On the plus side, I have never been accused of committing any recruiting violations.

One of my favorite things about coaching is when (and this is a rare thing) something I have taught the boys in practice shows up in a game and actually works.  For example, this year I taught them a VERY simple play for when we got the ball out of bounds under our basket.  Five minutes of practice should have been sufficient to teach this play.  We worked on it almost all season with no success.  Suddenly, in the next to last game, everything clicked.  The right kid took the ball out of bounds.  The right kid set a pick in the right spot.  The open player cut to the right spot.  Layup.

I stood on the sideline with my arms upraised like Andy Dufresne after he crawled out of the sewage pipe in The Shawshank Redemption.

So sometimes I teach the players something.  And sometimes they teach me.

“Isaac” was one of the smallest players on the team, but he had more fun playing than anybody.  He’d yell for his teammates when he was on the bench.  He’d scrap for loose balls when he was in the game.  About every other week he’d describe for me some elaborate play he’d invented.  One game he showed up sporting a nice new cornrow hairstyle and complained that his eyebrows hurt.  Another coach and I surmised that his hair was cinched too tight, but having no experience with cornrows ourselves this was admittedly speculation on our part.

One of our opponents had a player who gave us fits every time we played them.  This kid was above average in height, and much more physically strong than any of our players.   We were losing one game pretty much because of this one player’s impact, and Isaac knew it.

“Let me guard him!” Isaac pleaded between periods.  I set our lineup as before and once again saw the same result.  I heard the same request again.  “Let me guard him!”

This is where I’d like to say that Isaac came in and shut the big kid down despite being WAY undersized.  However, our league rules require us to match players of similar ability and size and this just would have been too much of a stretch for me to justify.  If not for that rule, I would’ve let him try just for the look I saw in his eye.  The big kid was hurting our team, and Isaac wanted at him.

The next time life presents some big or scary challenge, I hope I can follow Isaac’s example.

“Hey, God.  Let me try.  I’ll give it my best shot.”

First, as a University of Kentucky fan who for the first time in his adult life must manufacture an interest in the NIT, I reflect upon how sometimes bygones should be bygones.  Coach Pitino, all is forgiven.  If you come back we can work this thing out.  I swear.  You can even reopen the Italian restaurant.  I’ll even go try it out this time.  Promise.

Second, I reflect upon a wonderful comment that a helpful reader posted following an online article about UK basketball earlier this season.  This UK fan complained that the basketball team was playing like a bunch of “pre-madonnas.”

Well, then.  There’s a couple of ways this could go.

First, I suppose the fan may have been thinking of “Madonna” in the “mother of Jesus” sense.  Thus, “pre-madonna” would be akin to “before Christ.”  I suppose claiming that the ball team was playing ball like they did during “B.C” could imply he thought they were playing like cavemen.

Second, perhaps the fan was thinking more along pop culture lines.  Considering that pop star Madonna became famous in the 1980’s, maybe “pre-madonna” implied that UK basketball had devolved back to the 1970’s.  I reject this interpretation because in context his comment seemed intended as an insult, and UK had some very good teams in the 1970’s.  Thus I come to the possibility that he meant a literal interpretation of “pre-madonna” in the pop culture context.  Maybe he was trying to say that the team was playing so poorly they somehow reminded him literally of, say,  Cher.

His criticism must have been brilliant because it works on many levels.  Well done, sir.