The agony of defeat

First basketball game, first loss. Doug and Charity have assembled a good team but we met another good team tonight and were defeated by one basket.

There was some controversy in the second half when I was fouled driving to the hoop. It's a social league and there are no actual refs; a "Game Co-ordinator" keeps score and makes sure things don't get out of hand but each team is supposed to call its own fouls. We though the defence called the foul and the other team thought it was the offence. That left two teams calling fouls at our end of the floor and no one calling fouls at their end. Anyway, I wondered out loud why no foul was called, was told to call my own foul and then proceeded to say I was fouled. There was a bit of a discussion as to whom should actually be calling the fouls and play resumed after a few minutes. However, play resumed with them bringing the ball up the court. The foul against me was forgotten.

Personally, I don't like not having refs because a few people in the league don't know what a foul is. There are also one or two GC who act as part time refs, which is extra annoying since some fouls are called by them and then they lose interest for a while. They also don't run the court and are a long way from the action. One in particular has overruled charges which I took on two different occasions. Both were charges and both times the other player had accepted that he committed a foul until the GC pipes up from the sideline.

Ying and Julie liked the game quite a bit; they sat on the stage at one end of the gym. Julie was so excited to see all those people running towards her, like they were coming for a visit. Except, they didn't quite get all the way to her and then they ran away again, making her a little sad. But, just a few seconds later, everyone would come running towards her again and she's get excited. Yet, once again, everyone would run away after a few seconds. These emotional ups and downs took their toll and Julie just slept through the second half.

Oh well. It was a fun game which was played at a high level. We got off to a slow start but pulled ourselves back into the game at the end. We even had a lead briefly but couldn't hold it. I'm looking forward to next week's game quite a bit. I'd better get some more practice in so I can contribute more.