Metro Tournament Time

Bad Digestion
After the first quarter buzzer sounded, Beach's Josh Lowery sprinted off the court toward a garbage can in the corner of the gymnasium. Perhaps you have already guessed why. Lowery didn't make it. He spewed green vomit about two steps short of his goal, and slipped on his own puke as he lurched toward the can to expel what remained of his pre-game meal. Maybe it's organic fruit for RB from now on--whaddya say, coach?

Bad Refereeing
Joe Thompson is the beloved dean of Metro League refs, and he has pretty thick skin. We know this because we heckled him when we were in high school. Once, after a call we felt was particularly poor, we didn't scream right after the call, or join in the chants of "BULL-shit, BULL-shit." Instead, we waited for a slight lull in the action, when the crowd was quiet, and yelled in our 16-year-old, as-yet-undamaged-by-nicotine lungs: "THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL!" Thompson stopped in his tracks, turned toward us, and winked. Very cool. Tonight, not so much. In the first half, he got in a 45-second screaming match with the O'Dea coach, then, in the waning moments, tossed a belligerent Rainier Beach fan from the gym. Mind you--we didn't hear what either of them had yelled at him, maybe they deserved it. It wasn't a well-refereed game, though, there were at least a dozen mystery fouls and several plainly botched awardings of possession on loose balls. Players have bad nights, so do refs.

Bad Clockkeeping
With 2.4 seconds left in the third quarter, Beach inbounded the ball to guard Michael Ladd. He pump-faked, drove the lane, and put up a running jumper that sank. We immediately looked up at the clock, which read....2.4. Uh...."From our understanding of space/time, unless we all went the speed of light during that play, the clock is incorrect," we didn't say to the large Samoan man sitting next to us. The refs were on top of it, correctly awarding the points to RB and declaring the quarter over. Everyone, especially the Beach coaches, glared at the clockkeeper, and the O'Dea fans were hurling invective at him. At which point the Rainier Beach game announcer stood up and delivered this speech: "We're doing the best we can down here, let's not have any more conversation about this. Let's all just enjoy the basketball game...We'll run you out of here." Then, he added ominously, "You're messing with the wrong person." He didn't look too intimidating, but the "conversation" stopped.

Bad Clothes
We love that the Rainier Beach coaches wear suits to every game. But--really--three guys wearing grey pinstripe suits, none of which are the same shade of grey? You guys looked like a human greyscale. Meanwhile, one of the O'Dea assistant coaches was wearing cargo pants and an Air Jordan sweatshirt--it looked like he was part of some homeless job training program.

Game-wise, after an early scoring burst by Chris Banchero, O'Dea couldn't find any consistent offense. You'd think they could've gone inside to 6-7 forward Josh Scott, but big ups to Beach's 6-0 Jermain "Tubby" Delgardo, who is forced to play center now that Husky football recruit Emeka Iweka is hurt. He kept Scott in check. Michael Ladd led all scorers, and that included an alleyoop where Ladd soared over three O'Dea players to slam the ball down. He got fouled on the play, too. The gym exploded with "ooohs" and "did you see that?" Special mention of Beach's Shawn West, who had 7 fourth quarter points.

So here's the deal with the tournament. Wednesday, Lakeside plays at Seattle Prep, and West Seattle plays at Cleveland. The losers will play Thursday at SPU, at 7:45, with the winner advancing to districts as the 7th place Metro team, the loser out. Whoever wins Wednesday's games plays for 5th and 6th place on Saturday at SPU at 2pm. The other two games Saturday are also for places, and for seeding. Sealth plays O'Dea for 3rd and 4th place at 3:45. Beach plays Bainbridge at 7:45 for the Metro title.