Neil Reed laced 'em up for the first time in over a year for The Mag's cruddy hoops team. Yes, that Neil Reed -- the guy who played four years of D1 ball at Indiana and then Southern Miss. Here's his post-game analysis.

I haven't played since December 20, 1999. No shooting, dribbling, passing, or even talking ball. I walked away from that pro team in Amsterdam a free man. It was a personal stand of sorts, taken against the game itself and everything involved with it. I am certainly paying the price now, and I had the game tonight to prove it. This must be what my father felt like when I dragged him out into the driveway to play a best-of-five.

Only a couple of days after I started my internship here at The Mag, my new colleagues started dropping references to the woeful office hoops team. "Hey, you should think about playing with them down there," said college basketball editor Sue Hovey. My standard response to such suggestions has been, "Well, I don't know..." I kept a smile on my face, knowing perfectly well we were walking on dangerous ground.

Somehow, they convinced me to play. Tonight was my first start. The jersey felt a little snug. Arms and legs like rubber bands and brains scattered from working all day. My first couple of warm-up shots hit either all backboard or my sister sitting under the basket. I felt extremely dangerous and my teammates looked a little nervous. "No problem," I thought. "It's like riding a bike."

The stage was set. Our opponents included a dude that looked like Darrell Armstrong and another cat sporting the 1987 Air Jordan's with a black headband to match. You don't see that in the Big Ten, except maybe at Michigan. The first 24 minutes was the best game of H.O.R.S.E. I have ever played. Our defense was suspect at best (specifically mine), but in the end we squeaked this one out by nine points. I scored somewhere in the teens.

To be honest, the game didn't feel the same to me. I am almost certain it never will. No matter how many points I scored or nice passes I made, I couldn't find what has driven me in the past to spend countless hours by myself working on everything it took to make it as far as I had.

Still I'm happy with my last basket of the night. It was driving behind-the-back-to-myself lay-up that the defender didn't really go for. Just shakin' the dust off.

Neil Reed is an intern at ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at neil.b.reed.-nd@espnmag.com.