Category Archives: Basketball

Art, Basketball, Birthdays, Iowa State, Linda, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, Street Photography, Teresa

Loyal Forever True

March 19, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

I need to start today by wishing my Aunt Linda a happy birthday. Happy birthday Aunt Linda!

I hope your birthday is filled with as much joy and happiness as you can handle!

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Last Sunday I went down to the Kansas City with Teresa to watch the Big 12 Championship Game between the Iowa State Cyclones and the Texas Longhorns (Horns Down!). The game was held in Kansas City’s historic Municipal Auditorium. At this point it is more historic than anything else. This is the last time the Women’s Tournament will be played there because at this point… while it isn’t quite a dump… it is horribly outdated. It is still cool to look at. It is a beautiful building, but the facilities aren’t anywhere near what they need to be hold a major sporting event. Next year the tournament will be played at the OTHER Hilton South. T-Mobile/Sprint/Corporate Sellout Arena or whatever it will be called by then.

While that will definitely be an upgrade for the players, the bad part is that the Big 12 will be splitting the Men’s and Women’s Tournaments up. They will be on separate weeks. That part sucks. I think that the Big 12 was the only conference that does it right and now there are no conferences that do it right. Oh well.

Municipal Auditorium has hosted more Final Four games than any other arena in history. It has hosted it 9 times. It has not hosted a NCAA tournament game since 1964 and still holds the record.

It has also hosted concerts for some of the most famous musicians in history:
+ Elvis Presley
+ The Beach Boys
+ The Who
+ Jimi Hendrix
+ Jackson 5
+ Led Zeppelin
+ The Rolling Stones
+ Elton John
+ Eric Clapton
+ Jefferson Starship
+ Rush
+ Genesis
+ Black Sabbath
+ Van Halen
+ Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
+ Prince
+ Hall & Oates
+ Black Sabbath
+ Kiss
+ Metallica
+ Beastie Boys
+ Green Day
+ Red Hot Chili Peppers
+ Dolly Parton
+ Tenacious D
+ Shaun Cassidy

To name a few.

Here are some cruddy cell phone pictures from the day trip to Missouri and back.

2023 Big 12 Women's Basketball Championship Game

There are 2 things that you can only find good versions of in Iowa. Chocolate milk and tenderloins.

I love Whataburger, but their breakfast is not as good as their lunch.

Pep Rally.

Power and Light District.

President Wintersteen.

Bill Fennelly with his grandchildren.

I don’t think Texas even had a pep rally.

Jeff Johnson.

Cy, Iowa State cheerleaders, and the Iowa State Pep Band. This is the good life!

Hard to see, but traditions travel!

Randomly ran into Nate’s best friend in a seedy Kansas City alley.

Such a cool looking building.

Pretty sure if there was a fire in this building, lots of people wouldn’t make it.

So many cool Art Deco touches.

Concessions weren’t great.

I did fist bump the Texas mascot. (Horns down!)

Ashley Joens – The GOAT.

Had to talk to these ladies about their shoes.

Coach.

Ashley.

I’ve paid my dues. Time after time. I’ve done my sentence. But committed no crime…

Goodbye Municipal!

It was a good trip. We parked at our cousin Melissa’s house and she and her husband drove us to and from the area. Was pretty sweet. Like having our own personal Uber drivers. Personal Uber drivers that buy you breakfast and bring you a drink from Sonic after the game.

Of course the best part of the trip was Iowa State winning the Championship!! They won every game in the tournament by double digits, but all of the games were close until they pulled away late. It felt particularly good to see Iowa State beat teams that have had our number the last few years, like Baylor and Texas. And it was particularly sweet to beat Oklahoma in the semi-finals as one of their players is a transfer from Iowa State and is Ashley’s sister Aubrey. It had to be a little bittersweet for Ashley to beat her sister, but probably a lot more sweet than bitter.

Regardless of how the season finished in the NCAA Tournament it was a great season and they will be able to hang another banner in the rafters of Hilton at the beginning of next season!

