1. Our family had a more active morning than usual today. It turned out that if Meagan and Patrick were going to see Christy, Paul, and Carol (and see Molly again), the best time to do it was around 10:30 this morning. In preparation for our late morning get together, I bought some muffins and blueberry bread slices at Yoke's and purchased a third coffee filter cone since we use the pour over method.
Everyone arrived and before long we each had a cup of coffee and a sweet bite in hand and conversation swirled around the living room. Because I don't get out much in Kellogg, I don't always know much about what's going on around town -- what's going in at the Stein's building? When will the Broken Wheel reopen? What new businesses opened uptown? Etc. Christy and Carol, however, have sources of local information and this morning I learned quite a bit about different changes afoot in Kellogg Idaho. I hear a Grocery Outlet is coming to Smelterville. A gun and ammo shop opened on Main St. A shop focused on skiing and snowboarding opened on McKinley. A commercial bakery specializing in Russian goods will start operating a distribution center (I think) in the Stein's building. A soap making enterprise will operate on E. Cameron -- or is it already in business? I don't know.
2. Later in the afternoon, Debbie asked me if I'd make some Thai curry. I leaped at the chance. Debbie requested green curry. I started by heating up curry paste in some sesame oil and then added two cans of coconut milk, and two tablespoons each of fish sauce, soy sauce, and brown sugar. I filled out the curry sauce with a chopped yellow onion, a handful of frozen green beans, some mushrooms chopped, about four or five dried Kaffir Lime leaves, chopped cilantro, and chopped basil. While this sauce cooked, I chopped up boneless chicken thighs and sautéed them in sesame oil and added them to the sauce. I added a handful of peanuts, too. Earlier, I'd made a pretty good sized batch of rice.
Dinner was a success.
I was especially happy with the combination of flavors created by the undertones of brown sugar, the heat of the chilis in the paste, the saltiness of the soy and fish sauces, and the citrus flavor of the Kaffir Lime leaves, The crunchiness of the peanuts enhanced our green curry's texture.
3. Tonight, Gonzaga hosted the University of Texas. The latest polls ranked the Zags as the number 1 team in the country and Texas was ranked 5th.
I was eager to see this game. I knew Gonzaga's offense would be anchored by two returning veteran players, Drew Timme and Andrew Nembard. I was curious how, at this early stage of the season, the new players, both transfers and freshmen, would be integrated into the team.
Likewise, Texas had a lot of turnover on their team from a year ago with several players transferring into their program and Texas has a new head coach, Chris Beard.
Gonzaga jumped into the lead right away and built that lead to 20 at halftime, thanks to a half court heave that Rasir Bolton made at the buzzer. Texas played better in the second half and whittled the lead down to 11 at one point, but Gonzaga prevailed, 86-74.
My handful of observations. I'm not afraid to state the obvious in what I write here. I'd like a record of this game and I'm not that capable of subtle insight.
- Neither Texas nor Gonzaga has jelled as a well-defined team. This is to be expected. The season has barely started. Texas is stocked with new, experienced transfer players who are figuring each other out and being figured out by Coach Chris Beard. Likewise, Gonzaga has a host of new players -- they lost three starters from a year ago -- and it's clear to me that Coach Mark Few is in the process of working out what combinations of players work best, what players will come off the bench when, and what each player's role is.
- Well, one player's role, in particular, for Gonzaga doesn't need to be worked out much. As the team's most experienced player and most accomplished offensive player, Drew Timme is the player around whom the Zag offense is built. Defensively, Texas had no answer for Timme's touch shots inside, his moves to the basket, or his ability to draw fouls. Tonight Timme scored 37 points. He put up 19 shots, converted 15 of them and made 7 of 9 free throws. I wondered if, as this team jells, the team scoring will become more balanced. Bolton added 16 points and Anton Watson scored 10. No other Zags were in double figures. I think as the Zags' get more playing time with each other and as Mark Few establishes players' roles and substituting patterns more definitively, the scoring load will, in time, get spread around.
- A standard bench mark for excellent shooting from the three point line is a team making 40% of their treys. Historically, teams have collectively shot three pointers at about a 34 to 36% rate. Tonight, the Zags fell short of the 40% bench mark, converting 7 of their 19 three point attempts for 36.8%. I'd call that an average night from behind the three point line. I'm going to keep an eye on this statistic as the season progresses. The Zags look strong in the paint. Tonight, from long range, they were average. Will this long range shooting improve? Will it matter? We'll see. (By the way, Bolton had a good night from long range, converting 4 of his 6 treys. No other Zag attempted more than 3.)
- I might be dead wrong, but I say look out for Texas come the winter. They have stellar players. They will have a big inside player, Dylan Disu, back from injury soon. (He might have made life more difficult for Drew Timme tonight, had he played.) Texas has an accomplished coach. These games in November and December are, yes, about winning, but they are also about teams figuring themselves out. Texas has a ways to go in figuring out how their many transfers and experienced players are going to play together and I think they will sort it out and be a very good team in the Big 12 Conference and in the NCAA tournament come March.
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