1. Another winter storm swept into the Idaho Panhandle this morning and I paid close attention to the webcams stationed on I-90 and to road reports posted on the 4th of July Facebook page. By the time I needed to leave for Coeur d'Alene, it looked to me like the freeway was largely unaffected by the snowfall, so I kept my appointment at the Kootenai Heart Clinic. To my relief, the snowflakes were tiny, the roads were still a bit warm from previous days, and the roads were wet and clear.
Once I arrived at the clinic, Nurse Sarah led to me an testing area. My vitals were superb, especially my blood pressure, and she put an IV in my right arm. Then Rhonda arrived and injected a radioactive liquid into my arm and I was at rest for about twenty minutes so the liquid could circulate. Then Rhonda put me under a machine and I lay still for the next twenty minutes while the contraption took pictures of my heart at rest. Then Sarah escorted me to the treadmill room, placed a bunch of electrodes on my chest, and put me through a 9-10 minute walk, steadily increasing the speed of the treadmill and its steepness. The test required that my heart rate hit 131 and once I reached that level, Sarah leveled out the treadmill and slowed it down and, before long, Rhonda walked me back to the picture taking machine and took another series of pictures after my heart had been stressed.
As I was leaving the testing area, Rhonda was looking at the pictures and told me there were "no surprises". To make sure I understood her correctly, I said, "So the transplant people should be happy?" Rhonda nodded.
I began the process of tests and classes to get listed for a kidney transplant back on October 18, 2018 and today, on March 12, 2019, I am done with the testing. The committee decided to list me, on February 28, 2019, ahead of today's cardio test. The transfer of my waiting time from Maryland to Spokane has been completed and I've been removed from the U of Maryland's transplant list.
I just need one more thing: the blood draw kit to arrive at home from Sacred Heart. My nurse coordinator thought I should have received the kit by now, had another one sent out, and asked me to let her know if/when it arrives.
2. After my two hour or so visit to the Heart Clinic, I grabbed a quick burger at Jack in the Box and then met Byrdman at Slate Creek where I enjoyed a couple of half pints of beer, a brut IPA and a pilsner. Byrdman and I had fun yakkin' about college basketball and other stuff. Snow continued to fall during our session, but, I was confident that it wasn't sticking to the roads and my easy and fully lit drive back to Kellogg confirmed my assessment.
3. One of the things I love about college basketball is that a person just never knows what might happen in any game these young men and women play.
Perfect example: tonight, the St. Mary's Gaels' upset Gonzaga, 60-47 in a win that shocked me and impressed me at the same time. (Fortunately, the meatloaf dinner Christy made tonight was much better than the Zags' performance!)
I have a lot of thoughts about how St. Mary's pulled off this win. I doubt I will write them all here, but here are some of them.
To begin: I tend to think winners win basketball games more than losers lose them. I tend to credit winners for wins more than I tend to blame losers for losses.
In watching this game, I thought what St. Mary's did really well contributed mightily to their victory and captured more of my attention than what Gonzaga did poorly -- in fact, I thought much of what St. Mary's did so well caused many of the Zags' problems.
Mostly, St. Mary's poured molasses over the Zags, slowed them way down, gummed up their gears, by not shooting until the shot clock on most of their possessions had nearly expired, not committing many turnovers, scoring on a number of high percentage shots (and hitting a few low percentage ones), by not allowing the Zags to dominate them when it came to rebounding missed shots, and by playing bruising defense.
I don't know if Randy Bennett (no relation to UVA coach Tony Bennett) coaches something like the UVA Pack Line Defense, but whatever his staff teaches his players to do defensively worked a lot like the Pack Line tonight.
St. Mary's defense collapsed on and crowded Rui Hachimura -- he only took six shots all game and only one in the second half. He only scored nine points. All this inside crowding and collapsing also kept Brandon Clarke in check for the most part. He only took eight shots (but scored 16 points). Josh Perkins drove to the cup several times, but in the heavy traffic of St. Mary's inside defense, he failed to convert many of his drives. St. Mary's also defended Gonzaga well from the outside and the Zags hoisted a lot of shots from long range that failed to fall -- Gonzaga's guards shot a combined 7-30, and the Zags only made 2-17 shots from beyond the three point line. Oh, yeah. The Zags also committed a number of careless turnovers or unforced errors.
Did one team seem hungrier than the other? Make more hustle plays? Dig out more loose balls and contested rebounds? Did one team appear more poised? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
That team was St. Mary's.
Put it all together, St. Mary's dictating the tempo, St. Mary's bruising the Zags on defense and bullying the Zags on the boards, the Zags' poor shooting and careless turnovers, and St. Mary's greater hunger, better energy, and higher motivation and the result was, as Dick Vitale kept hoarsely hollering, "Upset city, baby!"
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