John 'Combinatorics' Hall
Position: Guard (2)
Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
Favorite Team: Cincinnati 'He' Bearcats
Most Embarrassing Hometown Team: The Bengals...yuck
Favorite Sport: Pickup Basketball
Favorite Cat: Misha...wait, or is it Maggie?
Favorite Activity: Taking pictures of 'forbidden' buidings on vacation, only to be thwarted on many occasions by the friendly Homeland Security officer.
Most Annoying Attribute: Always waving directions to players on the court..."No no, go through." (accompanied by a wave of the arm)
Comparable TV Character: Professor Frink...come on, he's a 'Math' grad student, who else could I compare him to. (OK, really this category should be comparible Simpsons characters, because thats the only show I'm going to reference) "After evaluating millions of pieces of data in the blink of an eye, the Gamble-Tron 2000 says the winner is... Cincinnati by 200 points!? Why, you worthless hunk of junk."...."Well sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive, don't touch it, but I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them." -Frink
Interesting Fact: Spent an entire evening after basketball(the night of the big snow storm this winter) pushing stuck cars out of snow drifts just for FUN! An odd way to get your kicks, but hey, to each his own.
League Background: As I recall John was a Fieldhouse pickup the first year of basketball. He started playing with us there a few weeks in a row(when we had no idea who the geek with the glasses was), was added to the email list, and the rest is history...or so the story goes...
Strength: The left-handed baseline drive to the bucket...I can never stop it, and from what I see everyone else has a lot of trouble with it. (I especially like the one where Combinatorics throws it up from behind the backboard!)
Weakness: Passing off to less competent players when he could clearly just take the ball and score himself...well, I know thats not much of a weakness but its hard to find that many with John...well maybe losing or nearly breaking or breaking his glasses at least once a week.
Grades-
Offense: A
Defense: B+
Rebounding: B+
Passing: A-
Hustle: A-
Attitude: A
Basic Math Abilities: A
Overall Grade: A-
8 comments:
John is a scorer. That left side drive is very hard to defend even when you know it's coming. The shot over the backboard is ridiculous, but he makes it all the time. He and Nerves are clearly the two best jump shooters. John also takes it to the hoop well. The one rip on his offensive game is passing/court awareness. You can cut all day and he may not connect with you. This is more a product of our lack of point guards than his flaws. John is a scorer and is not passing-oriented. However, like many of us, he runs a good fast break. That's something I miss. Most pickup games elsewhere have very sloppy fast breaks.
His defense is good overall. I think he defends well, but he has one habit I have to vent on. When defending in the post, he will do little chippy type fouls on the arms or just push on the hips of the shooter during a turnaround jumper. These can alter a shot effectively. And you really can't call a foul on those chippy ones. The lesson should be to play through those ones, I guess. I'm not sure if these little pushes are accidental or part of some larger devious combinatorical plan. Go ahead and ask John about what exactly it is that he studies. I did once. He said, "blah blah blah integers, blah blah blah derivatives." I then said, "An integer is a number, right?" True story.
I think the B+ grade for defense is way too generous, considering that I usually just play off and let people shoot.
(Sorry I haven't been posting on the other profiles. I know it looks like I was just waiting for mine to come out, but I've really been very busy. It's been great fun to read, though.)
(Maadison Blaahger said...
When defending in the post, he will do little chippy type fouls on the arms or just push on the hips of the shooter during a turnaround jumper. ... I'm not sure if these little pushes are accidental or part of some larger devious combinatorical plan.)
It's called "Bearcat Basketball". :-) Seriously, we were always taught to body up on the shot. Fouls on the arms are more likely accidental - just me being lazy or out of position.
john is our best all-around player after matt. i don't know if i'd necessarily call him a 'scorer,' as he is one of our most team-oriented players. he shoots well and can pentrate if needed, but he doesn't look to create his own shot as much as someone like andy does.
john does lay off on defense, but that's not an unintelligent thing considering the shooting ability in our games.
I don't know why everyone's in such awe over John's baseline drive. I just foul him.
hmmmmm...you know, I never thought of that. Just foul... Huh, I'll keep that in mind.
Didn't Homer say "playing defense is for suckers," or something like that?
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