Good evening basketball fans,
School is back in session...hooray... We are all trying to get back into the swing of things. A week of classes is under the belt and everything is going about as smooth as possible.
We have started 8-0 in the WIAC after defeating UW-Eau Claire on Wednesday night by a score of 80-60. What an accomplishment! We are so very proud of each other. It's great to give these wins to each other and to our Pointer Faithful.
Our next matchup is set for Saturday at home against UW-Oshkosh. It'll be nice to have a couple home games in a row as we have been away from Quandt Gym for the majority of break. We're expecting a big crowd!
While I try to give a weekly recap of games and such on these blogs, I'm going to take a different angle on this one. While sitting up here over break I got to thinking, "Gee, I remember playing against some of my teammates in grade school and AAU and such." This leads me to a very special conclusion: Every single player on this Pointer Basketball team is from the state of Wisconsin. That's hard to do! We're all home grown and I think we should take a lot of pride in that. Most players in the WIAC are also from Wisconsin. We definetely hold our own. Wisconsin does raise some darn good basketball players!
Of all my 13 other teammates this year, I have either watched, played with, or played against 10 of them at some earlier part of my life. Time to dig down into the cranial depths of Louis Hurd...
I actually played with my roommate Nick Krull (Marshall, WI) in 5th grade on the Randolph Boys Club AAU team. We were teammates for about 5 or 6 years. I've known Nick for longer than anyone else on the squad.
I remember playing against Kevin Flynn (Middleton, WI) in AAU ball in grade school. Kevin is a twin and we would always have trouble guarding the Flynn Twin Snipers (Kevin and Patrick). We had some great ball games against each other early on.
Milwaukee King is usually a common site down at the state tournament and I do remember watching Khalif El-Amin and Jared Jenkins (Milwaukee, WI) lead the Generals down at the Kohl Center at different times in high school.
Not only did I watch King play down there but also watched Bryan Beamish and Vinny Ritchay (Wis. Rapids, WI) reach the semifinals and play current Marquette star Wesely Matthews, who was then a Madison Memorial Spartan. I also played against Vinny in the Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook Summer Camp in 2006. Matt Moses (Fon Du Lac, WI) was also at the camp.
Mike "Fred McGriff" Griffin (Iola, WI) was big on the AAU scene and I say him play in a couple summer tournaments in high school.
Jerome Wotachek (Mishicot, WI) played in the state tournament in division 3 and I saw big Romer down in Madison as well.
The last guy I saw play was Pete Rortvedt (Minoqua, WI). He was playing down in Madison at the WBCA All-Star game for divison 2. He was on the team with my Portage teammate Daniel Harkins, who now suits up for the University of North Dakota. I went down to watch Daniel and got my first glimpse of the Pete Rortvedt jumper. Petey was raining just as many 3's as he is now.
It's fun to look back on all your memories and remember the great games and times you had with your friends and teammates. I saw a lot of good basketball from a lot of different players. I would've never guessed that I would be playing with those guys with whom I watched and played against as a younger man. It's really neat that our squad are all Wisconsinites and are playing in front of our families just about every game. To all be from one general area is pretty special.
Never would've thought I'd be playing with these guys...You never know where your path may lead you!
Until next time...God Bless and Go Pointers!
