two examples of weather opposites facing off, we have Dry Heat playing Frosty Hesson and Icy Hots playing The Suns.