Buckeyes Sing the Blues: When The 3s Don't Fall
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by user Weinbda
I love playing and revere Ultimate Frisbee and Basketball. They are quintessential team sports with lots of scoring and continuous activity for all involved at the defensive and offensive end. It is a crime against humanity that badminton (while fun), handball, and curling are Olympic Sports while Ultimate Frisbee is not. This will probably change when I turn 46 with the 2024 Olympic Games and finally blow out one of my knees... which I'm naturally very excited about, but that's another post.
Great NCAA championship game last night insofar as there were half a dozen or so really talented players on the floor, a handful of riveting blocks, dunks, and breakaways, and generally tight play, but it wasn't particularly competitive because OSU could never get the 3-point shooting on line. Another way to put it... OSU's 3 point shooting, at .174%, was off the line, over the cliff, and burning in flames at the bottom of the canyon. OSU missed an astounding 19 3-pointers, a grand total of 57 points not scored. Ouch.
I can't dunk. On a 8' 10" rim. I would love to be able to dunk. I have dreamt about dunking. I have been dunked on, but alas, nothing short of leaping off someone's back or a trampoline will put me above the rim. Oh well. Life is hard, play short. So... to compensate, those non-dunkers among us must take solace and pride in the 3-pointer. In the few times I have defeated in 1-on-1 my buddy JC, who is a good 5 inches taller, 40 pounds heavier, and 10+ years more experienced than I am in b-ball, a few sweet, and admittedly a couple lucky, 3s have been the key. In my 'best game ever' I knocked down a couple huge 3s in this intense pick-up game at Syracuse U. against this seasoned all Chinese-American team who were playing a nasty 3-2 zone. I was also assessed a flagrant foul in a reffed intramural game at Syracuse, but that's also a story for another post.
Hitting the 3 feels great. A mighty accomplishment. Heck, watching someone hit the 3 can be t-riffic. I am looking forward to some scintillating Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki 3s in the upcoming NBA playoffs. A hit-3 at or near the buzzer to win the game, if you ask me, is the most dramatic moment in all of sports. If you'd like to argue that a car or horse or person crossing a line is the more august event, feel free to drop me a line.
Thus... Butler, Harris, Lewis... I feel your pain. Sometimes the 3s fall, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you. May you redeem yourself in the next season, league, or casual game of pickup or 1-on-1.
