Random Thoughts: basketball, NFL

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports

This week’s installment of Random Thoughts centers around a challenging weekend for three local teams, key NWC and WBL games, a busy month for one team in particular, congratulations to a prolific scorer, undefeated teams, NFL announcements and the NFL Draft.

Challenging weekend

Van Wert, Crestview and Lincolnview all have a challenging weekend on tap.

The Cougars will play at Defiance (8-1) Friday and at Marion Local (currently 8-0) on Saturday. The Knights will travel to Bluffton (8-1) on Friday then will host Arlington (10-0) on Saturday. The Lancers will head to Spencerville (10-0) on Friday, then will entertain Miller City (10-1) on Saturday. Those six opponents have a combined record of 54-3). Challenging indeed.

Key games

Along with Friday’s Crestview at Bluffton game, other key NWC games on the schedule include Bluffton at Lima Central Catholic on January 17, and Bluffton at Spencerville January 31. At this point, the key game in the WBL appears to be Shawnee at Defiance on Friday, January 17.

Busy month

Van Wert’s girls basketball team will play half of its schedule this month. 11 games are on the slate for January. More specifically, it’s 11 games in 27 days, January 4-30. That’s lot of basketball in a short amount of time.

Congraluations

Congratulations to standout guard Cameron Elwer of Delphos St. John’s for shattering the school’s career scoring record over the weekend. He entered Friday’s game at Parkway needing 19 points to surpass Alan Kortokrax’s record of 1,482, and Elwer not only broke the record, he shattered it by scoring 41 points in a 78-46 win.

He added 19 more Saturday night when the Blue Jays (10-0) rallied from 18 down to defeat Shawnee 57-54. 10 of those points came in the fourth quarter, including a three point basket with 15 seconds left that proved to be the game winner.

And then there were two

With Defiance losing to Lima Central Catholic 68-61 on Saturday, there are just two undefeated boys basketball teams left in the area and both are in the MAC – Delphos St. John’s (10-0) and Marion Local (8-0). They’ll meet in Delphos next Friday night, January 17.

The only undefeated girls team in the area is Ottawa-Glandorf. The Lady Titans are currently 9-0.

NFL

In the past and present, NFL teams announced when they had parted ways with coaches, general managers and other front office personnel. Now, the new trend seems to be teams announcing their head coach and GM will stay.

The Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins and New York Giants are among the organizations that made such annoucements Sunday night or Monday morning. Obviously, there was speculation that changes could be made in each of those organizations and others but for whatever reason, these types of announcements seem odd to me.

Draft

As you may know, I’m a Cleveland Browns fan. The Browns have the second overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. I can make this pretty simple for them. Don’t overreach for one of the quarterbacks coming out. This is a weak quarterback class and it seems none of them are worthy of the second pick. If there’s a left tackle the organization loves, take him. If not, see if there’s a defensive tackle the organization loves and if so, draft him. If there’s no one like that, trade down and get extra picks. This organization needs all the help it can get.

As always, if you have thoughts or comments on any of the above topics, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com.