Basketball, Flowers, Macro

A Promise to Keep

March 16, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

This is my last pitch to get you to join the Roundball Oracles NCAA Tournament Pool for this year. The deadline to enter this year’s pool is approximately 2 hours after this post publishes.

I just wanted to brag on the state of Iowa a little bit. Something I rarely get to do these days. Iowa is the center of the basketball universe. There are 363 colleges that field Division 1 Men’s and Women’s basketball programs. 68 Men’s and Women’s teams make the NCAA Tournament.

Of those 363 schools, only 26 schools got a team invited to both the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Tournament. Of those 26, 3 of those schools are in Iowa!

Check out this graphic from Fox Sports:

The state of Iowa only has 4 schools with Division 1 Programs. Iowa State University. University of Iowa. Drake University. University of Northern Iowa. Despite only having 4 schools that could achieve this feat, Iowa is the only state to have 3 schools do it. Iowa State. Iowa. Drake. Sorry, Northern Iowa. I’m sure you are good at something.

Full disclosure, the stats I’m about to reference are a couple of years old, but if anything, the numbers have went up.

California has 26 Division 1 Schools. 2 accomplished this feat: USC and UCLA
Texas has 24 Division 1 Schools. 2 accomplished this feat: Baylor and Texas (Horns Down!)
New York has 22 Division 1 Schools. 1 school accomplished this feat: Iona
North Carolina has 18 Division 1 Schools. 2 schools accomplished this feat: Duke and North Carolina State
Pennsylvania and Virginia both have 14 Division 1 Schools: They combined to have zero schools accomplish this feat.
Florida, Ohio, and Illinois each have 13 Division 1 Schools. Only Illinois and Miami (Fl.) from those states accomplished this feat.
Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee each have 12 Division 1 Schools. Only Tennessee accomplished this feat.

Iowa, had 3 schools do it.

The Big 12 States of Kansas and Oklahoma combined to have zero schools do it.

To break this down by conference:

Big 12: 4 Schools (Iowa State, Baylor, Texas, and West Virginia)
Big 10: 5 schools (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, and Purdue)
SEC: 3 schools (Alabama, Mississippi State and Tennessee)
PAC 12: 3 schools (Arizona, UCLA, and USC)
ACC: 3 schools (Duke, Miami, and North Carolina State)
Big East: 3 schools (Creighton, Marquette, and UCONN)

My point is that you should be proud (if you are from Iowa) to be from the center of the basketball universe. If you want to play in the NCAA Tournament, go to a school in Iowa. Besides UNI. Go to one of the other 3. The ones that are good at basketball.

So if you still want to play, click on the link below:

Roundball Oracles – Year 18

And remember that the deadline is 11 AM (Central).

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I still talk to you in my sleep
I don’t say much ’cause the hurt runs too deep
I gave you the moon and the stars to keep
But you gave them back to me

The hill I’m walkin’ up is gettin’ good and steep
But I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep

I still lay on my side of the bed
I dance alone when the last bottle’s spent
Memories like a river runnin’ through my head
I’ll have me an ocean before I’m dead
-Brandi Carlile

Thursdays are for flowers! This collection of flowertography pictures were taken on September 15 in my yard.

While there is still snow on the ground in Iowa, we are inching closer and closer to flowertography season!

Animals, Art, Basketball, Birthdays, Carla, Christianity, Flowers, History, Monica, Nathanial, Nature, Politics, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, Slice of Life

Clayton County Aux. – Vol. 6

March 15, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

I need to start today by wishing Carla a happy birthday. Happy birthday Carla!

I hope your birthday is as full of as much joy as you can handle!

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I also need to wish Monica a happy birthday. Happy birthday Monica!

I also hope your birthday is as full of as much joy as you can handle!

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A reminder that you have until Thursday at 11 AM (Central) to get your picks in for Year 18 of the Roundball Oracles. Click on the link below to join:

Roundball Oracles – Year 18

It costs nothing to participate. First Place gets a trophy. Last Place Adult that gives full effort also gets a trophy. Hope many of you participate!

