For the past week of isolation Eric Muller (17) has been painting his bedroom with a theme of his favorite NBA basketball team – The Phoenix Suns. This entailed white ceiling paint and multiple colors on the walls: gray, purple and orange. Additionally LED lighting and a Fathead logo decorated the walls. Multiple images show more of the visual impact one encounters upon entering the room. Today we move his furniture back.
During the outage caused by the shelter in place Eric decided to paint his bedroom. You can check their site and get the best painters. It was last painted by Billie Jo and her high school boy friend – some 20 years ago. Eric has a theme based on the Phoenix Suns basketball team. We bought orange, purple, and light grey paint for the walls and bright white for the ceiling. The one wall with the light grey will also have a Fathead Phoenix Suns logo on it. We ordered the logo (~$70) online last Saturday afternoon. On Monday morning the company announced a 30% discount on all items as their way to respond to the virus. Ouch. So I wrote them an email and said my son was out of school for three weeks and undertaking this bedroom refurbishing and we missed the discount by less than 24 business hours and was there anything they could do to make me feel better as a customer. They responded and said they would apply the 30% discount to our order.
The HP Varsity Basketball Team finished 1st in their league with a record of 11-9 and besting the four other teams: Clinton, Sherburne-Earlville, Canastota, and Adirondack. As the 12 seed in the 25 team Center State Conference they end up facing #5 ranked Marcellus (14-6) in the sectionals. Marcellus previously trounced HP by 37 during the regular season.
Team Record
1 Lowville 18-1
2 Solvay 16-4
3 General Brown 16-4
4 V.V.S. 14-6
5 Marcellus 14-6
6 Clinton 14-6
7 Skaneateles 13-7
8 Cazenovia 12-8
9 Jordan-Elbridge 12-8
10 Westhill 12-8
11 Central Valley Academy 11-9
12 Holland Patent 11-9
13 Institute of Technology 10-10
14 Mt. Markham 11-8
15 Camden 9-10
16 Homer 8-10
17 Mexico 8-12
18 Oneida 7-13
19 Hannibal 7-12
20 Chittenango 6-14
21 Canastota 6-13
22 South Jefferson 4-15
23 Adirondack 5-15
24 APW 4-16
25 Phoenix 2-18
This weekend was the culmination of Eric’s 2019 AAU season as his Mohawk Valley Elite team competed in the Hoops Summit held in Watertown, NY. The team came away with 2 wins and 2 losses. I am particularly proud of Eric working to come back from ankle surgery and regain his game. Eric didn’t score much, but played stout defense against larger post players and pulled down double digit rebounds in the last game.
Eric’s MVE team played over the weekend beating their D-Squad opponent; losing to the Syracuse Nets and losing in overtime to Cap City. Eric played sparingly, often alternating defense / offense with Dylan.
After 8 months, 66 physical therapy appointments and several momentum swings Eric finally got to play basketball for his Mohawk Valley Elite AAU team. Their 1st 2019 tournament was held in Watertown, NY. They had a full team (10 players)and he is struggling with regaining his conditioning, but it was a major accomplishment to get to this point.
Wednesday Kathryn had to work and I took the day off to take Eric and Trevor skiing at McCauley Mtn. We left the house at 10:30 and arrived about an hour later. We had to wait a few minutes before they would sell their half day ski pass; 12 noon – 4:15 for $20; so we staked a table in the lodge, Trevor rented a helmet and the boys geared up with boots, etc.
It was a perfect day. McCauley wasn’t crowded so there was no waiting for the ski lift. The boys met up with a friend, Jack, and were intrigued by all the new ski trails to explore. They came into the lodge at 2pm for food and drinks and then returned to repeat runs over the rest of the ski center. McCauley has a base elevation of 1567 ft and rises up 633 feet to a summit elevation of 2200. There are 21 trails and 5 lifts (chair, t-bar, rope tow). Other than one double black diamond run (Helmer) they did every trail 2 or 3 times.
The HP Travel Team opened with a game vs VVS. HP lost to VVS 28-36. Eric played two quarters . He did a good job of playing zone defense and setting ball screens.
Eric typically favors playing the left side of the lane away from the ball.
Saturday morning HP3 House Team played HP2. they had a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter but lost the game during the press that HP2 employed the last two minutes. There was some confusion. In the picture above Kathryn captured the moment that Eric came up to give a ball screen for his point guard, Jack. Jack threw a bounce pass into Eric’s ankles. Below Eric moves to set a screen on Luke’s defender.
Eric scored 8 points by hitting 4 straight jump shots from his “sweet spot” on the left side of the lane.
HP Travel Team beat an overwhelmed Notre Dame team 38-23 on Sunday afternoon. Eric was still feeling the glow from his previous day’s performance and took a couple of shots from outside his range, but otherwise played well; scoring once, boxing out well and playing the middle of the 2-3 zone and communicating with his teammates.
Saturday Eric had three basketball games. A position round game matching #1 Oneida vs. #2 HP Gold team in the Rome league. The team was down 11-1 and came back to tie the game, ultimately losing by 2 points.
In the afternoon they played in a tournament, losing the 1st game versus JCCC by 3 points. Again the kids got down early 13-5 in the 1st half, 15-7 in the early 2nd half, finally getting to 18-15. They lost the 2nd game to Frankfort by lots and lots of points. Only one more week of basketball left. Whew!
Frankfort had a couple of quick players who were very committed to getting to the rim and where capable of making little bounce passes to the post players if they were denied by a switching defensive player. Below Eric plays defense, sets a pick for Michael, calls for the ball, advances the ball in a crowd, watches the opening tip and holds his form on his jump shot.
In their 3rd game of the season HP Gold faced Bellamy Gray. Eric was excited because Jennifer and Mike were coming to see his game. He played well, running hard, good defense, scored 4 points and he got a lot of rebounds. He won Matt’s Saranac Root Beet Award for the most rebounds – although I am sure Michael and Trevor were very close in total rebounds as well.
