Road trip

I am currently riding the team bus down to Rome for our next game. We actually play a team that is a little south of Rome. It is a long trip by bus since we have to wind through the mountains to get there, but it is a nice trip to see the countryside. I haven't had a chance to travel south yet so in a way it is kind of nice. I will post another blog after the game tomorrow. God bless.

Game 4 against Casalpusterlengo

We had a home game tonight and it went very well. We won! We played hard for the entire game. We got off to a quick start but they came back strong to take a two point lead after the first quarter: 24-26. The second quarter we played strong again and went up by double digits. Every run we made, however, was met by them scoring some timely baskets to keep it close into the second half.

We played aggressive throughout the rest of the game as we started to build a lead. The team we played is dangerous though, as they average over 82 points a game. In their past games they have been down by 20 and came back to take the lead in several occasions. So we weren't comfortable with any lead. We kept knocking down shots and getting stops. We ended the game winning by a score of 100-74. It was a fun night. I ended with something like 22 points. It felt good to get the win.

I will try to put some pictures of action shots on here as soon as I can. Talk to you soon.

Apartment Pictures & Game 3

Hello everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been busy moping in my own sorrow so I haven't had any time to post anything. Ha, I am just kidding. I am doing fine, but we did suffer yet another loss. This league is very competitive...especially on road games. We had an away game this past Sunday and we fought hard. We did some good things and looked more like a team, but it wasn't enough as we ended up losing by 15 points or something like that. We played tough and it even seemed like we played a good game, but we did not shoot the ball very well. The other team also shot 15 more free throws than we did. I ended the game with 10 points and 8 rebounds. I was happy with the way I rebounded, but I wasn't hitting my open jumpers. This coming Sunday we play at home and it is a must-win game for us. We need to get a win to get things going.

So, as far as basketball goes, we are having a tough start but it should turn around for us. I am just going to keep working hard and hopefully we start getting some wins. I decided to take some pictures of my apartment and car and stuff so you would get a better feel for how I am living over here. The first one on the left is my car. The next one is my apartment building. I live on the third floor in the middle. The third photo on the right is the view from one of my balconies in my apartment. As you can see there is a small park next to where I live. There are a lot of families and children playing at the park so it can get a bit noisy at times with the kids playing, but I don't mind....usually :) This last photo I thought I would add just for fun. It is kind of hard to see what it says, but the gas here right now is Euro 1.273...per liter! After some crude math that calculates out to about $7.12 per gallon! Ouch. The diesel is a bit cheaper, which is a good thing for me considering I drive a diesel. Yes, my car is a diesel. I thought that was a bit unusual to have a car running on diesel fuel. So for me it is about $6 per gallon.

Well, I have to go to another practice. Talk to you soon.

P.S. Remember to appreciate the people in your life who you are close to. Do not take what you have for granted. Ciao!

Game 2

We had our second game of the season yesterday. It was against Vigevano. Vigevano is a big game for us because they are right down the road (about 20 miles) and they are considered our rivals. The atmosphere was CRAZY. The fans were going all out for this one. I couldn't hear anything before the game started...it was extremely loud. My ears were literally ringing. Fun atmosphere to play in!

Vigevano got off to a good start however knocking down some threes and scoring inside with their big man. We battled back but found ourselves behind for most of the game. It was a very frustrating game for me because I got into foul trouble. I had 3 fouls in the first half so I was forced to sit out much of the second quarter. I actually got my fourth foul just a couple minutes into the 2nd half. I couldn't believe it. I was trying to play smart and not pick up a cheap foul, but there were several fouls called on me that I most definately did not agree with. That is part of the game though I guess.

We fought back in the 4th quarter and tied it with a few minutes to go, but Vigevano came back down and hit a timely three pointer right after that. We ended up losing by a couple possessions. Personally, like I said before, I had a frustrating game due to foul trouble. It was so frustrating because I knew I could have helped our team more without the foul situation. I ended up only taking 7 shots in game ending with 12 points. Frustrating. We need to come back next week and get a win. Once we get that first win we should have things flowing into the rest of the season.

Talk to you soon!

A little taste of home...

I am watching the Minnesota Twins play in the playoff game to get into the playoffs right now. I was glad to see that the game was on at 4 PM central time so that I could watch it. That means that it started here at 11:00 PM, so I do have to stay up a little late but I decided it would be worth it. I am not an avid Twins fan, but since I am a Minnesotan I do like to see them win. Feels like I am back home watching the game.

Go Twins. Talk to you soon.

First Game

I don't really feel like writing this blog today, but I thought I would anyway so that you all would know how the first game went. The reason I don't feel like writing it is because I still have that bad taste in my mouth from defeat. Yes, we lost. We came out looking very strong as we jumped up to a 20-9 lead after the first quarter. I had some good looks early as well as I connected on 4 field goals in the quarter. Things went south after that though. We went into halftime only up by 3.

The second half we couldn't really get into a flow on offense as we struggled to make it a close game at the end. We were down by 2 with about a minute to go. I had been struggling a bit to finish the shots I took up to this point in the quarter but the coach still called my number. I drove the ball down the lane and scored on an off-balanced shot to tie the game. It then became a free throw contest as we fouled them the next possesion. We were always a possesion behind though as we ended up letting the game slip away and lose by three points. It was a very frustrating game for us considering how well we started the game. We have our next game on Sunday at home. We are looking forward to getting back out there.

I guess I should mention that the atmosphere at the game was very fun to be apart of. The European fans are quite crazy when it comes to sports. The arena was small, but it was packed. They also can use noise makers and things like that so it was extremely loud in there. I think it is going to be a lot of fun playing in this league.

Talk to you soon.

Game this weekend

OK, so I eat about 5 bowls of cereal everyday. Whenever I am hungry between meals or at night I usually have a bowl of cereal. Sometimes I will eat an entire box of cereal in one sitting. Sorry if that wasn't that interesting, I just wanted to throw something else in the blog besides basketball and site-seeing.

Anyway...we have a game this weekend. It is the season opener. It is an away game against a team that we have already played in the preseason. I am excited to get the regular season going.

Talk to you soon.

Cereal

Guess how many bowls of cereal I eat each day on average. Post your guesses in the comments if you would like. I will post the answer with my next post. Don't ask me why I am posting this...because I truly don't know. It is very random...