Green Monster

My Pforzheimer A-League squad took home the intramural basketball title this past Wednesday and I wanted to give the guys on the team some props because there was very little recognition and the t-shirts won't be ready for a while.

And now for the shameless, selfish and thankfully short plugging of my team.

You can basically divide the Pfoho squad into two groups: the guys that talk a little smack--Chef Roy--and the guys that don't--everyone else. Chef Roy is the one non-resident on the team, he works in the dining hall and has been struggling for an IM title for six long seasons. Among the non-talkers, we have a group of seniors--team captain Tim Walther, Cary Aarons and the Vick twins--in the core unit. The juniors include Dave Park, Chris Cain and myself. The lone sophomore to get minutes was Peter Moores.

The team played its best ball in the tournament and defeated a strong Mather squad 57-43 in the final behind lights-out shooting from Park, some insane, crazy, unbelievable scoring from Roy and a strong zone defense.

However, there is a little more to this column than, "We dominated and I want everyone to know about it."

With the NCAA Tournament kicking off this Thursday, I thought it was interesting to explain that Harvard's A-League IM tournament is itself a bit of March Madness.

Things really change when the playoffs start, at least in the A-League. Things you weren't prepared for by the regular season--like reasonable officiating--jump up on you once the tournament starts.

First and foremost, the teams change. In the regular season you play the teams in your division twice and begin to get familiar with teams in the other division. Then the playoffs start and that river team you beat by 35 during the regular season--remember the one with no one over 5'9" on the entire squad--shows up with two 6'8", 260-pound guys with range and some sweet post moves. Yeah, the ringers come out--those guys that didn't think the regular season was worth the trouble.

That was one of the things that was refreshing about this year's tournament. The Pfoho and Mather teams that made it to the finals were fundamentally the same teams that played twice before during the regular season. This is really how it should be--the teams that stayed together and committed themselves to playing every game found the most success. Team chemistry really does matter.

In a funny side-note, Pfoho had a ringer for one game--ex-varsity star Dave Weaver who was a second semester senior with no NCAA eligibility this fall--and we lost it. Our offense devolved into Feed-Dave-the-Rock and we lost by three or so to Lowell. Weaver had 27 or something.

The defense also really changes once the season progresses into the playoffs as well--as in people play defense. All of a sudden everyone cares about winning. People need to play post defense to deal with those 6'8" ringers and things begin to look like real basketball. People have to set screens and work for good shots--during the regular season, the games often feel like pick-up games at the MAC.

Let's chat about the officiating, shall we? One of the craziest things about A-League ball is that you never know what is going to happen with the officiating when you show up for a game. Most games have two or three students reffing the games, but you can't really count on that. In one of our games we had one ref, who had never reffed a game before. Needless to say, the officiating was less than stellar, although it wasn't his fault.

One humorous moment was when one player on Lowell began telling people, "I am going to foul you now and see if there's a call." This happened several times before someone else was called for a foul.

Also, it seems like 90 percent of the officiating staff is from Mather or Winthrop. At times--and I may be (am) biased--it seemed that this may have clouded the judgment of some officials. In one of our games against Mather, I swear one of my teammates lost a limb, yet no foul was called. Coincidence?

But in the playoffs, things get a little more serious and the refs know that. I think the biggest upset of the season was Pfoho defeating Winthrop and Mather back-to-back in the playoffs--given the regular season officiating, I never would have thought that possible.

But, most important, just like the NCAA's March Madness, upsets can and will happen. Winthrop had dominated its division during the regular season, going undefeated and placing itself as the odds-on favorite to take the title. In our division, meanwhile, Lowell earned the top seed, we were second with an identical record and Mather was third. However, in the tournament, Mather dominated Lowell--a three-seed topping a one--in one semifinal, and Pfoho, a two-seed, topped the undefeated Winthrop in the other.

So, what am I saying here? Well Pfoho came, saw and conquered. I promised the boys they would get some play in the Crimson and I provided it. Finally, if you think what is about to happen in the world of basketball is pretty odd, the A-League tournament time can be just as maddening.