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Finally, I also need to wish Nathanial a happy birthday. Happy birthday Nathanial!

I also hope your birthday is filled with as much joy and photography opportunities as you can handle!

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It is time to share the final collection of images I took while harvesting the town signs of Clayton County. All of these were either taken at Pikes Peak State Park or in Marquette.

Pikes Peak State Park

Marquette

The next time we hit the open road to look at auxiliary images for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, we will visit Wapello County.

Basketball, Drone, Panorama, Railroad, WPC - Alternate

Rodan139: High Bridges

March 14, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

A reminder that you have until Thursday at 11 AM (Central) to get your picks in for Year 18 of the Roundball Oracles. Click on the link below to join:

Roundball Oracles – Year 18

It costs nothing to participate. First Place gets a trophy. Last Place Adult that give full effort also gets a trophy. Hope many of you participate!

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One of the last times Rodan139 took to the skies last year was near the Kate Shelley Memorial High Bridge. I flew around it to take pictures for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme STRONG. Here are the picture I took that day:

I think it would be pretty cool if some day they made it so people could walk across the abandoned bridge. I’m sure it will never happen cause of a myriad of security reasons, but it would still be pretty cool.

Basketball, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Formal Portrait, Fran

Roundball Oracles – Year 18/F & P – Vol. 4

March 12, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

It is time once again for the greatest sporting event of year. It is that time known as March Madness. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Once again, I will be sponsoring a NCAA Tournament Pool. There is no cost to enter the pool, except for pride. And if pride is nothing to you, well done.

The winner gets a trophy. The dead last place person gets a trophy known as The Sara*. Nobody else gets a trophy. I’m not made of trophies people!

By winning, you get your name etched on the List of Immortals:

PAST ROUNDBALL ORACLE CHAMPIONS – LIST OF IMMORTALS

2022 – Ben Baier
2021 – Micky Augustin
2019 – Becky Parmelee
2018 – Paul Golden
2017 – Paul Golden
2016 – Michelle Haupt
2015 – Derek Dohrman
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2013 – William McAlpine
2012 – Lowell Davis
2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine

But I said that there are 2 trophies. The 2nd trophy, The Sara, goes to the adult that finishes dead last, while trying. A person can not tank on purpose and win The Sara. The reason The Sara winner has to be an adult is that I don’t want to mock children, to their face. Does that mean I have no problem mocking children behind their back? Does it make me a bad person if I say yes? Probably a better rule would be that to “win” The Sara, you have to be at least a teenager. I have no problem mocking teenagers to their face. At least, back when there was a Youth Group.

Past “The Sara” Winners:

2022 – Joey Randazzo
2021 – Rachel Gildersleeve
2019 – Russell Kennerly
2018 – Robert Henning
2017 – Shannon Bardole
2016 – Laura Priest
2015 – Derrick Gorshe
2014 – Sara Lockner

The Sara doesn’t have the long storied history of the championship trophy, but it will get there. I have no doubts. This will be the 9th winner since its inception after all.

These were the final standings from last year:

ROUNDBALL ORACLES – YEAR 17

1. Ben Baier – 273 points
2. Sara Lockner – 271 points
3. Shawn Lockner – 242 points
4. Rachel Gildersleeve – 242 points
5. Linda Bennett – 232 points
6. Becky Parmelee – 231 points
7. Carla Stensland – 229 points
8. Angie DeWaard – 224 points
9. Christopher D. Bennett – 224 points
10. Tim Peterson – 223 points
11. Jason Baier – 217 points
12. Lowell Davis – 215 points
13. Derek Dohrman – 215 points
14. Carrie Baier – 214 points
15. Sarah Karber – 210 points
16. Michael Augustin – 209 points
17. Elizabeth Nordeen – 206 points
18. Jorge Rios – 203 points
19. Brandon Kahler – 203 points
20. Will Baier – 197 points
21. Jordan Toot – 197 points
22. Corey Faust – 197 points
23. Andree Jauhari – 192 points
24. Jesse Howard – 191 points
25. Dawn Krause – 182 points
26. Derrick Gorshe – 181 points
27. Michelle Haupt – 179 points
28. Jackson Faust – 176 points
29. Jason Stensland – 168 points
30. J.J. Baier – 164 points
31. Russell Kennerly – 161 points
32. Toby Sebring – 157 points
33. Robert Henning – 151 points
34. Jill Gorshe – 147 points
35. Joe Randazzo – 143 points
36. Olivia Baier – 141 points

