Geneseo 44
Lady Potters 34

I walk in the house about 10 o’clock tonight and there’s Casey, my cat, who is curious.

“How’d it go?” she says.

“Can you believe it, Casey, it’s 57 degrees outside. The snow has all melted. Suddenly, we’re Florida.”

Casey says, “Meow.”

Meaning I should fetch her a can of salmon.

She says, “Not salmon again.”

Casey is finicky. I was forever a dog person until Casey showed up. For Christmas my sister dear, Sandy, gave me a T-shirt with a legend: “This human belongs to Casey.” So I do what Casey wants me to do.

I drop the salmon and get tuna. She purrs. She says, “You said you were going to a basketball game.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

“Now who’s finicky?” she says.

So I tell her what happened in the Bloomington High School gym in the fifth-place game of the State Farm Holiday Classic.

“Geneseo showed up, and Morton didn’t,” I say.

“No game then?”

“Nope.”

“So, where have you been the last three hours?”

I say, “Casey, Casey. Do you know what curiosity did to the cat?”

“Don’t bring that weak stuff in here,” she says. “I know ‘curiosity killed the cat.’ I also know the quote goes on to say, ‘But satisfaction brought it back.’ So, satisfy me with a report on the silly game you humans play in the winter.”

(Who knew that Casey can operate the Google machine and trace the origin of ancient lines?)

I tell Casey I talked to the Potters’ coach afterwards. I tell her that Bob Becker said, ‘I haven’t been this disappointed in a long time.’ It wasn’t like losing a perfect season and a state championship on the last shot to Chicago Simeon. That was “heartbreaking.” This was different. ‘Tonight was very poor.’ He said, ‘I gotta get better, I gotta be a better coach and a better leader, and we gotta get better.’’’

I asked Casey, “You ever heard of Joe Paterno?”

“A cat person?” she says.

“A football coach. He lost a big game once. Somebody told him he shouldn’t take it so hard. He said, ‘If a carpenter builds a house and it falls down, he’s supposed to be OK with that?’ That’s what Becker was saying.”

“Becker’s team fell down?”

“Casey, do a dog thing. Open the fridge, fetch me a beer.”

Here’s Morton’s scoring tonight:

Tatym Lamprecht 15, Addy Engel 7, Graci Junis 4, Izzy Hutchinson 3, Ruby Brubaker 3, Magda Lopko 2.