Adjacent News

It is, of course, entirely presumptuous of anyone to assume they know the exact mind of the scheduling committee, or indeed, the wider cosmos. Still, looking out across the remarkably serene hardwood of the Mabee Center this Wednesday morning, one cannot help but feel a very mild, polite flutter of spiritual concern. The arena is quiet. The lights are dimmed to a respectful half-power. There is no opponent listed on the bulletin board for tonight, and while nobody wants to read too much into an open slot on the calendar, one sometimes wonders if the divine architect of all things is simply offering us a gentle opportunity to reflect on our perimeter defense and perhaps consider whether our transition balance has been adequately submitted to higher oversight.

I say this with the utmost hesitation, and please, if anyone from the athletic department happens to overhear, feel free to completely disregard these rambling musings. It is merely that during last week’s practices, the bounce of the basketball off the rim had a slightly hollow, questioning resonance to it—almost as if the ball itself were trying to gently nudge our second-string forwards toward a deeper appreciation of humility and proper spacing in the paint. We all get so busy with our screen-and-roll packages and our defensive slide drills that we occasionally forget to check our spiritual shot-selection, if you will.

Of course, nobody likes a busybody in the press row. The last thing this writer wants to do is cause a commotion or make the coaching staff feel judged while they are simply trying to install a new baseline inbound set. Coach works terribly hard, often staying late into the evening hours to review film, and one feels awfully guilty even mentioning that our free-throw percentage down the stretch of last month's workouts might have been a tiny, unintentional affront to the concept of grace under pressure. It is probably nothing. It is almost certainly just a routine lulls-in-the-season phenomenon, perfectly normal for late October when the autumn leaves are turning and the student section is still settling into their Tuesday night Bible studies.

Yet, as we sit here in the empty arena, breathing in the faint, comforting aroma of freshly waxed floorboards and old floor mats, one is reminded of the parables. Specifically, the one about the wise builder who anchored his foundation firmly against the baseline, while the foolish builder neglected his weak-side help and was subsequently swept away by a well-executed high-post pick-and-roll. We must always be ready, mustn't we? Even when the schedule shows a complete bye week and there is not a single official whistle blowing anywhere in the tri-state area. The whistle, after all, is always blowing in our hearts, provided we keep our volume low enough to hear it over the HVAC unit.

So let us treat this quiet Wednesday not as an empty space, but as an invitation to tidy up our personal depth charts and perhaps whisper a brief, unobtrusive prayer for our turnover ratios. If anyone needs me, I will be sitting quietly in the third row, trying very hard not to rattle my notepad or disturb the dust motes dancing in the morning sunlight. We are all on a journey, after all. Some of us just happen to be tracking rebounds while we walk it.