RealGM

What's your greatest hoops moment? Did you hit a buzzer-beater in high school? Score 40 in a men's league game? What's the closest you've come to glory?

I did a semester abroad in 1996 and went to South Africa, where I actually played on my college's basketball team. I hit five 3's in two separate games. For a second or two, I felt like an actual basketball player.

How bout you guys?

I dunked in a game winning rebound in a black-top money game. Besides that only other thing I can think of is when I got hot and put in ever single point in a basketball class championship game when I was the tallest player on my team and the other team was all 4 varsity basketball players.

Being a Reggie fan from early on, I always tried to emulate him more than anyone else in the NBA (off-ball movement, coming off screens, spot-up 3's, etc) so my personal highlight was hitting (IIRC...it was a while ago) 3 straight 3 pointers on consecutive possessions in my 8th grade team, all Reggie-style. One was a fade-away off a screen, so that was my "glory" moment.

I had some good moments in rec league ball, and current pick-up games, but when you emulate one single player, and for a short span of time actually feel like that player, it sticks with ya.

Mine dates way back. I was probably around twelve or thirteen at the time. There was a one on one tournament where all the best from my town and nearby towns gathered.

I can't remember how many there were exactly, but I remember playing the whole day. There was a group stage and then there were play-offs. I ended up in the finals against my best friend at the time. We used to play together all the time and I always thought that he was better.
He scored the first basket, but somehow something happened and I beat him handily in the end.

The highlight - as it turned out I allowed two baskets to be scored against me the whole tournament. One in one of the very first games and the other one in the final. Sheer dominance - I never came anywhere close to that in basketball again :p

I once scored 39 of our 50 points in a college intramural game. I hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to put us in O.T. and hit two free throws in overtime to win the game.

Last year, I got "in the zone" and hit about 11 3-pointers in a YMCA league game. We won by 20 so it wasn't that dramatic. But it was still fun.

I've had a few games on the black top at University of Maryland (back when they had a black top on South Campus) where bystanders gathered around to figure out how me and my two goofy looking white guy friends were beating players who were clearly athletically superior to us.

Alas, as I age, those moments are becoming few and far between.

In my youth league, sixth or seventh grade, my teammate stole the ball, and he and I had a two-on-one fast break. I was on the left side of the court, out ahead by a few paces. At half court, he tossed the ball towards me, at the free throw line or so. He threw it high though, so that I had to jump up and really reach to get it. I leapt up, caught the ball with my left hand, and in one single, smooth motion, whipped it around behind my back, throwing a bounce pass right back to my teammate, who then had the easy lay-in.

It wasn't necessarily the best or most important play I ever did, but it was my favorite. It was actually almost entirely an accident, as I was more just trying to save the ball from going out of bounds. It was so smooth and so perfect looking though, everyone assumed I meant for it to turn out as it did, and I sure as heck didn't correct anyone.

ooh, fun...

I was playing 21 and put up a jumper and it got blocked, which pissed me off. I grabbed the ball back, drove to the basket in the middle of about 10 guys, double clutched, felt someone foul me across the arms, and then everything went gray. When I came to my senses the ball was dropping in the bucket and the guy who fouled me was going "I got him." I grayed out once more after that with the ball dropping in at the end, pretty cool.

Putting in a running hook shot from about 15', the guys on the other team saying "I could see in his eyes it was going in"

I have a terrible jump shot but this girl from the women's bball team at Dayton was schooling me and I got pissed off and started draining jumpers over her, got four in a row and guys just kept screening for me and feeding me the ball. Missed the game winner though, my best game.

And I've hit a bunch of pickup game winners, that was my thing, even though I wasn't very good I always had the best stamina, I'd run my guy around nonstop and by the end of the game he'd get tired and I'd start scoring easy layups and breakaways and stuff. So I'd usually only score one or two baskets a game but a lot of the time they were game winners.

Making my high school team. I spent half of the season as a manager and practiced with the team but earned a jersey and finished the season as a 13th man.

My first game was against my base-school which my older brother played for. We won in a blowout so I got put in with my family in the crowd. As soon as I got the ball my mind went blank, I couldn't remember any plays, so I just drove to the basket.

Got fouled.

1 and 1.






Missed the front end. Time ran out before I could score.

Oh well. At least I had got in the game. Basketball has always been about enjoyment for me, finding beauty in the game, though I've never amounted to much as a player. But making the team that season helped me grow and salvaged my athleticism, something I am putting to use as a distant runner, all of which wouldn't have been possible without that season.

Bump. I need a break from the draft talk.

Played pickup with a guy who was really good once. Turns out he used to play at UVa back in the 80s(though he was a bench player/reserve). I blocked his shot once and effectively checked him all game.

In a youth league when I was about 12 years old, I scored 16 points in the championship game. Doesn't sound like much, but considering most teams only scored about 35-40 points total, 16 was pretty damn good.

Playing "beltway" basketball for Wheaton, I hit a half court shot at the buzzer to win by 1.

As my teammates were mobbing me I told them to get off because we had OT to play. See I had thought we had been down two, not one.

Of course, this shows my age... There was no three point line at the time.

... Not bball related, but as a college soccer player, I once one-timed a bad clearance from the keeper to score the winning goal against TCU in OT at their place in Fort Worth. Definitely, my sports higlight.

In a youth ball semi-finals game, we were down by one with five seconds left, and I stole the inbounds pass and hit my teammate for the game winning layup. Lost the next game though.