If you are a basketball fan, or are just interested in having fun, click on the link below to join my pool:

Roundball Oracles – Year 18

The rules are as follows:
Round 1 = 1 point + seed
Round 2 = 2 points + seed
Round 3 = 4 points + seed
Round 4 = 8 points + seed
Round 5 = 16 points + seed
Rounds 6 = 32 points + seed

The Play-in Games (AKA the First Four) don’t matter. You can wait for those games to complete before filling out your bracket. The deadline to fill out your bracket, is tip-off of the first game on Thursday. Roughly 11 AM.

Under special circumstances, I will allow you to turn in a paper bracket to me. So, don’t be afraid to ask.

Yes, your child can fill out a bracket. Your dog, no.

There were 36 competitors in 2022. A 9 person gain from 2019. Hopefully there is continued growth in participation this year, but I don’t know that I have 9 more friends than I did in 2021. It is possible I have gained even more friends since 2022. I might be a pretty great person.

*You have to be 14 years or older to win “The Sara”.

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It is a Sunday, and it is a Formal Portrait Sunday. In fact, this is the last Formal Portrait Sunday for the foreseeable future. I’m sure I’ll take some more formal portraits at some point, but until then… I’m not sure what I will do with my Sundays. Maybe I’ll take them off. Or maybe it will just be fairly random. Who knows? It is a whole new world!

On this last Formal Portrait Sunday I am sharing a small collection of pictures from the photo shoot with Fran and Pepper:

Art, Automobiles, Baseball/Softball, Basketball, Becca, Black & White, Brandon, Calendar, Christianity, Dad, Flowers, Geri, Gretchen, Holidays, Iowa State, Linda, Logan, Maven, Michelle, Mom, Music, Naima, Night, Photo of the Day, Road Trip, Sara, Self-Portrait, Shawn Lockner, Shorty, Still Life, Teresa, Work

Hello 2023.

January 1, 2023 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

It is the first day of 2023. I’m not really a “resolutions” person. Pastor Adam was on vacation today so we had a substitute seromizer in church this morning. He gave an impassioned, longwinded sermon on resolve. It took more than a bit of my resolve to stay awake during the longest sermon these ears have heard in quite sometime.

But if I were to take the words on resolve to heart, I would say that I’m not without goals. Last year my main goal was to complete THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. I did that.

My main goal in 2023 is to complete Phase 2 of THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT and put the book together. I should be freeing up sometime to work on that buy dropping a couple of photo projects that I did in 2022.

My second goal in 2023 is to begin work and complete my new photo project. Details are still foggy, but it is to create Boone postcard. Not a bunch of Boone postcards. Not even to print up a bunch of one Boone postcard. But to make one big image of one Boone postcard. While the end goal is one image, it will involve taking at least several hundred (probably thousand) images. It will make more sense when I get going on it.

My third goal in 2023 is to keep the positive momentum that was achieved in 2022 in participation rates for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. I’m not likely to go out and beat the drums looking for participants, but doesn’t mean you guys can’t. Right?

My fourth goal in 2023 is to consider and maybe take action on visiting and photographing every State Park in Iowa.
That seems more straight forward than it actually is because in addition to State Parks there are State Forests and State Preserves and State Recreation Areas. Boone County contains 3 Minor State Forests alone! We will see where this one goes, but we all know I could use the exercise.

I don’t have any goals related to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. That type of stuff is a considerable amount of luck. So best not to have goals that are out of one’s hands. Maybe my goal should just be to give my best effort.

