Packet All-Starz

Morgan lets one fly

Caution: White boy jumping

The vaunted Packet All-Starz - comprised of myself, Morgan, Tom and Ryan - have survived the first day of the Gus Macker World Championship.

By "survive," I mean the four of us are still breathing and any competent doctor would proclaim us in good health, despite Morgan's monstrous daily salt intake. Our record, however, stands at a dismal 0-2.

Now here comes the part where I defend our performance.

1. This is the "World Championship" of 3-on-3. Every team playing won their bracket in the tournaments in their home cities. Except our team; we got in on a sponsor's exemption because we work for The Island Packet and The Packet ponied up some dough to plaster its logo on all the backboards. I think we did ok, considering we went up against some of the best teams from previous tournaments. We even led both our games 4-2 at one point and hung in pretty well throughout both. One of those elusive moral victories, I suppose.

2. The size factor: We were massively undersized compared to our opponents. Not making an excuse, but it's pretty tough for any of us to rebound over a 6-3 guy, especially when our combined vertical leap is just over a foot.

3. The health factor: Ryan spent most of the past 24 hours crouched over a toilet due to an unfortunate choice for lunch on Friday. He's our biggest player, and I'm just happy he felt well enough to show up.

I did discover one important thing about myself today: I suck at the fine art of trash talking. This revelation hit me when an opposing player, who probably weighed 275, crashed into Tom, who's 190 tops, as he received a pass. Tom went flying, the ref blew the whistle and Mr. 275 threw his hands up in the air and put on his best "What'd I do?" face to argue the call. I yelled at him, "You mauled him! It's a foul! Don't look so damn incredulous!"

Incredulous? What the hell was I thinking??? Oh well... on to tomorrow and the Toilet Bowl bracket. Ryan should feel right at home.