Working and Dreaming

First, the working part. 

* Someone is interested in contributing - or at least looking over - the Historical Teams and Coaches Register.  The problem with any of these record keeping/stats based projects is that I work alone.  I don't have any one to check anything for accuracy, I don't have anyone to beta-read article texts, anything.  Which means that I'm pretty much left to be my own editor, with all of the advantages (I can post articles whenever and wherever I decide to) and all of the disadvantages (if there's an error, it's on me) that that entails.

Work has been busy, so he'll have to wait until I finish with that.

* The  freshmen minutes project is nearing completion.  I have data for all but 15 teams - the back half of the Southeastern Conference and the "new eight" - the eight teams that are being pulled in from the Atlantic 10, MVC and Conference USA to fill in what will be the (new) Big East and the American Athletic Conference.

The question then becomes one of interpretation.  There are lots of reasons a team might not play freshmen very much.

1. They don't have any freshmen to play on the squad.  California is the example, although the data I get from wbbstate.com only indicates that there were no freshmen on the Golden Bears who played any game minutes, not that there weren't any freshmen on the squad - if those freshmen played zero minutes, it wouldn't be reflected in the final writeup.

2. The philosophy of the coach might be that freshmen shouldn't play, and minutes are artificially limited.

3. The freshmen might not be very good.  This might be a good way to gauge recruiting success - when you put your freshmen on the floor, how good are they?

I am very close to finishing this, and my target date is Thursday.  At last, another article!

(* * *)

Since there's nothing going on either in the WNBA (we're in the vacation period after the All-Star break) or the NCAA (the second July evaluation period is over now), I had my first basketball dream last night.  It was very weird.

I had suddenly been asked to be the Dream's head coach - me, a person who has not only never coached a game but has never played basketball! - and I was on the road at Key Arena, which looked rather like a high school gym.  I was dressed up in my suit and trying to figure out what to do, holding three clipboards and clumsily dropping them.  Brian Agler was there with me, but he wasn't helping me.  So was the Dream PR guy, who told me that a halftime ceremony would be honoring Vicky Baugh - a Tennessee player who wore number 00 (my dream actually got that right).

My plan in the dream was to have the team leader, Angel McCoughtry, do the actual coaching.
Then I woke up.

Thinking back on things, this was a mistake by my Dream self.  I would have picked Armintie Herrington to actually player/coach the team while I pretended to be coach - she was an assistant coach for a while at Ole Miss.  Although, I don't know if we would have beaten the Storm, since the Dream haven't been that great on the road.

(* * *)

Last night my wife and I had dinner with a couple of acquaintances, one of whom was an ex-basketball coach.  I don't know if she coached high school, middle school, or whatever; I need to ask her that someday.

We were talking about Elena Delle Donne's injury.  She said that the reason Delle Donne got hurt is that she hadn't been taught how to take a charge.  There is a way to fall that keeps you from bonking your head against the floor.  Delle Donne didn't fall right, and therefore the injury.  (If you want to know how to "fall right", you cross your arms across your chest like a mummy and tilt your head into your chest.  Supposedly, this works.  Good old-school advice for all you forwards out there.)