1. I'm hooked on watching basketball games in the Big East Conference. This morning, I camped out in the Vizio room and enjoyed an intense game between Marquette and Xavier. I'm not very partisan about these Big East games -- not even when St. John's plays! -- and so I watched this game free of the tension that I might feel if I was emotionally invested in rooting hard for one team or the other. As the game progressed, I began to feel increasing admiration for Marquette. I enjoy the way they pressure their opponents on defense (kind of similar to St. John's!) and they have three players I really like watching. Their sophomore forward, Justin Lewis, impresses me as a multi-dimensional player. He's a solid outside shooter, makes quick and athletic powerful spin moves driving to the iron, rebounds fiercely, and plays rugged defense.
Likewise, I get excited watching Darryl Morsell. Morsell was a tireless and effective defensive player when he played for Maryland (he was last year's Big 10 defensive player of the year), but at Maryland he was a fourth or fifth option on offense. Since transferring to Marquette, Morsell has become a featured scorer in Marquette's offense and he has risen to the occasion. He's a reliable three point shooter and a terrific scorer near the basket. Moreover, Morsell is this team's anchor. He anchors the defense. If you watch him when the team huddles up during pauses in play, he's vocal in directing his teammates and encouraging them. Transferring to Marquette opened the way for his overall game to blossom and it's fun to see.
I've been watching Greg Elliot for three years at Marquette. He's not a starter, but a valuable defender and streaky shooter who comes off the bench. I enjoy how hard he plays, the joy he brings to playing basketball, and the way he has a knack for nailing shots at crucial junctures in Marquette's games.
So how about the Marquette/Xavier game?
Marquette triumphed, 75-64. It was a tightly contested game. I think Marquette's defense made the difference. Xavier missed a bunch of shots inside, not so much because of bad shooting, but because of how Marquette's interior defense pressured those shots. Xavier's coach, Travis Steele, commented after the game that Xavier also fired up some ill-advised shots, what Steele called "hero shots". Again, I think the pressure of Marquette's defense affected the judgment of Xavier's shooters and made the difference in their win.
2. This afternoon I jumped on the ZOOM machine with Bill, Diane, Val, and Bridgit and we had an absorbing two hours of trusting, honest conversation. Val told us about starting a new business, Soaps for Good. We talked about the wearing, wearying impact of the pandemic. Bridgit's, Val's, and Diane's work lives have been altered significantly by the pandemic. We discussed these difficulties. I'm holding much of what we discussed in confidence. We also discussed retirement and the challenges we face to resist thinking that our identity and value as persons is connected primarily to working, to our jobs. Jobs matter. Income matters. We get that. But we have to curry a sense of self and identity beyond our work lives. If a thread ran through our discussion today, I'd say the experience of loss was that thread. We are getting older. It helps us to navigate the experience of aging by being honest about the losses we are experiencing and how we feel about those losses. We are extending a lot of deep trust to one another.
3. I keep up quite a bit on what different insightful people have to say about how to live one's life at this stage of the pandemic. Since returning home from our visit to Eugene, I've been staying home most of the time. Doing so feels right to me at the moment. When I stayed home a lot for months starting in March 2020, I didn't waste time at home. I wrote. I read. I watched movies and television series. I tuned into lectures and readings on the World Wide Web. I experimented some with cooking. I watched college basketball games. Over the last few days, while mostly staying home, I've been sluggish, not very motivated, and haven't taken advantage of being in -- aside from watching college basketball!
So, I'm going to try to change that. I've got a wonderful stack of books I received as gifts in December. Jeff Harrison sent me home with a book he deeply enjoyed. I want to return to watching movies on the Criterion Channel.
Maybe I needed some time to recover from driving all day last Tuesday and from dental work on Thursday. I think my recovery is complete. It's time to get my mind working again and do more than solve word puzzles all day online! (But I am not giving up Wordle!)
No comments:
Post a Comment