Patio Pondering: Friday Night Fundamentals
Old Man Winter has a tight grip on us right now. The morning dawned with flurries and more cold. As I enjoyed my coffee gazing over white landscape I thought back to last Friday night’s girls basketball game at our local high school.
Our team has two really good players and a supporting cast that plays basketball. I grew up watching great girls basketball in the '80s and I appreciate good basketball—I'm from Indiana after all. As with most games I attend, I am upbeat, ready for out team to win. Unfortunately, as the end of the first quarter neared, I realized our girls were in trouble.
As the game got further and further out of hand for our girls, I watched a different game unfold. Not the one on the scoreboard, but the one in the fundamentals. I saw one of our talented players standing open under the basket, calling for the ball, while her teammate picked up her dribble in the corner with nowhere to go. I watched lazy passes sail out of bounds. I saw players forget to block out on rebounds, letting smaller opponents grab second chances. Double dribbles. Traveling. Simple mistakes that compounded into a 20-point deficit.
The frustrating part wasn't the score. It was watching a great player get stymied because her teammates couldn't execute the basics. All the talent in the world doesn't matter if you can't get the ball where it needs to go.
I thought about that on Saturday morning while reading through the latest crop planning commentary. "Get the fundamentals right." I've lost count of how many times I've read that phrase in the past month. Agronomists and analysts alike are peppering their advice with it as we prepare for another crop year with prices below production costs. It's good advice, but what does it actually mean?
In swine nutrition, I see the same pattern. Operations chasing the latest feed additive, the newest genetic line, the technology that promises a 5% improvement—all while their basics are broken. Inconsistent feed delivery. Poor water quality. Ventilation that's been "good enough" for years. You can bring in the best genetics available, but if those pigs can't breathe right or drink clean water, you're that player standing open under the basket while your teammate fumbles in the corner.
We love the magic bullets. The transfer player who's going to change everything. The new hybrid. The precision ag platform. The next best thing. And sometimes those things help—but only if the foundation is solid. A great player can't score if she never gets the ball. A great hybrid can't perform if your soil health is shot.
Here's what I saw Friday night that stuck with me: the two talented players on our team started playing frustrated basketball by the second half. They knew what needed to happen, but they couldn't make it happen alone. Regardless of how hard they tried, they could not overcome and you could see it in their demeanor. That's what broken fundamentals do—they don't just limit performance, they kill morale.
As many of us in the Midwest and in ag are watching basketball while making plans for 2025 crop year, maybe we all should take a few moments to review our foundations. Do we have the fundamentals "right" regardless of what team or business we lead? Before we chase the next thing, before we invest in the magic bullet, before we bring in that transfer player—what fundamental are we avoiding? What basic thing keeps our best people standing under the basket, calling for a ball that never comes?