1. Early this afternoon, I wrote out a couple of bills and decided to walk them to the mailbox in front of the shuttered grocery store, Stein's. I decided to listen to another episode of the podcast, Gravy. It featured poet and nature writer Aimee Nezhukumatathil of the University of Mississippi. Nezhukumatathil recently published a book of short essays, each one focused on a specific plant, bird, or animal, especially marine life in a collection entitled, World of Wonders. On Gravy today her stance toward the world of nature and her experience as a minority American citizen, married to a white man, and raising mixed race children was refreshingly positive and optimistic. She read a couple of excerpts from her book -- a part of her essay, "Corpse Flower" and a bit of "Firefly". I will order and read her book. I'm not at all familiar with Nezhukumatathil's poetry and I look forward to seeking it out. (One motivator -- she was a recipient of the Richard Hugo Prize from Poetry Northwest [not sure what year]).
2. The kitchen was getting a bit too tidy, so I took the carcass of the whole chicken I cooked on Thursday, put it in the crock pot along with onion, celery, and carrot chunks and seasoned it with garlic powder, salt, lemon pepper, sage, oregano, thyme, allspice, and whole cloves and got some chicken stock started. A slow cooking batch of chicken stock is the world's best air freshener, in my book. I almost regret that some time on Saturday, I'll strain this stock and fill up quart containers and store it.
3. Today's rivalry game between Marquette and Wisconsin presented, to me, a fascinating contrast. On the one hand, Wisconsin's very experienced team returned five of their top six players from a year ago when they tied for the B10 title. On the other hand, Marquette lost one of the nation's top players, Markus Howard, another very strong player, Sacar Anim, and a solid starter, Brendan Bailey. This year Marquette will be piecing together a team with a handful of returning players, a superb freshman, and two particularly strong players who transferred from other teams.
As I started to watch this game, I thought Wisconsin would wear down Marquette and, in the long run, prevail.
But Marquette turned out to be much stronger than I expected. In particular, transfer D. J. Carton and freshman Justin Lewis made huge contributions. With under a second left, D. J. Carton got fouled with Marquette down by a point. He made his first free throw. Game tied. He missed the second, but Justin Lewis managed to tip the rebound and it dropped through the hoop, giving Marquette a dramatic upset win, 67-65.
Over the last two basketball seasons, I've watched a ton of Big East Conference games. Marquette is in the Big East and I had to make a mental adjustment to watching them play without Markus Howard.
In the next game I watched today, I had to make two such adjustments. The Big East's defending co-champion Seton Hall lost the irrepressible, irreplaceable Myles Powell to graduation and Oregon lost their irrepressible, irreplaceable point guard, Payton Prichard, also to graduation. While I'm more than ready to move on, I missed seeing these two players tonight and missed Payton earlier in the week when Oregon played Missouri.
Seton Hall, despite losing Powell, has a solid foundation of returning players to build around. Oregon has a few returning players, but as if often the case with the Ducks under Coach Dana Altman, they landed four strong transfers: Eric Williams, Amauri Hardy, LJ Figueroa (from my Big East fav St. John's!), and the superb Eugene Omoruyi and added a very talented freshman, Jalen Terry.
Against Missouri on Wednesday night, the Ducks started their first game of the season sluggishly, as if they weren't quite sure of themselves, not quite sure of how to play together. They looked much better in the second half of that loss and tonight the Ducks looked in sync and more comfortable as a team right from the start.
Tonight was LJ Figueroa's first game as a Duck. Just today, he found out that the NCAA granted him a waiver to play this season. I was eager, almost restless, to see how Figueroa would blend in with the Ducks, how he would adjust to playing a different style of game at Oregon from what St. John's plays, and what his contributions would be.
At St. John's LJ Figueroa was, I thought, a wild card. He's athletic, mobile, runs the court beautifully, but, at St. John's, he was streaky on offense. If he got hot, he was dangerous, but when he turned cold, his shots were often ill chosen, sometimes wild, and, as much as I rooted for him, at times he made me cringe.
I didn't cringe once during this game in response to Figueroa. He played terrific defense with four steals and a blocked shot. He was Oregon's leading rebounder with 9, three of them offensive boards. He only took three shots, made two of them, and added two free throws. His six points were modest, but I really admired how he surrendered himself to Oregon's offensive system. On offense, he kept the ball moving, dished out two assists, and only turned the ball over once. In time, I could see Figueroa being more assertive on offense with his drives and, possibly, his outside shot, but if not, the role he played tonight as a facilitator, rebounder, and defensive disrupter will be very valuable to the Ducks.
In the second half of this game, after leading by six at halftime, the Ducks stretched their lead into double digits, protected this lead, and defeated Seton Hall, 83-70.
One last note: Seton Hall's best player is Sandro Mamukelashvli. He's 6'11", can score from outside, drives to the rim powerfully, and makes great passes to his teammates.
In this game, the Ducks kept Mamukelashvli from getting the ball often, choked him when he did, and neutralized him for most of the game. Mamukelashvli only took seven shots from the field. He made three of them, but only scored 10 points. This defensive effort by the Ducks might have been the most crucial factor in tonight's win.
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