February 5-11

The only noteworthy event of this week came on Tuesday evening at McCaskey, the 2017-2018 high school basketball season ended with a resounding thud. The JV squad finished their season at 6-13, the varsity clocked in at 3-19. The boys started out 0-3, won two straight then lost nine in a row before pulling off that big win over Cedar Crest. It looked like that might be a sign that the corner was being turned but it proved to be the last win, the year ended with seven straight in the loss column. It is the worst record the program has had since a 6-15 mark in '93-'94 (Coach Powell's second year on the job) and the win total is the fewest since the '70-'71 team went 2-20 (that was the last year of a three-year stretch where the club went a combined 5-61). Despite the poor record and the adversity I will maintain that this team was much better than the wins and losses would indicate. Twelve of the nineteen losses were by ten points or fewer, the team only had three losses by twenty or more and two of those were within the first three games of the season. The eight nonleague losses were by an average of 13.1 points, no embarrassment considering the level of competition the team faced. Within the division the club lost eleven times by an average of 9.3. In most every game the club was right there until the inevitable key mistake at the wrong time, had they been able to eliminate the bulk of those (and maybe received a break or two from the officiating) the record could easily been much better. It may not have been enough to earn a postseason berth but I'm not sure that was ever a consideration to begin with. The club averaged 60.8 points per game and allowed 68.9 per outing. The three seniors were the team's leading scorers, Tallian Lehr led the squad in total points (215) and averaged 9.8 a game, Isiah Speller averaged 9.6 and Eddie Simmons averaged 8.4. Among the underclassmen leading scorers were Brian McKenzie and Makai Ortiz who each averaged 8.3. Coach Powell's 26-season mark stands at 468-245, a .656 winning percentage. There are some schools where a 3-19 record is the standard simply because there is not a lot of basketball talent, those teams routinely lose by 25-30 a night but that was not the case here. This season was one big learning experience, we'll see how much of it was retained when training camp starts in November. The rest of the week was uneventful save for lunch with Jenny on Wednesday and Saturday. On Thursday the city of Philadelphia had a parade and celebration of the Eagles championship, I was not there but the festivities were televised (no way I'd go anywhere near that town on that day because I knew it would be a ZOO). The Royals (remember them?) went 4-1-1 on their six-trip road trip, they are (finally) back home to host Cincinnati on Friday the 16th. Take care, thanks for reading.