In one of several hotly contested games on Sunday, Showtime held on for a 67-66 win over Outlawz. Showtime was up 41-37 at the half, then moved out to a double-digit lead in the second half. But then Zach Ryberg started hitting some ridiculous threes for the Outlawz to tighten things up. Showtime hit a couple free throws late to grab a four-point lead before Ryberg, who had eight threes on the night, hit a shot from halfcourt to provide the final points of the night.
In an instant classic, Basketball Junkies held off Soldierz, 61-60. The two heavyweights put on quite a show and it came down to the final shot attempt of the game. Josh Kollasch led the Junkies with 18 points, while the Soldierz were led by Dom Banks with 14 points.
The TBL got back on track as an amazing 17 games were decided by four points or less. The first game of the day saw Looney Goons slip past Goobers, 77-75, in overtime. It was probably the best 9:00 a.m. game of the season so far. Later on that same court, Ham slipped past Sleeper Squad, 53-51.
The other night, I had to ref a couple games by myself. We had another guy who was going to ref with me, but he was out of town and his return flight got delayed. Over the past 37 years, I've reffed hundreds of games by myself. It's not optimal, but neither is it horrible. I'm pretty good at it and when you're reffing by yourself, most teams will help out on the close calls (which I greatly appreciate). Late in the game, one of the guys on the team that was trailing by four or five points, apparently looking for an excuse, said, "We should have two refs!" I said, "If we had two refs, you might be losing by more." He laughed and said, "Yeah, huh?"
We have been making every effort to make sure that we have two refs for every game, but sometimes we don't. This past Sunday, we had 44(!) games and just four were reffed by just one person. As it turns out, refs are like normal people. They, too, travel in the summer.
Quick story. One of our refs told me that he was going to go to a part Washington state known as the Tri-Cities--Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland. I told him that less than an hour from there was the Hanford site where, during World War II, scientists used a breeder reactor to turn Uranium into the more-powerful Plutonium for the bombs that would end the war. If he couldn't make it to Hanford, he should check out nearby Richland High School, where the mascot is the Bombers and all of the official stuff (letterman's jackets, logos) include a mushroom cloud. As a Nuclear Engineer, I think that's awesome and awful at the same time.
For those of you who are planning on playing in the Fall 2024 season that starts in September, you have nine weeks until the first Sunday of that month. Not all teams will start on that day (some will start on the following Sunday), but you will have to have matching jerseys to begin play. Again, you don't need to have really fancy ones (although some teams are really going all out), but they will have to be the same color and they will have to have a number on them.
One of the teams that has been in the League a really long time is Frosty Hesson, named for the real-life inspiration for Bodhi, the adrenaline junkie/bank robber character played by Patrick Swayze in the movie "Point Break." One of the guys on Frosty Hesson is Chris Rod, who has been playing in the League since the 1990s. The team was originally called the Slow Mavs, back when the Dallas Mavericks were the worst team in the NBA. Anyway, Mark, the ref who plays on Frosty Hesson, kept picking up strays and their roster got so big, they had to split into two teams. Their new team is Johnny Utah, named for the character that Keanu Reeves plays in "Point Break." Anyway, the got brand-new uniforms and...as a writer, the words escape me. They look like a unicorn vomited on a piece of cloth. But they're certainly unique!