Hopefully 2023 is a good year for all of us!

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Time to share the December images for the FatMumSlim Photo A Day Challenge. This is also the final collection of images as I will be dropping this pursuit in 2023. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it still eats up a fair amount of time. Hopefully time freed up that I can use to pursue some of those 2023 goals.

Here are the December images:

December 1 – I Love This!

December 2 – I Bought This!

December 3 – Starts with T

December 4 – I Held This

December 5 – Something Red

December 6 – Peace

December 7 – Tree

December 8 – Looking Up

December 9 – Small

December 10 – Out + About

December 11 – Free Choice

December 12 – Lights

December 13 – Something Green

December 14 – Decoration

December 15 – A Star

December 16 – Candy Cane

December 17 – A Hat

December 18 – I Made This!

December 19 – Joy Is…

December 20 – Begins with S

December 21 – On the Floor

December 22 – A Gift

December 23 – A Tradition

December 24 – Someone I Love

December 25 – My Day

December 26 – This is Delish

December 27 – Colourful

December 28 – A Book

December 29 – Us

December 30 – How I Relax

December 31 – Best Part of 2022

Top 9 Most Popular Images

I did enjoy this project and I’m not walking away from it because I didn’t enjoy it. I “met” numerous other people in this community that I will continue to follow, like @bea.photoaday, @sara.fms.photoaday, @outnbout, @gerkgirl, @pink_koffie, and @lostfate13.

But there were other things I didn’t like. Most people used the challenge to curate images, rather than take new images every day. The person that ran the challenge is Australian. That meant that a lot of the prompts were seasonal for Australia, meaning they weren’t seasonal for Iowa. Prompts repeated an awful lot. Not that they wouldn’t after 365 days, but I felt like they repeated more than necessary.

These minor complaints aside, I would consider doing it again in a future year. Just not this year. I’m sure many of you have minor complaints about how I run THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE as well.

Art, Basketball, Iowa State, Nature, Road Trip

Delaware County Aux. – Vol. 1

December 7, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Tonight is the night of the big Iowa State/Iowa women’s basketball showdown. This is probably the most anticipated game in the history of the series. Many thought it would be a Top 10 showdown, but Iowa has dropped more games than anticipated. However, Iowa is still #16 in the country. Iowa State is #10. They were #8 the previous week. Played one game. Won by 50 points. Dropped 2 spots.

If you love basketball, you should watch this game. It is one of the few games you can watch this early in the season that will feel like an NCAA Tournament game. At the very least, it should be intense and exciting.

Tip off is at 6 PM. It will be televised on ESPN2.

If you aren’t overly familiar with women’s basketball, you will be overwhelmed how much the announcers will talk about Caitlin Clark, Iowa’s star guard. They will talk about her 90% of the broadcast. At least.

So here are a few things to know, that the ESPN broadcast won’t cover:

+ Iowa State is the higher ranked team.
+ Iowa State made it farther in the NCAA Tournament last year.
+ Iowa State beat Iowa last year.
+ Ashley Joens is an also an All-American.
+ Ashley Joens is also her conference’s pre-season Player of the Year.
+ Caitlin Clark will at some point hit about a 35 foot 3 pointer. It will be impressive. She shoots less than 33% from 3 point range. That is less than impressive. She also averages 5 turnovers a game for her career.
+ Emily Ryan is also an all-conference point guard.
+ Lexi Donarski is also an all-conference player and the Defensive Player of the Year in her conference.
+ Stephanie Soares was the NAIA Player of the Year the last two seasons.

I’m not bagging on Caitlin Clark. She is a great player. She singlehandedly beat Iowa State 2 years ago. She could do it again this year. Just don’t let the ESPN coverage blind you to the fact that she isn’t the only great player on the court.

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Several months back I tooled around Delaware County harvesting their town signs. This is the first collection of images from that trip and they were all taken in Manchester:

Manchester

While in the Manchester Water Park, I looked down and saw that I was pretty close to standing on a snake. It was one of two time that this happened while I was working on THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. This time, it did freak me out a little bit since water snakes are actually pretty aggressive. But it didn’t want a piece of this. It just slithered into the river and swam away.

