Column by Joanie Barry

As the weather gets colder, have no fear. The Bell Center is as warm as ever. Believe it or not, we are already two weeks into co-rec basketball. Playoffs will arrive sooner than you think. So, here is some advice to make your team playoff-ready.

Get to the Bell Center at least 15 minutes early.

Signing in for basketball is more complicated and time-consuming than any other sport.

Surprisingly enough, intramurals is not the most well-endowed program at Drake.

So, when jerseys kept going missing last year we tightened up the security of our nice basketball jerseys.

To sign in for basketball, all athletes need to turn in their IDs one at a time to the scorekeeper.

The scorekeeper will then pick out a jersey and mark it on his or her corresponding score sheet. Without fail, every day we get tons of last-minute signatures and have to start the game late.

On a side note, please do not be that person who refuses to take any number other than 23 or 59.

The people who force the scorekeeper to go through every single jersey in the bag just to find their old high school number are just wasting time.

The only time requesting a number is acceptable is if you are an extremely large man or woman who requires an extra-large jersey that only comes from numbers 60 and above. Same thing applies to small people who really need a size large.

But, if you are a former jock who refuses to play with anything but your JV, second-string number, please just take the jersey and go practice your half-court shot.

This next piece of advice goes for my fellow upperclassmen athletes.

No matter what sport, at any level, I always hear the same complaint.

It varies in its verbiage, but essentially the complaint sounds like this, “Damn, I’m out of shape. I am sorry, you guys. I promise I was a stud in high school.”

I hear this complaint most often around basketball season both competitive and co-rec.

Maybe it is something about the fact that basketball season falls around the same time as the holiday season. Maybe it is due to the post-midterms/pre-finals stress eating.

Whatever the reason, that lack of conditioning leads to sore mornings. Stretching can alleviate that soreness and prevent that impending feeling of old age. It is a simple piece of advice, but it can be invaluable.

I know this advice may seem simple and obvious to the veteran intramural official.  But trust me, take this advice, and you will be able to spend more time warming up.

You won’t be sore in the morning and you will have a championship team.

The last piece of advice is the most important and underrated strategy of co-rec. Pass the ball to the girls.

Many teams think that they only need two girls to run up and down the court while their men dribble around them.

Women get three points for every standard two-point shot and four points for every three-point shot. If you have women who can actually shoot the ball, odds are, you will win. Championship teams always have a few solid girls who can shoot the ball.

Here is your rule reminder for this week: There is no such think as over-the-back in intramurals.

I repeat this rule every year, and people still don’t seem to remember it. Anyone can reach above another person as long as they don’t make physical contact. Any contact, and that is a push.

Barry is a senior radio-television and secondary education double major and can be reached at [email protected]