February Means Better Basketball...

The great thing about the beginning of February is I finally get to start covering decent basketball. The reason for this is the really bad local teams that I've had to suffer through covering the previous month are finally either totally eliminated from the playoffs or are close enough that I can start covering some of the teams that matter and deserve some coverage for them either being involved in a good game or had players that we are doing features on.

So, on Friday I headed out to Eastland to shoot their district game against Jim Ned. The girls game wasn't expected to be all that close, and it wasn't, Jim Ned won really easily. However, like in most blowouts, it's best to get there early since showing up at halftime usually means the game has been decided and either the starters or off the floor or they're just trying to kill the clock in order to not run up the score quite as much. The one good thing about that is it gives me time to download and edit and caption my photos before the boys game gets started.

The boys game started out looking like it could be the boys game all over again, but with Eastland being on top. Then in the second quarter things started to click for Jim Ned and it turned into a game. In the second half Jim Ned was looking really good and like they were going going to take the lead back, but Eastland was playing tough. By the last minute the game still was totally up in the air Eastland was holding on to the slimmest of leads, but even from the line Jim Ned just couldn't get ahead. Eastland ended up winning 51-47 in one of the most entertaining games I'd gotten to see all year. Hopefully this will be a sign of things to come with better games from here on out.