Five (or six) lessons from the Crosstown Clash … and the story about the actual writing about it, too.
Author’s Note: Later today (Saturday) I’ll be writing another column for Sunday distribution, probably about the College Football Playoff, though SMU is doing my point no favors at the moment. This, though, is from last night, where I got to jump back into my old role as a high school writer, turning out a column from Crosstown Clash basketball, Norman High boys and girls at Norman North. I was hoping to come up with 800 great words from the event, a task made more difficult by the boys game going overtime after the girls game ran a tad long. My deadline was 11 p.m. with the boys game maybe ending at 9:40?
I don’t often, but I created a format for the column I thought would speed it along while also telling the stories of both games, by telling six very different smaller stories from both games. I had 950 words by 10:42, giving me time to read it once carefully for 12 minutes and a second time quickly for four minutes, shaving it down about 120 words along the way. I think I sent it at 10:58.
I’m not going to read it again now.
If errors got through, you’ll see them here, because such is the nature of deadline writing in an age of very little copy editing in the midst of a difficult print media landscape.
So, I hope you enjoy the story and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story about the story.
“It never disappoints.”
So said Norman schools athletics director T.D. O’Hara on his way out of the North Gym Friday night and he couldn’t have been the only one.
Norman High claimed a very good girls contest 69-56 and the Tiger boys won, too, 53-52, though it took a four-minute overtime session to conclude
I think I can summarize it all well enough not with that old “five things” trope, but “five lessons” instead.
Maybe it will catch on.
1) Get help if you can.
Get it because often you can’t win, prevail, or just finish the task at hand without it and doesn’t Keeley Parks know it.
Parks, you may know, is the state’s top hoops prospect, who just signed with Kansas, making Jayhawk hearts swoon because it’s not every day you pick up a top-20 national prospect, who’s about to break the great Stacey Hansmeyer’s program points mark.
But that’s who Parks is and Friday night she finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds, yet led her team in only one of the categories because Halyn Browning, a senior point guard who who came over from Luther, netted 26 points, 19 in the first half alone.
“I’m not the only one who has to bring [the ball] up all the time, her passing was amazing and we have a good connection,” Parks said.
In addition to Browning, the Tigers have also picked up Avery Ragland, who came over from Mustang. She netted 14 points, but more on her later.
2) If at first you don’t succeed …
Everybody knows the rest of that lesson, and it was on display from both the NHS and North boys at the end.
The Timberwolves had a rough first half, trailing 25-11 for a moment and 30-21 at the break.
But their comeback slowly built and with 28.8 seconds remaining, Josiah Thomas found Luke Bauman in the left corner, who canned it and suddenly it was 46-46, setting up the extra session.
Bauman was sitting on four points when the shot left his hand and had missed both of his prior 3-point attempts.
In OT, it was NHS point guard Beau Billingsley’s turn. Though he’d dished four assists through four quarters, he’d made only one field goal, a first-quarter 2.
No problem, his 3-pointer made it 51-48, putting the Tigers on top for good, and his driving layup with 37 seconds remaining all but finished it.
3) There’s no substitute for playing hard and though pretty much everybody did, North’s Seleh Harmon may have played a little harder than the rest.
The T-Wolves needed her to be everywhere and she was, finishing with 28 points, five rebounds and four assists.
Often the ball’s in her hand and it’s easy to see how hard she’s playing. Sometimes it isn’t and you can tell those times, too.
She’s the kind of player you’re not moved to congratulate so much as thank for the effort and what it produced.
She’s headed to Pepperdine, the most beautiful campus on earth, to play next season, so it’s nice to see her rewarded.
4) Awareness is key.
Remember Ragland?
She finished with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and 2-of-2 3-point shooting. She also finished with a second-best-on-her-team five rebounds, though she was frequently the smallest player on the court.
She played like she’s grown up watching every game she can and it’s seeped into her bones.
Her 2-pointers were all layups, exactly the type of shot somebody like her should not get, but she did it again and again and crushingly calmly, too, because her reads were good, her cuts were sharp and when her teammates found her the shot was the easy part.
It’s so much fun watching a player like that.
5) Parity rules.
It’s not always in play, but when it’s the Crosstown Clash, both teams are good and both are scratching and clawing for everything against each other, it’s the greatest.
Just last week at the Joe Lawson Invitational, North topped NHS 47-46. Friday night, after an extra frame, it was NHS 53-52, making the cumulative score between them 99-99.
The last game of the regular season, another Clash, arrives Feb. 22 at the NHS Gym.
Save the date.
6) Simplicity is cool.
Consider this one a bonus.
I thought I had five lessons, but it’s six.
Simplicity is cool and nobody played a simpler game than Isaiah Amos, Norman High’s 6-foot-5 post.
Though Billingsley won the overtime, Amous made the victory possible by playing hard, putting the ball in the basket when he could, battling for every rebound, etc., like he’s Wes Unseld in the 70s.
There’s little flash to his game beyond occasional slams, but he finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds, leading both teams in both categories by wide margins.
His whole game’s at the basket.
“To clean up everything that doesn’t go our way,” is how he describes his job. “I love it because it leads to us winning.”
Hard to argue with that and you’ve got to love the Clash.