2nd loss...

On Wednesday I was at Court for some mentions. I got the ones at DCLC done and then went over to Central. I thought it was one where we were going to cop it, and I didn't want a repeat of what happened last week so I thought I'd better cop it instead of the list officer. I went there and took the file off him, telling him I'd do it.

Turned out to be no problem at all, but I hope he appreciated at least that I was willing to do it.

Also in the morning I got received a message from Any confirming he'd meet me at 7pm, so I was pretty excited. When he said he'd call, I just assumed it was a nice way of saying no, and I got really discouraged at that stage, mainly because I was disappointed in people in general. The Sunny incident has taught me that people can be really unreliable.

I hadn't brought my gear anyway, so I needed to go home. I went home, bummed around a bit before getting changed. At 6:50pm I headed off to meet Any, bringing him a bottle of Powerade because I was just happy to have him. I figured he was going to be the saviour of the team - the guy we could just pass the ball to who would score at will, and I'd just be laughing from the bench.

I waited at his bus stop for a short period before I heard a ball bouncing towards me. I looked and saw him, thinking I remembered him to look a bit different. We caught the bus together, and I told him a bit about Sydney. I felt like the hometown teammate showing the new guy around.

We got off the bus and walked to Town Hall where Bo was already waiting. I introduced them to eachother and knew Bo would have no problems connecting because he was just the type of guy who could get along with anyone. But what I didn't expect was how exlcuded I would feel - Bo started talking about some sort of Angolan martial arts/dance and I didn't know what the hell it was so I just stood there as we waited for Phil.

Bo called Phil and found out he was waiting for us at the platform, so we went down to get a train ticket and meet Phil. It was the first time Any would be catching a train.

We met Phil on the platform and we exchanged numbers. He said he had gone to morning basketball on Tuesday, and I said I didn't know he was going, otherwise I would've gone.

We hopped onto the next train and made funny conversation during the trip. The train was packed, but it was fun to feel like a group of guys in a team joking around. The other good thing was that we were so multicultural - a black guy, a white guy and two Asian guys.

When we got to the station we walked to the courts. As we approached the building and the sounds of the whistles, I silently felt like I had proved to Any that I wasn't lying about the whole bball comp thing - I mean, I guess if I really wanted to, I could've asked him to meet a bunch of guys and rob him or something.

We went into the courts, and Mike and Abi were already there, so they got to meet Any. I felt like so far I haven't had much time to reacquaint myself with Mike and Abi on a genuine basis. Maybe as the season goes on I will.

When Nick arrived, he met Any. He wanted to get his name right from me first, lol. We got there kinda early, so I started stretching and doing light jogging. I was wearing my long sleeve black jersey, to finish off the look to match with my long black socks. It kinda suited the black bib we got too. I wore number 10, because they were randomly given out and seven was taken - I wanted to keep the same number for bibs, don't know why, even though eight was available.

We watched as this team with two really small young guards played. I was relishing the time we'd meet them. I reckon I'd just post up on their small ass.

We also met two other guys who had signed up through the comp, unfortunately they were guards. So we had nine, which didn't really worry me at first because I figured it was good to be safe and stay on the bench.

When I saw the other team I didn't think much of them. They just seemed like a bunch of skinny white guys. I started on the bench and watched on as th went on a 9-0 run. I was actually pretty worried at that stage. It looked like we weren't going to score at all.

It was Any's first game, so I'll give him that, but he didn't really live up to my fantasies of dunking over everyone. And he was a lot skinnier than I thought. Hell, he was skinnier than Abi (although more ripped).

I finally got on at about 10 minutes and found myself running quite a bit already because the other team just kept the speed up. In the beginning we saw they only had five so we figured we could outrun them, but they actually outran us.

We were beaten up pretty badly by halftime. They outscored us, out-rebounded us, out-played us, and out-hustled us. This was a well oiled team against a team of newbies.

I started on the bench again on the second half, and went on again at about ten minutes. This time I was more aggressive. I had told myself to be more aggressive offensively before the game, because I figured I actually needed to step up if we were going to achieve anything, instead of sitting on my lazy ass.

I got so pissed we were losing I felt like starting a fight. I felt like smashing them. I could just picture us talking about a fight afterwards, and how those two new guys would be surprised a fight broke out in their first game. I couldn't believe how angry I was. It was like I just felt like bashing anything. I felt out of control. I can't recall feeling this way when losing with the Pandas?

I played defense more aggressively, slapping a guy in the face. Also, at one stage, a guy drove, did a jump stop, and I heard everyone call a travel except the referee, and I hit him in the arm trying to swipe the ball, and a foul was called by that little shit of a referee. I started walking towards him angrily saying "why don't you call the travel?!" and Abi pulled me back.

Then on offense I tried to draw the foul when taking it up by running into them, but I must admit they were playing good D. I accidentally grabbed a guy in the balls too.

There was a small stretch where I shot it, we got the rebound, passed back to me, I shot it, we got the rebound, it came back to me, and I shot it, and we got the rebound and scored, lol. Can't believe I missed three quick shots in a row, but that shows the aggressive mentality I was in. All three shots looked good, so I was surprised they didn't fall.

I took a three later on as well, and it was too strong. Then in the waning minutes, someone passed it out to me for a three which I knocked down. I was surprised, because I wasn't really feeling the three. Oh well, I'll take whatever I can get at this stage. Also got two assists finding the open man.

We were pretty shattered after that loss, but came to the realisation we had just played an experienced team. We had a short debriefing session afterwards before Abi said he had to go. Nick found out about Mike's "use seven sentences to say one thing" syndrome, lol. We all walked to the train station, and I was glad to see Any have so much input about the game, because to me it was a sign he wanted to play, and I really think he could help this team. The other two guys were good, especially the white guy, but we have way too many guards.

It was a bit of a sober feeling on that train, as we mostly just listened to Bo and Nick talk about wrapping their ankles. Phil was funny in that he had diarrhea, lol. I would've hated to be him, haha. He had to get off at Town Hall with Any and I to use the bathroom, and the even funnier thing was Bo's female friend got onto the train and started talking to them, haha. I'm sure Phil was thinking "screw all this, I just wanna goooooo!!"

Any and I caught the bus back home. It was a packed bus so we stood near the front, talking about the game and a bit about surgeries and injuries.

Ah well, let's hope we win next game.