Table of Contents
Basketball………………….NCAA women carrying the game, Timberwolves, Nicknames
Sunday Song…………………Ley Soul, Sault, Joey Quinones, J Cole
Sunday Poll……………………..Choose a champion
Sunday Carrier………………….A heist, a guy with Lime Prime, and 20,000 elephants walk into a bar
Studio Jali …………………………A podcast announcement
P.S ……………………………………….The first official women’s basketball game for a college team was played on April 4, 1896 between Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley.
Caitlin Clark and Women’s Basketball
Basketball’s been on my mind lately.
We watch basketball for the stories. Yes, we like the buckets, the threes, and the dunks, but what keeps us engaged and interested are the stories of the teams or the athletes themselves.
March is the best basketball month and rightly has one of the best tournaments in all of the sports named after it, March Madness.
March Madness has incredible stories. The upsets. The rivalries. The momentum and history-making of a 9 seed making a historic run into the Sweet 16 or Elite 8. But this year, the tournament feels special. It’s reached a new peak because of the stars that’ve emerged in women’s basketball.
Caitlin Clark, Juju Watkins, Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese, Hannah Hidalgo, just to name the ones who come to mind first.
In women’s basketball, before this year, were there ever 4-5 NCAA women’s basketball players a casual fan could name? I doubt it. And now, if you’re around the game of basketball at all, you know the name Caitlin Clark. Maybe your grandma has even heard of her. Caitlin Clark is a great story. A 6-foot girl from Iowa who has been giving everyone BUCKETS, for the last couple years of her career. She shoots 3s at the best and most entertaining clip in NCAA, and her shooting gets compared to Steph Curry. Every sport needs an icon. Every story needs a hero. And that’s who Caitlin Clark is. And what she is to the game.
This is great for the game of basketball. This is a great time to be a fan of basketball. And my hot take is that this current era of college basketball will be one of the most influential for the next 25-30 years. There are young girls all over the country who will see the Clarks, Watkins, and Buekers, play on the big stage, be talked about and respected as certified hoopers, get their NIL money, and be inspiring enough to make those girls play basketball, when they maybe otherwise wouldn’t have. Then those girls will train and get good and they’ll bring something new to the game, and keep pushing it forward. So on and so forth. The game is always moving forward.
Today, Iowa plays against South Carolina in the NCAA Women’s Championship. Iowa is 34-4 and South Carolina is 37-0. If you haven’t watched Caitlin Clark play yet, this is your last chance to see her in college. Must see TV if you’re a fan of basketball. I’ve got Iowa winning 74-70.
Minnesota Timberwolves
I am 26 years old. I’ve had this newsletter for 1-2 years. The Minnesota Timberwolves are, and always have been, my favorite NBA team. So I’ve waited my entire teenage and adult life for them to become relevant to the point I can openly discuss the team with pride, and not have to be a closeted fan like so many of us are when our small market shitty NBA teams suck.
My most memorable moments as a Timberwolves fan have been the Jimmy Butler era, drafting Andrew Wiggins, drafting KAT, the ghost of Ricky Rubio, and the collective memory of Kevin Garnett. But times are changing; because in 2020 the Minnesota Timberwolves selected Anthony Edwards first overall in the NBA draft, and since then he has singlehandedly altered the course of the franchise.
Anthony Edwards is good at basketball. Like, he could win the MVP in 2-3 years good. Here are some highlights.
With only 5 games left in the season, the Wolves are 53-24, their second-best overall record in team history. The 1st, being the Kevin Garnett and Sam Cassell led 03-04 Wolves, with a record of 58-24.
The Timberwolves have already clinched a playoff birth, and while I hope they get to the Western Conference Finals, this season has already been the most memorable for me as a fan. If the team loses in the 1st round however, how much will that sour the taste when I look back on this team? To be seen.
Right now, I’m just enjoying the moment and riding the wave. Go Wolves.
I expect to write more about the team once the playoffs start.
We Need to Fix the End of Basketball Games
The last 2 minutes of a close or tied basketball game is the absolute worst 2 minutes of the sport. Sure we get the occasional buzzer-beater, but more frequently, the game has been solved to the degree that fouling in clutch time is seemingly always the best option. This KILLS the game.
This problem isn’t new. It’s been discussed in the basketball community for a while now. Why does 1 minute of game time, take 15 minutes of real time to finish? Why is fouling back and forth always the best option for a losing team? This ruins all flow and suspense of the game and can turn what should be the most exciting final 45 to 30 seconds, into being a painful and grinding watch.
We need to fix this.
How do we do it? How do we make end of games flow naturally? Here are some ideas I have.
First, two quick terms. First is crunch time. Crunch time is defined by the NBA as less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter or overtime with neither team ahead by more than five points.
Second, is EOG scenario (end of game). This one I made up, but I’ll define it as 2 minutes or less remaining in the fourth quarter or overtime with neither team ahead by more than five points.
In crunch time, if a team commits 3 consecutive intentional fouls, they are hit with a team penalty and must LOSE a player, and finish the game 4 on 5.