In baseball, a highlight was when I was 16 and my AAU team was in the national tournament. We were losing by a fair amount in the game, but I had heard the scores from another game reported, and I realized that our team would advance from the initial round robin series to the final 8 no matter how we ended this game. I convinced our coach to allow me to pitch to save the arms of our real pitchers.

I came in with two outs left in the inning with runners on first and second. On my first pitch, the guy blasted the ball about 350 feet off the fence in left center, but the runner on first was thrown out at the plate, ending the inning. 0.00 ERA, baby.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gqyuFBNkWY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHW-pUXrGHo[/youtube]

There was a 7 year period between 1993-2000 where I was undefeated while playing these basketball games at local arcades.
Ballston, M Street NW, City Place, Landmark, Tysons Corner, Ocean City Boardwalk etc...
I spent hours and entire days inside the arcades. I played against anyone and everyone. I never dodged anybody. I would even stay longer in cases where a challenge was issued to me by someone entering the arcade as I was exiting.

I always searched for the nearest arcade when I was on vacation. I observed others as they played. I developed a strategy along with my very own set plays. Some of my friends called me obsessed. Looking back now I probably was. Playing real life basketball was fun but not nowhere near as fun as playing these games.

I still check out some of the recent NBA games on the home consoles every now and then but playing against somebody online is not as exciting as playing against somebody in real life. Also a lot of the newer NBA games are just too realistic and playing them takes too long.

At my university, I stayed in my dorms during most of my holidays. It was a 6 hour train ride home and at that stage i couldnt stand living with my parents anymore anyway. It got lonely sometimes as 90% of people living there went home, but i became good friends with another guy during this time and we bonded over basketball. We'd usually spend 2-3 hours in the school gym shooting hoops and shooting the sh*t about classes, girls, the usual stuff.

So anyway, we were hanging out at the gym doing our usual thing, just finishing up and we were fairly pooped when these 3 girls approached us and asked if we wanted to play a game. I noticed one of them was wearing a state jersey. I asked about it and was told "oh, thats for netball". We finally agreed to play a game, 3 on 2, the girls vs. the boys. I thought it would be a cakewalk, I'm only about 5'9" but i was about as tall as the tallest girl, and my friend was 6'5"....

They creamed us. I talking like, 21-7. And i hit a late game 3, so the score actually didnt tell the tale of the game. Everything they threw up went in. Little baby hooks in the lane, jump shots with a hand in their face, everything. Im not sure wether it was exhaustion or shame, but i was red faced and almost hyperventilating post-game. They left and my friend and i had a bit of a laugh about it, and sort of lamented not asking them out for a drink later, and coming up with all these bets we should have put on the game to maybe get our freak on. Might have happened if we werent so thouroughly trounced. Oh well, at least i felt some boob and some butt pressed against me for 30 sweaty minutes...

Later in the day we realised that there was a girl's basketball team staying in some unused dorms. It wasnt a netball jersey, and it wasnt just 1 girl, all 3 were probably state reps. Those dirty little liars! And they probably werent even 18 so i kind of felt bad about the boob grabs...

my highlight would have to be in baseball and or motocross

in baseball I broke up 2 different no hitters in Babe Ruth.
I also was the opening game starter on my LL 6th grade team.
In another game, I came in relief base loaded no outs and got
out of the inning. And the funniest was one game where the
other team thought they had thrown me out at 2nd. I started
to walk off the field towards our 3rd base bench. Stopped on 3rd
and asked the ump if I was safe or out, he said safe.

In MX, I pulled a holeshot on an entire full gate of 40 bikes in 125B class.
That'll give you an adrenalin rush. I have that on video (converted from Super 8 movie).

but that's just the stuff I can remember. I'm so old there are probably much
better stories I could relate if not for the senior moments and the brain damage.
And I have a bridge to sell you too.

quick Jacqui update - 2 summer league games and she's hit a 3 in both games
AND I think she hit the only 3 in either game. Maybe she /will/ make the JV team.
Hope so. She's really learned how to adapt to her size and modest athleticism.

my real moment of glory

running a 3:08 marathon at Marine Corp in 2002, my personal best.

I finished in 176th overall male and 186th overall (women and men). Only 10 women beat me
in the entire race. There were around 14,000 runners in the race. And I finished
14th out of over 1100 runners in my 5 year age-group. Averaged 7:11 per mile for 26.2 miles.

Not my best moment just a very strange one.

Late at night when i was at UMCP i was coming out of the Cellar (campus bar) with a friend when someone recognizes me. He was obviously drunk and starts loudly going on and on about how good a player i was. His friends are all looking at me like how good could this guy be (6'2 skinny slump shouldered honky).

And i had no clue who this guy was. I didn't recognize him at all. Awkwarrrrd

dobrojim wrote:my real moment of glory

running a 3:08 marathon at Marine Corp in 2002, my personal best.

I finished in 176th overall male and 186th overall (women and men). Only 10 women beat me
in the entire race. There were around 14,000 runners in the race. And I finished
14th out of over 1100 runners in my 5 year age-group. Averaged 7:11 per mile for 26.2 miles.

WOW I can't even relate to that.

I could do that pace for 3 miles (on a good day) but that's about it.

winning the nerf hoop dunk contest in my bedroom (4th gradish).

Winning the Whiffledome championship at Frederick Hall (a year before they tore it down) - my dorm at U of M. My marathon running career ended 30 pounds ago with a PR of 3:50 and chronic achilles tendonitis, and I could never begin to do a triathlon - being able to swim almost as well as MKG shoots jumpers.