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Over the course of my life I have grown accustomed to winning, particularly at basketball. To be sure, the last couple of seasons of co-ed have had very limited success..probably dropping me to like a 95% win ratio for my life. But they have been fun. Except the last game.

I have lost a few games over the years. I have even lost a few by quite a few points. But there is one thing I had never really experienced before this last game and that was pure domination and humiliation.

The game started horrifically. By the time I came into the game we were down something like 20-4...and it wasn't that close! We were not getting good looks, we were passing terribly, our defense was porous.

For whatever reason the starters elected to go with a zone. I personally hate playing zone. I find it much more difficult to play correctly that man and so it proved yesterday. They were shredding the zone. They got so many easy, wide open looks from wherever they wanted that, just to make it somewhat of a challenge, they backed out to the NBA 3 line. That is...when we got back on defense. They were also playing a zone. The ball would go to the top. Weakside would be wide open...so we could pass strong side into the teeth of the defense. 3 - 4 seconds later their 3-1 or 4-1 fast break would be adding a bucket. I was keeping score at one point and it was so bad that at one point as they crossed mid-court on "just" a 2 on 1 fast break...where both the 2 were closer to the goal than the defender...I was already putting their points on the board. The ref laughed and said I should wait for them to actually make the shot...but we both knew.

Kyle and I had a couple things going and we broke the zone a couple times, he got me pretty easy looks. I made a couple, then missed one. But he reinjured his ankle and that little success went away. Somehow we managed to score 16 points in the first half. I don't think I have ever been on a team that scored just 2/3 of a point per minute in gym-league level basketball...that was horrific. We were down something like 30 at the half. And again...it wasn't that close.

Offensively I never did really contribute. I did not drive to penetrate the zone, settled for 3s which I was not hitting, and just basically was a non-factor. Not strictly true...I drove a few times but I was looking to pass because I was not hitting my shot. And I did have 6 or 8 assists if we were to keep stats. I also did a pretty good job on the defensive boards but my defense itself sucked.

Really there was only one player on the team who played well. That was Kyle C. He had the best game I have seen him play in quite a while. He was a force on offense. Of course, that term is relative...at one point he scored for about the 4th time in 5 trips and as we ran back down the floor, one of the other team said something like, "Man, he is just killing us" to which I replied, looking at an 76-39 score board, "Yeah, if you are not careful we might keep within 40".

Which we did. Mostly because they started goofing around, trying spectacular passes, stuff like that. But if they wanted they could have scored 100 and we would have been lucky to score 40.

I have been beaten on the scoreboard before, but being beaten down...that is a new experience. Did not like it much. Okay, hated it. Something has to change, there.