(Imraan Al-Hariq continued from Twin Towers, yes in the same area, it's now several days later
)Big game coming up, big game coming up, big game coming up.....
Imraan was back in the gym, glad to be alone for a bit. The one half was sectioned off for some ninth-grade gym class, and since it wasn't one of the lunch periods, he had the other end to himself for the time being. Free periods. Man, sometimes those things were like gold.
And yeah, he might have been using this time to study, but he'd finally decided to straight up tell his boss that he was working too many hours with the state games coming up and exams and grad following right after that. And the boss had been cool enough with it, so Imraan was pretty sure that he could pick up those hours in the summer, no problem. So he could afford to leave the schoolwork for later, right now it was all about practice and working for the game.
Of course, they were ALL big games now. The first match in the state playoffs had come and gone on Monday, and they'd (barely) pulled out a win. The second one was coming up, and it was against that team from East Minny that was probably one of the faves to win the whole thing, and the scouts were definitely going to be watching that one with interest. One crap game and, well he wouldn't be totally done for or anything, but it would hurt. Yeah, it would.
He'd been tossing the ball at the basket from the perimiter, missing on purpose (not that he really needed to TRY to miss from that far outside, heh), so that he could rush forward and work on his offensive rebounding. It really wasn't the best of workouts since you ideally needed a partner to go up against, but given his duties, it was still more useful than just taking shots at the net. And he'd been sure to get in as much work as possible whenever he was with the team.
Yeah, that. Imraan knew he'd missed the last GODspeed meeting to get in that extra practice with Rob and J.J. and Mike. And he was probably going to miss this week's as well, since the game was coming on Friday. In retrospect, thank God that he hadn't been picked as the president. That would've been embarassing, and just another thing on his platter that he really didn't need right now. Between ball and GodSPEED, not to mention work and school and church and prom, he needed to set some priorities, and for a couple weeks some of them had to get the short end of the stick. That's why he'd cut down his hours, that's why he was resolving himself not to think about prom for now, and the group would have to join them. Well, they'd understand. After all, it was just a freakin' school group, he wasn't totally abandoning his beliefs if he wasn't there every week. AND it wasn't like he was skipping the meetings to go out and party or anything like that, this was IMPORTANT man, what, was God going to come down and chew him out for trying to get into a decent college?
He'd kept on playing as he turned all this over, ramping up the intensity on each drive to the net. On this one, the ball had lipped off the rip perfectly and Imraan jumped to tip it in, only to have the ball wedge itself in between the rim and the backboard.
"Ah, come on!"
Seriously, how often did that happen? Imraan grabbed another basketball from the floor and chucked it at the stuck ball to dislodge it, but it just bounced off harmlessly.
Man, just calm down.
Yeah, seriously. He had to keep control here, or he'd be a mess come gametime.
Just jump up and dislodge the thing.
Yeah, duh. What good was the crazy-tall guy for if not being able to reach the rim?
Jumping up, Imraan swatted at the wedged ball a couple times before it finally knocked loose and bounced towards the wall. He pursued it, trying to make sure to keep the intensity down a bit. Just clear your mind and get some smooth practice in. And who knows, maybe all the other stuff would just sort itself out.
Grabbing the ball, Imraan moved back to just outside the key, and started the routine up again.
