<em>"Make sure your people is there to see the game. ‘Cause you might get embarrassed. Trust me."</em>
<strong>— Charlie Murphy, on "Chappelle’s Show" recounting a basketball game he played against Prince</strong>
<strong>— Also Ryan O’Leary after playing HORSE against Scarlett Kimbrell and Lauren Klem</strong>
How good could they really be?
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Sure, Franklin freshmen Scarlett Kimbrell and Lauren Klem have taken Indiana high school girls basketball by storm with their seemingly unlimited shooting range this season. But hey, 10 games is a small sample size, right? Could just be luck.
I decided to find out firsthand last week, when I ventured over to Franklin to challenge the two Grizzly Cub sharpshooters to a friendly game of HORSE.
A fair fight? Not really. Kimbrell and Klem are among the most prolific 3-point shooters in the state this season, and they’re hoisting up hundreds of shots a day. By contrast, I hadn’t chucked a ball up toward a rim since before COVID hit — so on top of being old, I’m rusty. I was also never a good shooter to begin with, as my eight career high school varsity points will attest. <em>And</em> we’re playing with a girls ball. So of course, I’m an off-the-board underdog.
Inexplicably, the Twitterverse wasn’t so sure. I posted an online poll the day before asking who would win; Klem was the favorite with about 50% of the vote, but I was not too far behind at about 35%.
Let’s just say those 35% were about as accurate as I was. (Kimbrell admitted to voting for me, which turned out to be about her only miss related to this competition.)
Anyway, it was decided that Klem would go first for some reason, followed by me and then Kimbrell. So when Klem opened with a 3-point attempt from the wing, I figured my goose was cooked.
Amazingly, she missed. I had a window. So I walked behind the backboard to attempt a shot that I had hit three or four times while warming up — and, of course, I gagged. Kimbrell and Klem then both buried 22-footers, putting me in exactly the type of situation I was hoping to avoid.
<em>Clang</em>. H.
That’s about how the rest of it went. I did manage to hit a couple of 3s to delay my death by a couple of minutes, but my grand strategy of leaning on trick shots never had a chance. The Splash Sisters just don’t miss, so I hardly ever got to shoot a shot of my choosing.
Down to my last letter, I finally got another opening. Desperate for some sort of momentum shift, I peeled off my Georgetown jersey (which is about a decade older than either of my opponents) to reveal a Center Grove basketball t-shirt, hoping to get in their heads a little bit. Then I headed to halfcourt looking for a big strike.
Had I knocked that down, maybe we’re writing a different article. Alas, I was off the mark again, and they promptly put me out of my misery right after that with some more 3s.
Ruthless, they are.
With some time to burn after that quick loss, we then tried a game called 42, where the two freshmen teamed up against myself and Brian Klem, Lauren’s dad and an assistant coach for the Grizzly Cubs. We were completely outmatched; the girls went 10 for 10 on 3s going around the horn in their second round to end it.
My only realistic chance at redemption came after that, when we closed out with a halfcourt shooting contest. Scarlett got the first make — but I was actually able to match it, while Lauren was knocked out. After who knows how many more misses each, Kimbrell was able to knock down a second one before I did.
My lone chance at salvaging some dignity gone, I returned to the bench to put my sweats back on and lick my wounds while Lauren’s younger sister and her second-grade classmates practiced. Based on how I shot, that was probably the level of competition I belonged with.
Was I that bad? Pretty much. But honestly, I’m not sure anything else I did would have changed the HORSE result much. Short of making every single gimmick shot in my bag, there was no way I could compete. And they pre-empted that strategy pretty effectively by just not missing.
"I knew if you were going to do trick shots, there was no chance we were going to win, probably," Klem acknowledged afterward.
The game basically turned into a 3-point shooting contest, and I don’t know how many high school students of either gender in this state could beat these two when it comes to that.
From now on, I’ll gladly stick to watching them rain 3s down on opposing teams from the stands. These next three-plus years are going to be one heck of a show.
<em>Ryan O’Leary is the sports editor for the Daily Journal. He will periodically be traveling around Johnson County taking on various physical challenges, some of which will make him look more absurd than others. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>.</em>
