Team down 2 with 3 minutes to go - wins by 18

[Mark Padgett]

First eighth grade boys game this morning - home team down 2 with just over 3 minutes to go. Already, I'm thinking of ways to avoid the OT. They have the ball and they get a 4 point play! A1 makes a 3 and gets fouled, makes the FT. They steal the inbound pass and get a 3 point play! A2 makes a 2 and gets fouled, makes the FT. They kept stealing the ball, fouling "properly" while making a play on the ball and the visitors missed all their free throws, most of which were 1 and 1s. Home got every FT rebound and then scored, many times on fast drives to the basket. Visitors had 3 timeouts left and took all of them - didn't help. It turned into a 20-0 run and the final was 48-30. Amazing.

BTW - a kid on the visiting team hit 3 out of 3 three pointers in the first quarter then didn't attempt any more the entire game, even though he kept getting the ball for open threes lots of times. Go figure.

Second game - my partner tossed a head coach after two warnings. Made my day.