Back in the early 2000s, I played basketball in a church league in Noblesville. My team was comprised of old friends and people that I had gone to church with for a few years. Some were IU grads, some Purdue, Butler and a few guys that played D3 basketball.
We were an OK team; middle of the pack in this church league. Most of the good teams had one or two players that could score at will...we had a lot of inconsistent guys, but we were grinders.
One game, we played one of the better teams in the league- they were very tall for the league and very skilled. I didn't know anyone on the team, except for one guy who had played for IU just three years before playing in this church league.
Match-ups were a problem for us in this game; I'm 5'4" and was guarding guys taller than six feet for most of the contest. A few of our better players, both in the 6'4" range had the unenviable task of having to guard an ex-Big 10 PF from IU. They did a good job and we hung around most of the game- keeping the score respectable.
But toward the end, it got uglier; their size and skill wore us down. On a fast break, their big man was one-on-one against our guy who played for a very small school. They were up by around 12-14 points...and the ex-Bobby Knight recruit thought it was time to show us up; so he dunked on the guy guarding him and yelled at him after.
Big tough guy.
A years before, he was getting his ass kicked by Brad Miller at Mackey...but I believe he thought that night was his time to shine, I guess.
I wasn't as impressed with that 6'10" guy dunking as he was...and his histrionics made an impression. Even the IU grads who I played with thought he acted like a jerk, and one got into his face a bit a moment later.
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Fast forward to 2013- a friend told me about people taking rec league ball too seriously, and I thought of this story...so I told it, but used this guy's name.
As I was finishing the story, I looked to the right and he was right next to me...good times.