One of the hardest life lessons to learn - I'm starting to get uncomfortably close to 50 but I haven't gotten there yet - is that you can't know everything. Believe it or not, I thought at one time that I could know everything about mathematics, or about nursing, or about risk management and when I found myself against that hard wall of ignorance I generally banged my head against the wall too much and ended up with the intellectual equivalent of a concussion.
In following women's basketball, it has taken me about six years to figure out that there is no way that I am going to know everything. It is only recently that I could say with any honesty, "I'm happy with that."
There are people at Rebkell who either have the luxury or the passion to watch every single women's basketball game there is. I certainly tried at one time, but now I have to realize that that's not just going to be possible, that there are just a few brilliant people that are going to know more than I am every going to know.
Part of the problem is that I have a wife and that I want to spend time with her.
Another part of the problem is that she not only has no interest in women's basketball, she has no interest in just about any sport except hockey. She has told me that she could follow hockey, but that adding hockey viewings to her itinerary is just a massive time sink that she doesn't want to get involved in.
When you get older - when you have to work eight-plus hour days and advance your career - then you have to make very careful choices about what you want to do. In economics there is something called "opportunity cost". A good example is from Wikipedia. You come into some money, and you can spend that money in a number of ways. You can go on vacation, or you can spend that cash on home repair. So going on vacation doesn't just cost you the money and time on vacation, it costs you the opportunity to make significant repairs on your home.
Likewise, the opportunity cost of watching a women's basketball game is the cost of the things that need to get done in those two hours. Last nights Atlanta-Los Angeles game had a 10:30 pm start time, and the opportunity cost of watching that game would be the cost of foregone sleep - I'd be in bed at 12:30 pm ET or later. And I was really exhausted. So I said, "No, I can't watch this game, I'll be a disaster tomorrow."
Good decision. The Dream dropped that game 77-73. Angel McCoughtry was back, but the Dream had no bench production - four measly points from their non-starters. All of the starters played 30-plus minutes (with Alex Bentley playing 37 minutes - wonder if she played that much in a game at Penn State?) and none of the bench players got more than 9 minutes. Ruth Riley made a 3:37 guest appearance. I really wonder why Ruth Riley is on this team. (Something I'll have to ask Fred Williams if I get a chance to chat.) It's too late in Riley's career to see her play the Brittainey Raven/Chioma Nnamaka role.
Then again, maybe it's an opportunity cost problem from Senor Fred, too. If you don't put Riley on the team, then who are you going to put on it? Maybe Riley, believe it or not, brings the best value.
Interesting fact of the day: In games which are "close" - decided by five points or less - Washington's Mike Thibault is 5-2 on the season. The Mystics have played more close games than anyone, and have won more close games than anybody. I don't think that's just random chance. I suspect that players listen to Mike Thibault, and that explains why his job security has been good. But he needs to win a title somewhere to shake off that reputation of falling short in the postseason. Hey, why not the Mystics, someday? Give Thibault a few more years.
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