I apologize
for barely blogging this summer, I have had very limited internet access. My
plan is in the next week to finish up my blog talking about my summer so for
all of you dedicated family members, friends, or strangers, can find out what
I´ve been up to. This post will revolve around something a little different…Starting with
a fairly unexciting Otter Valley blowout back at the beginning of December I
said to myself that my brother´s basketball team was going to be about just how
I expected. I thought they would be okay this year considering the new flow of
Juniors and leadership, and the majority seeing their first varsity game this
year. I couldn’t have told you what their record was going to be but it would
have rounded out over 500, maybe 5 or 6 losses and a playoff win followed by a
loss in the quarters. That is what I had thought, then they started winning…It didnt all
happen at once. In fact they really didn’t show their greatness until later on
the road but they just kept winning, and the one who surprised me the most
throughout the whole show was my brother. He was playing the best basketball I
had ever seen him play. He was also arguably the most consistent player on the
team. He was going for 10 and 5 boards every game no questions asked and was
playing with a ton of heart. I never played that well when I was a junior.Fast forward to the MSJ 3OT game. If you know my brother and the team
then you are familiar with this game. If not I will sum it up. In the second
game of the year my brothers team beat MSJ by 50. However, MSJ was missing 3
important players. Going into round two you can only expect my brothers team to
be caught off guard when they turned out to be pretty good. So caught off guard
in fact they found themselves in a 34-8 hole. That’s generally too much to
recover from. I probably would have folded. But they didn’t. They just chipped
at the lead little by little. At the end of the half they had cut it to about
18 and then the second continued their chipping. Led by Joe Shehadi (37), Tye
Gadson (35), and Taylor Muench (20) they ended up forcing overtime. But before
I jump the gun there are a couple important things to throw out in the air.
This second half was when Joey really first showed that he was a star. We all
knew it since he was 7 years old and knew it was going to come this year. But
after seeing every game this year, this second half marked the turning point—where
Joey when from scoring 15 a game to 25 a game and one of the best players in
the state. He had a play where he hit two 3s in 6 seconds that literally gave
me chills and goosebumps. Tye had his best game of his life to date. He knocked
down important shots, never showed any type of fear or ounce of quitting and is
a lot of the reason they are still undefeated… but we will get to that. Last
but not least my little brother played hard the whole game and down 2 with 10
seconds left, when everyone thought it was over, didn’t quit on what EVERYONE
thought was a buzzer beating shot. Ball misses and hits iron with .5 on the clock
Taylor crashed and right place right time was there to put it back to tie the
game. I was a proud brother in that moment.1st overtime, once again, the reason they are still
undefeated. Down 2 Tye takes it in his hands and his a stellar stepback shot to
tie it that just had me jaw dropped. OT number two had a freshman on MSJ hit
two NBA threes to put it into number 3 where Tye hit FTs and they snuck out on
a 99-95 win. This game might have put them on the map at school but still
undefeated almost halfway through their season still had them under wraps…
until the Rutland game.I had said that there had to be something wrong with the town or the
student body to not support this team. I mean they were getting very mediocre
crowds and putting on shows for almost no one. Then I received a text from my
mom of the student section during the Rutland game at home, and I finally they
proved me wrong… and then some.The next 8 games included 2 Rutland, 2 MAU, 2 Brattleboro, 1 Mill River,
1 MSJ. This was the stretch, and they demolished it. They went 8-0 and only two
of the games were even close at the end. The crowds came to the home games and
before you knew it this whole town was on this teams back. Everything I ever
wanted to be a part of or watch was happening. But I wasn’t there.This was the time where I began to feel a little selfish for not just
being 100 percent happy for my brother and my dad and my former teammates but
actually a little sad for me because, I couldn’t be there, or because I was
jealous. But I have convinced myself that its okay and that its human nature to
feel this way. In fact after years of being a fairly average brother I may have
stepped into a better brotherhood in my own head by being more proud of mine
than anyone. All I know is that last couple weeks of watching the games the day
after or on blurry livestream and feeling very mixed emotions was far from
over. Lets enter playoffs as the 1 seed and the first undefeated season since
1973.Round 1: it was a blowout. I shouldn’t have been too worried about not
seeing it live because of my lack of it internet but the games just aren’t the
same to me watching them when I already know what happens. I want to watch them
with some sort of reality to it. So I ran to internet café to house and all
about--sweaty like usual from stress and activity and finally got to see the 3rd
quarter before I lost connection again. But I was content in the fact that they
would play MAU on Friday. I couldn’t explain how excited I was to watch this
game, I felt like it was my own. I knew the buzz that was going around, the
rivalry and undefeated season at stake. I had everything planned to have
internet sufficient enough to watch the game, and then my plan crumbled.
Nothing was working. By the time I had something working it was the 4th
and everything was in hand. During the internet crisis I was very upset. I had
my first spurt of homesickness since Christmas and I was not in a good place.
All I wanted was to be in that gym. I would have given everything I had just to
be in that gym.But everything that’s happened on this exchange has me learning, every
step of the way. As I watch my brother and my dad put together something that
they will talk about for the rest of their lives, something I couldn’t be a
part of and as I watch my brother come on the verge of history and something
magical that I have to watch (hopefully live) from afar I will find some moral
or something good that comes from it for me. But until I find that moral,
whoever read this until the bottom you have one job and one job only:Critics hate us, they talk about us, but one thing they are right about,
is we are in a way underdogs from here on out. We are the new team in D1 and we
didn’t play a D1 schedule. So everything team that’s left has experience
against the best of the best. If you live in the area, at Tuesday night at 6PM
in the UVM gymnasium this team will take their talent and undefeated season
against Mount Mansfield in the semifinal game. Go to the game and cheer on
these kids. I cant do it but if you live in the area you are really lucky
because you CAN. This is not only a once in a lifetime opportunity for them but
it is also a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to see it happen. Get in
your car and go… Ill be watching.
