Denver, CO — The Eurodites defeated the Pepper Spray Pirates 17-21 in a 3 on 3 mens’ open intramural basketball game at the University of Denver on Thursday, Oct. 12.
Rather aggressive yet amusing, the game was played fairly quickly and caused some confusion as it took place on half of the court with one basket only. The players’ shoes skipping across the polished floor and the intense shoutings of “here!” and “pass!” electrified the atmosphere.
Danielle Giffin, intramural referee, admits that although her favorite activity is soccer, intramural basketball is one of the more fun sports, because it is open to all University of Denver students, and the players are more prone to developing friendships, according to Giffin, even though it is a competitive sport. That night, they had a law school team playing against an undergrad team.
“It is really cool, because you won’t get that kind of sportsmanship and interaction outside of this type of league,” says Giffin.
The Pepper Spray Pirates were at a disadvantage, being an all freshmen team playing against the Eurodites who were all graduate students.
With only 30 minutes to play, as the score got closer to 21, the players became more spirited. In the open league, which is for men only, the first team to get to 21 points wins. However, the winning team must lead by two point or more.
The game is unique, because it is self-officiated; no one on the outside keeps track of the rules of the game. It is based on the players’ judgements and their capability of making the correct assessments.
There can be as many players on a roster as desired, but only 3 players per team are allowed on the court at a time. At the Oct. 12 game, there were 7 players, and they would switch off when they got tired.
Intramural is pretty “laid back”, so there was not much of an audience in the bleachers, other than two students.
Jacob Sorber, one of the freshmen on the Pepper Spray Pirates, played basketball in high school. He did not want to join the DU varsity basketball team and elected to play intramural, to further hone his skills. He says that in high school there was more structure, more team work involved, the games were faster, and there was a lot more running (because it’s a full court instead of a half court), so you had to be in shape.
“People generally know what they are doing more, and they are more passionate about it in high school,” says Sorber.
Sorber says team chemistry and communication are very important. A 3 on 3 game is slower and requires a lot of communication, because a condensed space is being covered by a smaller number of players.
Although Sorber’s team of freshmen lost, he says the game was still a good and fun competition, which is the ultimate goal of intramural sports.
“Just three freshmen guys having fun,” says Sorber.
DU offers a multitude of intramural sports — flag football, ultimate frisbee, indoor soccer, outdoor soccer, broom ball, and a lot of the more “traditional” sports.
