Basketball - A return with feminine spelling

As a guy who is 6 foot 4 inches tall there are a couple of sports that I am somewhat pigeon-holed into being good at. Nearly every time I meet a lady over the age of 40 she will undoubtedly greet me with the same thing " Do you play basketball? You're really tall so you'd be good at it". As it turns out, I am somewhat co-ordinated, have good hand/eye co-ordination and can jump, so I  was fairly decent at the game.

 

Having not played for a while, the bug has well and truly bitten me again and I have the excitement level back to play. So when a couple of mates suggested that we start a social team, I was keener than mustard! So we rounded up a few other interested guys and we set to making it happen.

Once we had the playing list sorted it was time to register the team. So off went our Captain Fantastic, James P Warren, and his sidekick Dean 'Podgey' Robertshaw to the Newcastle Basketball Stadium to complete the task. Now, I wasn't there but this is the story I was told about how our team name came about:

Dean: Ok Waz, was there a decision made about what we should call ourselves?
James: Nah, do you think they'll let us leave it blank and fill it in later?
D: We can ask I suppose.
*Sheet gets filled out with players details, and they return to the office*
D: Hi, heres our rego form.
J: Is it ok if we leave the name blank and we can call you tomorrow with the team name once we decide on it?
Office lady: No you need to write it now, because once you've paid your team gets entered.
J: Oh crap! What should we call the team then?
D: (Said phonetically) Mooey Bwen O.
J: Huh?
D: Mooey Bwen O. Its Spanish for 'very good'.
J: How do you spell it?
D: M-U-Y B-U-E-N-A
J: An A at the end? Didn't you say its 'Mooey Bwen O'?
D: Yeh it sounds like an O but is spelt A.
J: OK, if you say so!

So, for those of you with culture will be aware that in Spanish, there are different words for the different sexes, such as 'senor' and 'senorita'. Similarly there are different pronunciations and inflections. So 'Muy Bueno' is the male connotation and 'Muy Buena' is the female connotation. And as a result we are the female connotation of very good for an all male basketball team.

But whats done is done and we can't change it now! So we moved on and the season started. Again with the amazing skills that we as a team seem to have, we had about 72 hours warning to prepare for tip off. As a result I was unavailable for Rd 1 because I was having my tattoo added to. But I dressed up in my Sunday finest and took off to coach, complete with tie and clip board! It helped.. at first. And now I'll break down the game.

Game 1 v Lakers

Now I only watched the first half as I was dripping blood all over the bench. But here were some of the highlights:

• 6'9 Troy Ridgley going end to end only to miss the layup
• Brendan McCarthy missing consecutive 3 point attempts by a large margin.
• Airforce Tom running back into position, turning around and rolling his ankle after only 47 seconds on court.
• James 'Capt Shazam' Warren showing the touch of a blacksmith and pelting the ball at the basket so hard, that the rebound was caught on the 3pt line.

The boys got out to an early (well it took 7 minutes) 8 - 0 lead. Only to trail 14 - 22 at the break. And thats where I took my chance to bail. The final result was a 16 point loss. But the excitement levels were increased 10 fold!

Game 2 v Buckle Up

 After a small hiccup with the times the time had arrived for me to make my long awaited return to the court! I dont think I had ever been this nervous/excited for a Rep game let alone a Division 3 social comp. But I hit a few shots in warm ups and I was ready to go. It was also the return of 'Podge' our starting PG. And we were ready to ball!

But.. then Podge decided to take the jump ball! At this point I should advise that Podge is probably pushing 5'7. In shoes. But to his credit he only just lost the jump!

I think the guy on the other team who putup the first shot was fairly surprised to see 4 people there to block it though. Probably even more shocked to see 3 people actually get it. And thats pretty much how it went for the rest of the game. We got easy looks, hacked when we went to the basket and not much of a problem in defence.

We were quite obviously a better team, and that annoyed our opposition for some reason and they got a little bit cranky. Their average height and weight of 5'9 and 70kg obviously gave them some sense of bravado against or average of 6'3 and 90kg though as they tried to get physical a few times. That was until I did my standard 'Mack' Truck impersonation and ran over one of their particularly nippy players. Two years of playing footy certainly helped with the hit and it did a good job of convincing them to back off.

All in all its been a very positive return to the hardwood. I scored some points, grabbed a few rebounds and got a MASSIVE block or two!

We are due to get uniforms shortly too. Once we have them I'll post some pics. And then thefun will really start!