After the spooky Norman-Gregor-Malcolm convergence discussed on my LJ here, I’ve had a couple other spooky moments – both occasions where I was prompted by some random stimulus to think of someone I haven’t seen for many years, and wonder what happened to them, only to see them coming towards me moments later. Fun thing.
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Basketball world champs are on now! I am excited. The highlight of my sports-appreciation calendar, this. Four years ago the NZ team came in and shocked everyone, making its way to a fourth place finish. This year, that ain’t gonna happen, but judging by last night we’re not gonna disgrace ourselves either.
Minor grump for NZ player Mark Dickel being sidelined for three more games. He tested positive for cannabis after a match recently – apparently at a party five weeks prior to that (when he wasn’t under contract) he had a smoke. He ended up with a 2-game suspension and a serious warning from the NZ bball body, but then FIBA (bball’s international body) stepped in and imposed a further 3 games.
The grump has two sides – first, that using cannabis draws such penalties at all, it certainly isn’t performance enhancing (as the entirety of Wellington’s underperforming Saints side through the 90s could tell you, ahem) – and second, that FIBA felt the need to overrule the NZ body’s decision and slap on a further three games. Bah.
Still, as JB points out, it adds new meaning to the guy’s nickname, ‘Sparky’.
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Post of the week: d3vo explains how to cook rice. It begins:
Most instructions on how to make rice are crap. I am a computer programmer. I know how to write instructions.
18 thoughts on “Spooky Sparky Sticky”
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(half time vs Germany)
Okay, maybe we *are* gonna disgrace ourselves.
Ouch.
The second half wasn’t disgraceful, except in that it followed the first.
Marijuana isn’t performance enhancing, but as a “leader of youth” he is a “bad influence”.
He should have stuck to drinking beer ’til he was fat and lardy and heart-attack prone and utterly unable to play b-ball. Because, you know, THAT’S LEGAL.
Ouch. The loss to Angola this morning (UK time – evening NZ time) means the best we can finish in our group is 4th, I think (by winning the next two games). You know, behind Germany, Spain and Angola (not necessarily in that order). Which would schedule us for a first round meeting with a red-hot Argentina, which I really can’t see us winning. Although a) we have played them recently, so would hopefully know what we’re up against, and b) you can never write off an upset.
Not a great result. I can’t help but think we could have taken Angola with Dickel. I think a lot of the loss was psychological. When we get out-hustled, it normally means our mind is not in the game. I think the team sort of went “We don’t ahve Mark, we’re going to struggle” and their believe made it so.
So, bollocks. As your brother pointed out, the window on this group is rapidly closing. Sure, Penney is still pretty young, and Bradshaw is coming through the ranks, but Pero, Boucher and Phil must be getting on, and I can’t see the being around at the next world champs.
We can just sit back and relive the glory days of the last world cup (and sip our cups of tea in our rocking chairs). We’ll be telling our grandkiddies about that tournament one day… and I haven’t decided if Pero Cameron will be an 8 foot giant in the stories or whether he’ll shrink to 6 feet to make his heroics even more epic…
You’re right that this’ll be the swan-song of a lot of those stalwart Tall Blacks. While I love Tab’s attitude of sticking with the same bunch and developing strategies around the talent we have (which isn’t exactly deep) it’s a plan that has a used-by date. I also think that other countries have had time to figure us out a bit – our tactics are fairly predictable once you play us a few times.
I will miss Phil Jones when he goes (hopefully he has a few more baskets in him yet).
I am currently sitting at work, watching a webcast of the game stats for our game against Japan. We are losing 21-11. We have hit 2 of our first 9 shots, and given away 7 fouls.
Damn it! We’re better than this! We should not be losing to Japan! I know the game isn’t won in the first quarter, but if we dig ourselves a big enough hole we’re not going to be able to climb out of it. What is wrong with us?
I need somewhere to cry, and unfortunately, your blog has become that place. Apologies for the spam.
38-20 at the half. 20 points in a half. That’s pathetic. 5 from 26 from the floor, including 0 from 14 from behind the arc. That’s got to be a new record for futility. 14 missed three pointers! I mean, we should have hit one on dumb luck alone by now. Phil Jones is making a strong case for being dropped from the team with his 0-5, 3 TO performance. But then again, I don’t think anyone in the team is making a strong case for themselves (with the possible exceptions fo Craig Bradshaw, who has 6 points).
What has happened to New Zealand basketball? I mean, we played Brazil pretty close recently, we beat Qatar, Venezuela, Australia a couple of times. Now we’re not going to make it out of the group stage of the World Championships. RIP New Zealand Basketball.
I was taken out for lunch by my recruitment consultants. I come back and find we have won, after holding Japan to 19 2nd half points. I am in a state of shock. It looks like Pero Cameron put us on his large shoulders and single handedly carried the team to victory (with a healthy dose of Kirk Penney as well).
Made it through to the end of the Japan game, against all logic – and was a superb fourth quarter. Pero had one of those refuse-to-lose games, he hit a string of clutch threes, and then Penny hit the gamewinner. Second half was worthy of the old days – but the first was diabolical.
The offence has just fallen to pieces. Apart from maybe one or two times a game with Bradshaw, we’ve got no inside presence; and when our shooters are off (as Jones has been all tourney) we have those 7-point quarters. Too many non-scorers are playing (Jones and, naturally, Olsen are ice cold; Rampton, Frank and Boucher can’t shoot; Dickel and Henare erratic as ever). Bradshaw has only lived up to the hype in patches.
