So, I'm sittin' there in the lobby at the League, just minding my own business, and this guy comes up. He introduces himself as Jairo (it's a Portuguese/Brazilian name that's pronounced HI-doh). He wants to know why the schedule comes out so late each week and suggests that it's messing with his social calendar. The guy looks like a male model, so you can guess how much I care about his social calendar. But he does have a point and it is something that has nagged at me for years.

First, allow me to offer an explanation (although it's going to tiptoe up dangerously close to sounding like an excuse). I'm kinda' old; indeed, most people my age are dead already. (I've passed my life expectancy, although there is considerable longevity in my family.) With writing and coaching and taking care of my granddaughter, I'm ridiculously busy for somebody of my advanced age (and weight). I keep telling myself that I'm going to do the weekly schedule on Monday, but pretty soon it's Tuesday and then Wednesday and, all of a sudden, it's Thursday afternoon. 

I could very easily make the schedule for the entire season before the first game of the year. The algorithm is fairly straightforward. But it would be a nightmare as teams would want byes or they would want to play at a later time or they don't want to play that team because my cousin plays for them or... I used to do that back in the 1990s and it was a headache when we had 32 teams. Imagine what it would be with over 100 teams. I am going to work on making it better.

One thing I am definitely going to do is stop making schedule changes. This is completely my fault and I never should have started doing it in the first place. I made the schedule for Sunday, October 11th. There would be 37 games (with 74 teams). Within 24 hours of the schedule being posted, I had been contacted by 21 teams asking for schedule changes. That's insane!

If you are planning on playing in the Tucson Basketball League next season (and I sincerely hope that you do), here's how it's going to work. At the start of the season, your team will tell me if you would like to play most of your games in the morning (9:00 am - 1:00 pm), afternoon (1:00 - 5:00), or evening (5:00 - 9:00). I can't guarantee that all of your games will be in the chosen window, but most will. And I don't care how nicely you ask, I will ignore that text that reads "We want to play in the morning this week and at night next week, then we want a bye and the week after that an afternoon game." Nope.

Another nagging situation concerns players who play on multiple teams. I've had people suggest that individual participation should be limited to one team, but I'm not a hypocrite. I know that when was I y'all's age, I would have played six or seven games a day if I had had the chance. But, starting next season, if I get a text that says, "Can you make a change because two of the teams on which I play are both scheduled for 3:00," not my problem. The simple solution is to have Team A sign up for mornings, Team B for afternoons, and Team C for evenings. That might make for a long day, but the twain shan't meet. (If you have twin teams like KP Ballerz and Bench Bros, we can schedule them back-to-back. That's no problem.)

But that's next season. For the rest of this season, I'll just try to get things done earlier in the week and you WILL NOT BE ASKING FOR SCHEDULE CHANGES! Oh yeah, I will also try to forgive Jairo for suggesting that AI could do the schedule better than I can. As Richard Pryor would say if he were alive, AI don't know shit.

A couple important notes: The next couple weeks are the worst in the entire year for the Tucson Basketball League as it's the start of the Club Volleyball nonsense and they eat up a lot of court time and space. We'll finish up the regular season on time and the first-round games of the playoffs will be played on November 15th and 22nd. 

If your team does not have its roster online, YOU WILL NOT PLAY IN THE PLAYOFFS. Simple as that. If you don't take the few minutes to complete that minor task, you forfeit your chance to win really cool Championship shirts. Get it done, please.