Sunday, February 28, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 02-27-2021: LaBron Dream, Greek Soup, Big Basketball Day

 1. For those of you who read my blog posts but do not spend time on Facebook, today I posted the following summary of a dream I had Friday night that a lot of people got a kick out of and maybe you will as well.

Until Friday night I'd never had a teacher dream in which LaBron James, as a student of mine, stood up in class and complained that I was asking my writing students to do things in their papers that I didn't do in my own writing. Later, he showed up on my back porch, firm in his criticism, but handed me a 50 dollar bill.

 2. I wanted to make this simple Greek soup I'll bring to family dinner on Feb. 28th with dry cannellini beans that I soaked overnight, but Yoke's didn't have dry beans on hand, so (no problem) I bought canned ones. Today, I chopped up an onion, seasoned it with salt and pepper, sautéed it for about 10 minutes and then added a teaspoon or dried oregano and heated it up until fragrant. I then poured six cups of chicken stock, three cans of cannellini beans, and about four stalks of celery chopped, brought the soup to a boil and let it simmer for over an hour until the celery was tender. I put two cups of the soup in the blender, pureed it, added it back into the pot and added three tablespoons of lemon juice. 

That's it. I let the soup cool, put it in containers, and my contribution to tomorrow's Greek-styled family dinner is ready to be heated up at Carol and Paul's and enjoyed as an appetizer.

3. It was a wild day in college basketball. 

*I got to see D'Mitrik Trice score 19 points in the closing 2 minutes and 12 seconds! of Wisconsin's desperate effort to come from 13 points behind in the last three minutes against Illinois, but Illinois scored enough in their possessions and made enough free throws to hold off the Badgers.

Trice's spectacular shooting display was the most breath taking performance I've seen late in a game since Reggie Miller scored eight points in nine seconds! for the Pacers against the Knicks on May 7, 1995, propelling the Pacers to a shocking 107-105 victory in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. 

*My favorite conference in the USA is the Big East. I love watching Big East teams scrap against one another and loved seeing Xavier upset Creighton (I love both teams), 77-69.

*Since I don't get the Pac 12 Network, I went online listened to the Ducks defeat the Cal Bears, 74-63. Once again, the Ducks were led in scoring and on defense by their three strong seniors: Eugene Omoruyi scored 21 points, LJ Figueroa scored 20, and Chris Duarte added 17. Figueroa also had 14 rebounds and 5 steals in a superb performance. I'm still hoping that Will Richardson will be more productive in the Ducks' remaining games. He hasn't quite come around yet after recovering from thumb surgery.

* Kansas played energetic defense. Their center, the always improving David McCormack, scored 20 points and last year's defensive player of the year, Marcus Garrett spearheaded the stifling of Baylor's All-American guard Jared Butler and the Jayhawks emphatically handed Baylor their first defeat of the season, 71-58.

* Loyola Marymount started their game against Gonzaga with high energy and held slim leads for much of the first half, but eventually the Zags' superior talent prevailed and Gonzaga wrapped up the regular season undefeated, winning 86-69. Corey Kisbert led the Zags with 24 points.  

There was more -- North Carolina over Florida State,  Louisville beating Duke, Loyola-Chicago defeating Southern Illinois, Oklahoma State squeezing by Oklahoma, Texas Tech besting Texas, and Utah vanquishing USC were all important games. They added to the drama of this full day of riveting games.  

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