Monday, December 13, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 12-12-2021: Baylor Paralyzes Villanova, ZOOM Time in the Westminster Basement, Pasta and Pesto

 1.  I don't know the coaching assignments for the Baylor Bears' men's basketball team, but someone on that staff, along with the head coach, Scott Drew, has earned the total commitment of this team to playing suffocating, paralyzing defense. You might remember Baylor's defensive effort last April when the Bears defeated the Zags in the NCAA Championship game. I thought back then that Baylor's defense discombobulated Gonzaga, broke their spirit, made a usually quick and crisp team look slow and tentative. 

Four players left that championship Baylor team, but against Villanova today, this year's version of the Baylor Bears looked equally, maybe even more, devastating on defense. Villanova simply could not get an open shot. If they did, they rushed it and missed shots from distance as well as right at the tin. At times, as Villanova tried and tried to find any breathing room on offense, I thought they looked like they were playing underwater. They looked overwhelmed, unsure of how to attack Baylor, and, as a result, Villanova got clobbered, 57-36, the first time since 1979 that a Villanova team failed to score 40 points. 

2. Today the Westminster Study Group met on the Zoom machine and we had a superb turnout: Bill, Diane, Val, Colette, Bridgit, and I were all present.

We talked about a wide variety of topics, ranging from copyright laws, extending comfort to those suffering from illness and pain, the chill of virtue in some "it's God's will" Christians when they minister to suffering with bromides and bloodless reassurances, reassurances that it's in God's hands, and other topics, including how Val and Colette's graduate studies are progressing. 

3. This afternoon Debbie made a superb pesto and when our group's Zoom time was over, Debbie told me she'd boiled pasta and the pasta and pesto was so damn good that I ate two big bowls of it and if we'd had some kind of Olive Garden-like bottomless pasta bowl in our house, I would have eaten pasta and pesto by the handfuls, stopping only when I inevitably fell into a pasta/pesto induced coma. 

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