There are plenty more pictures from Delaware County left to share.

Art, Basketball, Boone FUMC, Carla, Derrick, Football, Iowa State, Jason, Jesse, Nader, Naima, Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait Project, Teresa, WPC - Reminder

Selfie Project – November 2022

December 3, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

I don’t know that November was a particularly active month for me. It is getting to the hardest part of the year to do this project. The sun isn’t up when I go to work. It is barely up when I get off work. That being said, I think I took a few decent picture in November for THE SELFIE PROJECT:

November 1

November 3

November 4

November 5

November 6

November 8

November 9

November 10

November 11

November 12

November 13

November 15

November 17

November 19

November 20

November 21

November 22

November 23

November 24

November 25

November 27

November 28

November 29

I don’t know that I’ll be that active in December either. But I’ll try.

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ANIMAL:

ANIMAL

ANIMAL! What a great theme for Year 9 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!

But what is an ANIMAL picture? Simply put it is a picture of an ANIMAL. It can be a wild ANIMAL or it can be a pet or it can be a stuffed ANIMAL or it can be a statue of an ANIMAL. It can be a dog or a bird or a squirrel or a fish or a lizard or a dog or a deer or a possum or a dog or a hamster or a rat or a dog or a bear or an alligator or a dog.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Basketball, Black & White, Christianity, History, Kio, Railroad, Road Trip, Teresa

Monroe and Mahaska County Auxiliary Images Vol. 1

May 11, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

A long, long time ago when I revealed the towns signs of Monroe County I pointed out that the town of Melrose, Iowa had a memorial up in their town park to honor the 1936-37 Melrose Shamrocks boys basketball team. A team that the Des Moines Register honored as the best team in the first 100 years of Iowa boys basketball in 2012.

Kio took great offense to this and sent me the following email:

Some of what Melrose claims about their championship basketball team might be a bit of blarney. I have to stick up for the Boone High Boys State Basketball 1931 State Champions. Although I’m not completely impartial, my Dad was the captain of that team, it had a legitimate star at all positions. Also worth noting, there were no classes or divisions in high school basketball in those days. All the teams in the state were lumped together. So if you won the state championship, you were truly the best team in the state. I always add this footnote when talking on this topic. Although Boone hasn’t won a state basketball tournament championship since 1931, no one would have been prouder to see his team’s record beaten than my Dad.

While Kio is clearly prejudiced, I think it is fair to reveal why the Melrose Shamrocks are considered the best boys basketball team in the first 100 years of Iowa boys basketball.

Here are some facts about them:
+ Melrose was the smallest school to ever win a single-class state basketball title in Iowa. Enrollment was 66. They beat Marshalltown in the championship game. A school with an enrollment of 1,077.
+ Melrose was the first team to go undefeated in state history. Going 33-0. They defeated undefeated Rolfe (29-0) in the semifinal game. They beat them 29-13.
+ Their 35-17 win over Marshalltown was the largest margin of victory in the championship game up until that point.
+ Played their home games in an opera house because they didn’t have a gym. The court measured 30 feet by 40 to 45 feet. Why 40 to 45 feet? One of corners of the playing floor featured a wood stove that heated the building and was blocked off so players didn’t run into it. A standard basketball court is 50 feet by 94 feet.
+ “Many of the players on the Melrose basketball team wanted to fit in with the “big city” crowd of Des Moines. In the fashion of the day, they slicked back their hair with Rose Hair Oil. Rose Hair Oil was inexpensive (“about 15 cents per gallon,” according to Walt O’Connor), so they apparently used lots of it. The oil also had a nice smell to it.

