Metro League: O'Dea at Blanchet

When you occasionally answer the question "What are you doing tonight?" with, "Going to a high-school basketball game," you become accustomed to receiving weird looks from people. No matter. We have an inordinate amount of fun at these games, at least half of which isn't related to basketball at all.

At Tuesday's O'Dea/Blanchet game, the Blanchet band was particularly compelling. For instance, this skinny, ungainly kid who didn't appear to even play an instrument (though he had the band shirt), who was sitting in the first row. When a ball got knocked out of play and rolled slowly toward him, he instinctively moved out of the way, as if it had sharp teeth. Then, when the ref asked for it, he sort of untrustingly flicked it back, as if it were going to bite him. Poor little guy--he's so unathletic he's scared of a stationary basketball.

There was also a saxophonist, a alterna-girl with bleached blond hair and heavy black eye makeup, who clearly wanted to be anywhere else other than a high-school basketball game. She played her musical parts unenthusiastically and just stared off into space the rest of the time. You remember this girl from high-school, right? Either her parents forced her to play in the band, or she was only a sophomore or a freshman and hadn't realized yet that she could stand up for herself.

Then there was the gaggle of girls who raced from the O'Dea side of the court to the Blanchet side during the third quarter. They kind of looked around, and then the girl who appeared to be the leader said, "Oh mi God, we don't know anybody here," and they turned around and went back to the O'Dea side. Which is something that we do all the time at parties, meander over to another side of the room, not see anyone we know, and meander back. We just don't do the "Oh mi God" part, because it would be embarrassing to admit we're too lame or antisocial to meet new people. There's no filter about social stuff in high school, which is cool.

As for the game...