I know its heresy but the team couldn’t be playing any worse – I’m starting to wonder if Tab can no longer work his magic. Certainly if we lost to Japan his job should’ve been on the line.
That’s a pretty good assessment of the team. They’re like the Black Caps used to be – they have key players who can ‘save’ us with heroic shooting when they’re on, but nothing that’s reliable bread-and-butter stuff. We seem to rely on having to scrap our way back into games with hustle and adrenilin. Dangerous.
I see blimin’ teenage girls with better post-games than our Tall Blacks. Surely there is ONE big guy in NZ who can post up…. somewhere out there…. Bring back Ed Book!
Phil Jones continued his poor shooting form with a 2-12 performance against Panama (including 0 from 10 from behind the line). I mean, there’s a slump, and then there’s losing it. I think Phil has lost it. When Tab is starting Pero at SF and Casey Frank at PF ahead of him, you know Phil is on the out. I feel bad. I mean, I really liked the crazy lefty, I wore my Black #8 jersey to the Tall Black games in the 2000 Olympics because I was such a fan. But I think his time is up.
In other news Japan is currently losing 82-38 to Spain. Which I guess rules out any chance of them winning to be teied with us a 2-3.
Sorta think he’s still got to play Phil, as we need him scoring to have a chance of even been close to Argentina. There’s no other comparable shooter in the country – he did get 100 in a game once remember, there’s always a chance he’ll find it again. If he doesn’t we lose whether or not he plays.
Book is old but he’s still playing for Nelson I think – if he can still move he’d be a better option as the import, we’re a short team. Frank isn’t a bad player (good athlete), but he’s small and he can’t shoot so doesn’t add much new to the team. There must be one other big guy in the country somewhere?
I’ve been stupid busy all week. Missed both the Angola and Panama games. Good to see the bball people coming out of the woodwork here.
I would be interested to see Phil’s stats for the overall series. He’s really thrown a lot of bricks. He just doesn’t look like his head’s in the game at all. And that’s it for the Tall Blacks, I reckon – we don’t have the best players, we don’t have height, we don’t have bread and butter as Kate points out – what we’ve always had was grit and competence and cool.
This team doesn’t have that, not at the moment, and without it there’s nothing to fall back on.
There’s always a chance we’ll pull something out against Argentina, but I’ll be happy if we just have a decent game for once.
Also, Tony Rampton has been absolutely appalling all tourney. Casey Frank has done much more stupid stuff than good stuff in the games I’ve seen. The only player who has consistently impressed me has been Paul Henare, and if someone said that before the first tip-off I would have laughed in their face.
Meh. So we lost to Argentina. Poo. Tabs resigned, and had apparently decided to do so before the tourney. More poo, although I suspect it was needed. I don’t think Tab was getting through to the team any more, and the chemistry wasn’t there.
In terms of Phil Jones’ stats, I believe (according to the FIBA website) that including the Argentina game he shot 7/41 (17%) from 3pt range and averaged 6.8 points per game. I’d post the link, but it’s hideously long, so instead I’ll say “you can get each individuals stats from the Argentina game boxscore by clicking on each persons name”.
Interestingly I read an article on the FIBA site (an interview with Phil) where FIBA hinted that Phil was retiring after the tourney. Their comment was “Either the New Zealand shooting guard starts to bury his three-pointers or his international career ends in disappointment”.
I stayed up and watched the first three quarters of the Argentina game. It was fairly painful. Any time we clawed back a bit, they’d just go on a ten point run (with us basically throwing the ball into their outstretched arms, awful turnovers). There was a short stint where it looked like Phil was back to his usual self, hitting a few shots. But other than that he looked very un-Phil-like – forcing up awful shots and looking like he didn’t really want it. Must be a mental block and he’s very much a confidence shooter (when he’s in the zone he practically demands the ball).
Tony Rampton is just a waste of good height. He gets the ball in the post and somehow ends up out at the 3-point-line, going backwards. I can’t believe he’s 7 foot or so. Not much of a presence. Bradshaw did some ok things.
You’re right, Morg – Henare did ok. He’s at least not afraid of the paint. He did some nice drives, gutsy lil guy. Sparky D didn’t really stand out at all in comparison.
At the end of the day Argentina was just better eh. Smarter, taller, better ball movement…
Sad to see Balwin’s era ending. He’s done good. I think he did the best with what he had, and his era co-incided with us having more players in College ball programmes and playing professionally overseas than ever.
I just hope Jeff Green doesn’t somehow take over….
Most instructions on how to make rice are crap. I am a computer programmer. I know how to write instructions.
Bah humbug! He makes no allowance for the alternate use case of people who like sticky rice, ie most of China. As told to me by a former resident of China, there should only be about 1-1.5cm of water over the rice, add the rice to the water when it’s already boiling (well, at least I do and it seems to work out Ok), and simmer until there’s no visible water left. Serve. Do not, at any point, stir the rice.
“the alternate use case of people who like sticky rice, ie most of China.”
Why? Because it’s easier to eat with chopsticks.
Instructions on how to cook rice:
1/ Buy a rice cooker.
2/ Put in some water and some rice.
3/ Wait.
4/ Serve.
My ex-chef flatmate reckons it’s the best rice she’s ever had.