While this was fine before the tournament started, it gave the team trouble in their first game against Geneseo. During the game, the hair oil went from their hair to their hands to the ball. As Walt O’Connor recalled, “We started perspiring and wiping our heads to get the hair out of our eyes, and the first thing you knew, the referee couldn’t hold the ball.” After having trouble handling the ball in the first half, the players washed out their hair at half time. Better ball handling in the second half helped them to win the game, 35 – 34. After almost letting the first game of the tournament slip their grasp, Melrose stopped using the hair oil in the later games.”

Some of this information is taken from the Melrose website article on the team:

1937 Melrose Shamrocks

All of that being said, the Ames High team featuring Harrison Barnes and Doug McDermott would have beaten this team by at least 20 points. They did win 53 games in a row.

Here is the first collection of the auxiliary images from a road trip I took to Monroe and Mahaska County with Teresa.

Georgetown

Albia

There are still two more collections of images to share from this road trip.

Andree, Angie, Baier, Basketball, Becky, Brandon, Carla, Dawn, Derrick, Elizabeth, Faust, Flowers, Jason, Jesse, Jill, Jorge, Linda, Lowell, Macro, Michelle, Micky, Pastor Sarah, Robert, Russell, Sara, Shawn Lockner, Tim, Toby

Fall Apart Again

April 7, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

Year 17 of the Roundball Oracles has come to an end. On Monday night, Kansas used a flaw in the court that injured North Carolina’s best player to help them overcome the Tar Heels in the last minute of the game. It was an otherwise great game and it is sad that it was partially decided by an injury due to a flaw in the court construction.

Ben Baier was the winner of this year’s pool. He is the youngest to ever win it. He joins this list:

PAST ROUNDBALL ORACLE CHAMPIONS

2022 – Ben Baier
2021 – Micky Augustin
2020 – No Tournament
2019 – Becky Parmelee
2018 – Paul Golden
2017 – Paul Golden
2016 – Michelle Haupt
2015 – Derek Dohrman
2014 – Brandon Kahler
2013 – William McAlpine
2012 – Lowell Davis
2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine

Where there is a champion, there also has to be a last place. This year’s The Sara “winner” was Joey Randazzo.

Past “The Sara” Winners

2022 – Joey Randazzo
2021 – Rachel Gildersleeve
2020 – No Tournament
2019 – Russell Kennerly
2018 – Robert Henning
2017 – Shannon Bardole
2016 – Laura Priest
2015 – Derrick Gorshe
2014 – Sara Lockner

Note, Olivia Baier actually finished below Mr. Randazzo, but as she is a child, she is not eligible for The Sara.

Here are the Final Standings:

1. Ben Baier – 273 points
2. Sara Lockner – 271 points
3. Shawn Lockner – 242 points
4. Rachel Gildersleeve – 242 points
5. Linda Bennett – 232 points
6. Becky Parmelee – 231 points
7. Carla Stensland – 229 points
8. Angie DeWaard – 224 points
9. Humble Narrator – 224 points
10. Tim Peterson – 223 points
11. Jason Baier – 217 points
12. Lowell Davis – 215 points
13. Derek Dohrman – 215 points
14. Carrie Baier – 214 points
15. Sarah Karber – 210 points
16. Micky Augustin – 209 points
17. Elizabeth Nordeen – 206 points
18. Jorge Rios – 203 points
19. Brandon Kahler – 203 points
20. Will Baier – 197 points
21. Jordan Toot – 197 points
22. Corey Faust – 197 points
23. Andree Jauhari – 192 points
24. Jesse Howard – 191 points
25. Dawn Krause – 182 points
26. Derrick Gorshe – 181 points
27. Michelle Haupt – 179 points
28. Jackson Faust – 176 points
29. Jason Stensland – 168 points
30. J.J. Baier – 164 points
31. Russell Kennerly – 161 points
32. Toby Sebring – 157 points
33. Robert Henning – 151 points
34. Jill Gorshe – 147 points
35. Joey Randazzo – 143 points
36. Olivia Baier – 141 points

I’m already looking forward to next season. Iowa State will have to replace a lot from this year’s team and one of their assistant coaches, but could be a good team. You never know. This year’s team definitely wasn’t supposed to make the Sweet Sixteen!