In crunch time, regardless of fouls accrued to that point, each time is only permitted personal fouls. There are no more team fouls or fouls to give. We’re also shooting free throws for every personal foul regardless if we’re in the bonus or not. This would lead to stopping the game even more, which is why I implemented rule #1 first.
In EOG, each team is only allowed 1 timeout, regardless of the amount of timeouts they’ve used prior in the game. So either use them or lose them. Because once the clock hits 2:30, you only get 1.
Are these ideas flawed? Sure. Do they do something to fix the log jam at the end of games, I think so! You don’t need to give me any credit NBA, it’s okay. I would just like the end of games to be fixed. Please and thank you.
Ball Don’t Lie
Basketball has a lot of unwritten rules.
Basketball also has a few commandments. Ball don’t lie is a commandment.
When a foul gets called, whether at a pick-up game or from a ref in an official game, that is a CLEAR bad or wrong call, the team rewarded from the bad call will shoot free throws or get the ball back with another opportunity to score. They will then subsequently miss the free throws, miss their second opportunity to score, or immediately turn the ball back over to the wronged team. This law of basketball nature is understood as “Ball don’t lie.” Players lie. Coaches lie—refs lie. The ball doesn’t. If you’ve watched or played basketball for any extended period, you’ll see this law repeated over and over again, to a degree that it feels like it is spiritually a rule of nature of the game that cannot be broken.
I was watching Monteverde vs. AZ Compass prep in the high school national championship tournament, and AZ Compass had built a small lead against the best team in the country, Monteverde, and their star Cooper Flagg.
An AZ Compass player hit a 3 that they needed, then put up 3 fingers (thumb, index, and pointer), and aimed it at the Monteverde bench as he was getting back on defense. He got called for a tech. It was a terrible call. The game had been chippy, both teams were talking trash, and the gun gesture wasn’t directly aimed at any particular player, but fine. The basketball laws cover this.
31-35, 3 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Montverde goes to the line to shoot two free throws because of it and misses both.
Ball don’t lie.
Montverde went on to win the game.
Nicknames
Along with the stories, one of the most fun aspects of sports is the nicknames the players get. If you missed it, this year’s Pen Sunday Best Nickname Award belongs to Robbie Avila, a 6’10 white center who plays at Indiana State University. Robbie is otherwise known as:
Cream Abdul Jabar
Congratulations Robbie.
Sunday Songs
I’ve found a groove this week. Dipping into a bit of neo-soul, R&B, and a 2019 soul song that sounds like it’s from the 1960s.
First up, Ley Soul’s Intergalactic Janet. This entire song feels like an Erykah Badu ode, and at the least has to be an inspiration, but regardless, a neo-soul artist calling herself Ley Soul checks out.
Sault is an artist whom I became a fan of from various singles I’d heard from her albums. When I added Why Why Why Why Why to my library, I realized it was the 4th song of hers I’d added to the 2019 album, 5. This means by my definition, I now owe the album a single start to finish play through. Maybe this is what I’ll write on next.
I don’t have a ton to say about this Joey Quinones song that I didn’t already state in the intro. It’s from 2019, but sounds so sleepy and soulful that it feels like it could be straight out of the 1960s.
Last but not least, beef! Rap beef! Woo! The funny thing about rap beef is that it’s similar to toughness in basketball. No one wants to see anyone die in a rap beef. Just like no one wants to get into an actual real fight on the basketball court. But still, we want everything leading up to that. And we want to believe that it could happen.
With that said, J. Cole was the first of him and Drake to respond to Kendrick’s diss/call out two weeks ago. It was nice to hear a return shot but Cole, this response was NOT it. The people want more. If we’re going to get into it, let’s get into it and send some shots. Four bars about four of Kendrick’s albums, albums that are widely regarded as some of the best of this generation, will not get it done. And when it comes to albums, Cole should not be talking. But we don’t need to get into that right now.
Do better Cole. Waiting for a reply Aubrey. Hail Kendrick.
Sunday Poll
Sunday Poll. Here’s the question of the week.
Voting is free and anonymous. All it takes is a subscription. (That’s free too).
You have one week to vote. Results will be reviewed and discussed in next week’s edition.
Sunday Carrier
Israel-Palestine Human Rights Watch
In one of L.A.’s largest cash heists ever, burglars steal $30 million from vault
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy arrested on gun charges, ties to Mongols gang
99 Cent Only Store Closing Down Nationwide (371 locations)
Botswana president offers 20,000 elephants to Germany amid conservation spat
Barcelona plays Paris Saint-Germain this week in the UCL Quarterfinals (Visca Barca)
Weekly Announcement
Brief Studio Jali update this week. I’ll be doing a solo pod on Thursday, April 11th for the first time since Uncredited aired.
I’ll be talking about my writing career to this point, Los Angeles, the direction of the podcast, and a touch about the big picture for the studio.
Subscribe to Uncredited if you haven’t already. And I’ll see you all then.
PS
It’s the end of Pen Sunday, edition #75. If you reached the end, thank you for reading. It means a lot.
Pen Sunday is a newsletter about a writer, a dream, and a studio. With headlines from around the world, music, and maybe a poem. Every Sunday and Sunday only.
Until Sunday,
Solomon Lovejoy