Dilemma

(this is a content post, but with sports involvement...)

So I had 3 intramural playoff games today, indoor soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Won 2, and lost in volleyball.

Indoor soccer we went into the game as the #1 seed, and we played a team that were pretty well-balanced. They played well on defense and we struggled to mount any offense against them early on. The referees called a very tight game, but we did end up winning 3-1 and moved on to the semi-finals.

Next up is volleyball, we were ranked 8th from the regular season so we had to match up against the #1 seed. Team played the best game all season and we were tied 1 set a piece going into the 3rd set. The other team put in their 2 bigger/better players for the 3rd set, and we just couldn't hit through their blocks or block any of their attacks, so ended up losing the game.

Right after volleyball I had the basketball game. 11 players showed up and I really do not remember seeing at least 2-3 of them being on the team. Either way, we played a team that only had 4 players, and we tried to outrun them. It worked, but not as well as we had hoped, but we ended up squeezing out a win. A tight one, and an ugly one, but a win nevertheless.

With that said, here is the real reason for my post.

In the basketball game, there were 3-4 players that probably played 1 maybe 2 regular season games (out of 6), and potentially this is the first time they ever showed up to any games/practices. With that said, I haven't been the best "team guy" either, sine I have missed 2 games. However, this is the situation. With a 11 to 4 player advantage, no doubt we will try to pressure them at each possession to take advantage of our situation, and no doubt our offense will play like the Suns. But with some players on the team never showing up to any previous games/practices, do you play them, and if you do, how much playing them should they get? I felt that those players should get limited playing time (myself included), and those who have been there every game should be rewarded with more. On the flip side, my captain disagrees and I respect his decision (we talked after the game), not that I have a problem with his decision, but it was just me expressing my opinion. He believes everyone should get close to equal playing time, because this is a campus recreation league which encourages participation, but also because we were at school, and sometimes when you're busy and can't make it out, thats the way it goes.

So after all that, I can't say I totally agree with him, but I respect his decision, and I can live with it, but I am just not sure if I would've done the same thing if I was captaining a team.

Moving on to the second point, which in a way relates to the first point. As I mentioned, the other team started with 4 players, and all of them were hackers (well, one was a pretty good defender - think John Stockton choice of attire though), so naturally they got in foul trouble. By the mid-way point of the second half, 2 guys had 4 fouls. Obviously, one guy ended up fouling out with around 5 minutes to play in a relatively tight game. Again, we could've played with 4 players against their 3, and personally, I felt it was part of the game. We chose to not play 5 on 4 (I would've done the same), but they fouled out and its all part of the game. However, my captain believes otherwise. He tells the team "we will play them 3 on 3", and sure enough, we played 3 players against their 3 guys and got the win. Afterwards, he mentioned that he decided to go 3v3 due to the fact that we already outnumber them, and he felt that it was only fair to go 3v3 despite the game being a close one. I guess the team agreed with him, since we did win the game, but I'm wondering what would've happened had they come back and defeated us?

Been really busy that last couple of weeks, and it doesn't look like it will get any better until the end of lectures in 2 weeks. Will make more posts soon I hope. Spring is around the corner, and that means the MLB season is about to begin.