Losing Isaiah End
Raymond Freedman
When Carly Sears, a young woman widowed by the Vietnam War, receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970, and she is told nothing can be done to help her child. But her brother-in-law, a physicist with a mysterious past, tells her that perhaps there is a way to save her baby. What he suggests is something that will shatter every preconceived notion Carly has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage she never knew existed. Something that will mean an unimaginable leap of faith on Carly's part.
Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: She lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended. Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a book You Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them.
Six people, six secrets, six different backgrounds. They would never have met if not for their connection to the Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When someone falls down an elevator shaft at the facility, each becomes caught up in an intensifying chain of events.
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's just about out of options. She recently graduated from high school and is pregnant with her art teacher's baby. Her mother is dead, and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother, but without any money or prospects she's left searching. So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son.
Seth Margolis raises a complex and emotional moral question while giving the listener an understanding of the pain and conflict that leads to the inevitable heart-rending conclusion, in which one mother ends up losing her son.
In 1994, Lizbeth Meredith said good-bye to her four- and six year-old daughters for a visit with their noncustodial father only to learn days later that they had been kidnapped and taken to their father's home country of Greece. Twenty-nine and just on the verge of making her dreams of financial independence for her and her daughters come true, Lizbeth now faced a $100,000 problem on a $10 an hour budget.
"Something is murdering my men." Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. When an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find something that's both powerful and terrifying. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore - who just happens to be Jewish - to shed some light on the mysterious happenings.
Texas Southern finished third in the Southwestern Athletic Conference but secured the auto-bid by winning the conference tournament, defeating Prairie View A&M (the regular-season champ) in the title game, 80-61. The Tigers are 17-8 on the season despite losing seven of their first nine and are led by guard Michael Weathers (16.2 points), center John Walker III (12.3 points) and forward Karl Nicholas (11.1 points).
If Texas Southern chooses to defend Dickinson 1-on-1, expect him to have a huge day in volume and scoring efficiency. If the Tigers send help down low, that will help open up the rest of Michigan's offense and lead to open 3s. Dickinson is no stranger to passing out of double teams: He has had to adapt to increased attention since early January. As long as Dickinson can avoid foul trouble (something he has had trouble with recently), he should win this matchup and help the Wolverines win convincingly.
Texas Southern had 11 offensive rebounds, rebounding 31.4% of its misses, in the win over Mount St. Mary's. That led to eight more field-goal attempts, which proved key in a matchup in which the two teams combined to shoot 41 of 106 (38.7%). The key basket came when Nicholas pulled down an offensive rebound with 2:06 remaining and dunked to give his team a four-point lead.
Creating second-chance opportunities has been a key aspect of Texas Southern's offense all season long: The Tigers have an offensive rebounding percentage of 32.6%, which ranks 43rd nationally. That helps make up for other areas in which they lack.
Michigan, meanwhile, is coming off a loss in which it gave up 10 offensive rebounds to an undersized Ohio State team that was without starting forward Kyle Young. That seemed to be an outlier, though: The Wolverines are allowing opposing teams to post an offensive rebounding percentage of 24.8%, which ranks 59th nationally. Meanwhile, Michigan's offensive rebounding percentage is 29.4%. Combine that rebounding with the size advantage down low provided by Dickinson, and the Wolverines have the ability to shut down an important component of Texas Southern's attack.
Texas Southern made 6 of 14 (42.9%) 3s against Mount St. Mary's, which was enough to move the Tigers from the sixth-worst 3-point shooting team in the nation to the ... seventh-worst 3-point shooting team.
Texas Southern is the worst 3-point shooting team left in the NCAA tournament, which bodes well for the Wolverines. The Tigers shoot just 28.2% from downtown and their 4.6 makes per game is the fewest in the nation. They are also low-volume shooters, as 3-point attempts comprise just 27.7% of all field-goal attempts, 12th-lowest in the nation. So even when they shoot well, like they did Thursday afternoon, it likely won't result in catastrophe given the low number of attempts.
Given the low shooting percentage and general reluctance to shoot from deep, Michigan's defenders should be able to provide ample help on drives to the basket, helping disrupt Texas Southern's offense and forcing turnovers.
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It appeared as if Detroit was headed for its 12th consecutive loss when the team fell into an early 11-point hole until the Pistons went on a vicious run towards the end of the first quarter. The starting backcourt of Jaden Ivey and Killian Hayes were largely responsible for the scoring burst, and for maintaining it throughout the game.
Ivey and Hayes combined for 57 points and 15 assists to lead the Pistons to a 122-115 win over the Pacers on Friday night. The win snapped an 11-game losing streak, which tied their longest skid of the season, and marked their first win since beating the Pacers in Detroit on March 13.
After leading by as many as 21 points, the Pacers pulled within six with five minutes left in the game. The comeback effort prompted the Pacers to raise a "Beat the Pistons" banner to the rafters. The Pistons crushed those aspirations with an 11-8 run to effectively close the game.
Ivey led the Pistons with 29 points, four rebounds and nine assists while playing in front of his home-state fans. Hayes had his best scoring game with a career-high 28 points, four rebounds, six assists and four steals. Cory Joseph battled foul trouble for the majority of the game, but he was the best shooter on the Pistons as he connected on 4-of-9 from beyond the arc. He totaled 18 points and five assists off the bench.
The Pacers had six players reach double scoring figures, led by Buddy Hield, who led with 22 points and six rebounds off the bench. Detroit native Isaiah Jackson made his presence felt on the defensive end with fierce rejections. He finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and three blocks.
Wiseman's early exit: The Pistons entered Friday's game with just nine players available, but that number was down to eight less than two minutes into the game when James Wiseman was inadvertently elbowed by his teammate, Jalen Duren. The 7-foot center remained down on the court after the friendly fire incident, forcing Pistons coach Dwane Casey to call a timeout. Wiseman was escorted to the locker room and he was ruled questionable to return midway through the second quarter. He returned in the third quarter and played more minutes when Duren picked up his fourth foul. He finished with three points and three rebounds.
4-guard lineup propels comeback: With Wiseman sidelined, Casey was forced to stagger Duren and Bagley in different lineups so both bigs played along four guards for the remainder of the game. The smaller lineup allowed the Pistons to play faster and get out in transition more than usual. They finished with 21 fast break points as a result. The unit put together a 29-10 run to end the first quarter, allowing Detroit to take a 35-27 lead into the second quarter. The lineup, which rotated Hayes, Ivey, RJ Hampton, Joseph, Jared Rhoden and Buddy Boeheim, was used out of necessity but it was creative enough to provide Detroit with more 3-point shooting around the perimeter.
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