Season Is Finished

The season is officially over for us. We played well towards the end of the year, but ended up losing in a close Game 5 in the playoffs. It was a great year here in Brazil. My wife and I truly loved it. The weather was unbelievable, the culture was fun, food was tasty, and we saw so many amazing things during our half a year stay in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. We will definitely miss living here but are also excited to go home to see our family and friends once again. I will post some more pictures later on, but for now I say goodbye from Brazil!

Series is now at 2-1

We picked up a big win to go ahead in the series 2-1. Our last game was a tough one as both teams played very well. It was back and forth the whole way through. We were even down with a couple minutes to go, but pulled ahead to win 80-78. We are at home on Sunday, April 17 looking to close out the series.

The Roof Is On Fire....Literally

Playoffs began well for our team as we won the first game of the best of 5 series against Joinville. We played well and were up by 15 points at halftime. Joinville came back strong but we held them off to win the game 83-81. I ended the night shooting 100% from the field which felt good. Our second game was on the road. Both teams were playing tough playoff defense and neither team could get going offensively. We went into halftime down 27-33. After our halftime talk in the lockerroom, we came back out onto the court where the arena was filled with smoke. It smelled as though the building was on fire. We looked up and realized that it actually was!! One of the lights had overheated and caught fire. I found it kind of amussing though that nobody left there seat. Everyone simply stayed seated and watch as the roof burned. No fire alarm, and no sprinklers went off. After about 30 minutes of waiting (apparentely for the fire to run its course), the fire department showed up. They didn't feel like it was necessary to put the fire out though and said it would eventually burn out. Sparks were falling to the floor and the entire building was filled with a thick metallic smoke. It finally did burn out and a couple short minutes later we started the second half. It seemed a bit dangerous to play underneath a light fixture that was just sparking and emitting a 3 foot fire, but play resumed anyway. The second half started well for the home team as they made a few 3's and got the crowd behind them. Add after a few technical fouls from our team for complaining about calls and no-calls, we found ourselves down 15 with 5 minutes to go. We gave a final push to draw within 4 with just over a minute to go, but after being forced to foul, Joinville made their free throws and we lost by a final score of 77-84. The series is at 1-1. Two more wins needed to advance.

End of Regular Season

We just finished out our regular season. After getting on a winning streak and beating some very good teams, we ended up dropping a few in a row to put us back in the middle of the league standings. Our last weekend of regular season games was a good one though as we went on the road and played very well. This included a 28 point road win where we looked very good as a team. So now on to post-season play. There are 15 teams in our league and the top 12 made playoffs. Like I said before, we ended the regular season in the middle of the league with a record around .500. The playoffs will be interesting as we have seen each team play well against any other given apponent. We, for instance, have beaten the top 3 seeds but also have had tough games against the lower seeds. So it will come down to whoever plays well. We will see...

Just a quick note...last weekend we split with a win and a loss. That now brings our record to 12-8. We have 8 games remaining in the regular season. This weekend we are in Sao Paulo for two games. Sao Paulo is Brazil's largest city.

5 Straight Wins

We just picked up another road win today. That makes it 5 straight wins to bring us to 11-7 overall. This game was tough though. We were down the entire game and dug in on defense to give us a chance to win in the end: 73-71. I know earlier I said I was only going to update my blog every few weeks, and since I said that the other day I have already posted 3 times. So, I guess that means I will post updates when I have a chance but don't be surprised if I go 2 or 3 weeks between postings. Well, I better go now...we have the afternoon off here in Vitoria and I am looking out my window at the beach calling my name....Ciao!

Road Trip

OK... I know I said I wasn't going to update my blog for a while yet, but we are on a road trip and I have some free time so I thought I would write a quick update on our last couple games. We are playing well together at the moment as we have piled together a nice little 4 game winning streak. We are now standing with 10 wins and 7 losses. We are in Vitoria this weekend staying on the beach. As you can see from the photo it is a beautiful scenic place. Our hotel is in the bottom right side of the picture. It is fun to be traveling and seeing different unique cities like this while playing ball. I feel blessed. I just need to be careful...my Minnesota skin can't handle too much of this Brazilian summer sun!

Update

Hey everyone. I know it has been a long time since I have updated you all on here, but I decided that I wouldn't make as many frequent posts this year. I still am going to be posting updates occasionally but likely it will be every few weeks now. If you want more frequent notes on how things are going down here in the Southern Hemisphere then you can always write me a message and I will get back to you through Facebook or e-mail.

Things are still going great down here. We are loving the living lifestyle and I gotta say...it is nice to miss the deep freeze that is taking over the Midwest. I actaully am not only just in warmer weather, but I actually am skipping winter all-together. (If you didn't catch on yet: It is summer down here while it is winter back home).

But that is enough about the weather. You have already seen photos on my last posts. The basketball is going pretty well too. Our team has some great talent, but we are having some ups and downs. At times we are playing really well and winning, and others we just can't find rhythm to get the W's. But we are coming off two great wins in a row and looking to keep that momentum going.

Just last night we played against one of the better teams in our league and had a battle down to the wire. We ended up going to two overtimes after both teams hit tough shots to keep the game going. But we showed great character and chemistry as we stuck it out to win by 4 after 50 hard fought minutes. I ended with a season high in rebounds, 14, to go along with my 17 points. We had several guys step up big though on both ends of the court to get a great team win.

We have now collected 8 wins and 7 losses. Like I said, we are up and down and looking for some consistancy, but I am enjoying myself both on and off the court. I have great teammates to hang with in the gym and a great wife to spend time with at home afterwards.

I hope all of you back home stay warm, and don't worry...spring is around the corner.

God bless!

More About Our City

We had a little time off over Christmas so Teri and I were able to see more of the city. I thought I would post a few pictures so you all could see a little bit of what the daily life looks like around here.

This first picture below is taken from the edge of the mountains which surround Belo Horizonte. It is overlooking the part of the city where we live, but it doesn't even come close to showing how large our city actually is. This is just a small part of it. To put it into perspective, the metro area here has more people than the entire state of MN.

These next few photos are just simple shots taken around our home. It gives you a feel of what the climate is like in December here. The photo of Teri in a park is taken a block from our apartment. We enjoy going here often since it is so close and it is a nice place for a casual walk. One of my favorite pictures is the one of Teri looking very nervous standing next to a few wild monkeys. These small primates are not shy...Teri had a sandwich, and it is hard to tell in the picture, but a couple of them were definitely eyeing it and were getting ready to pounce. The last picture is a scenic view of our city at night, but I can't take credit for that photo...I found it in a Google Images search. I just thought it was too nice of a pic to pass up.

I hope you liked the pics. I will likely add more in the future when we have them.

We wish you all a safe New Years! Look back on 2010 and appreciate the people and experiences you had!! God Bless!

My New Home for the New Season

I decided to play the 2010-2011 season down in Brazil.

I know I haven't done a great job updating my blog...well, let's face it...I haven't updated my blog at all since the conclusion of last season. I am sorry about that. It has just been a busy summer and I wasn't even sure if I was going to be blogging this year. But a lot of friends and family have been on me to write on here so that they can see a little bit about what my life is like abroad. So, here we are at last: an update...

I really enjoyed playing last season in Italy and Poland, so I thought I was going to be heading back across the pond to play in Europe. I was in negotiations with some teams but didn't exactly find a great fit. That is when a team from Brazil asked me if I would be interested in traveling South rather than East to play this season. Ironically, just a week prior to that, my wife and I (most of you know this but I married my beautiful wife, Teri, this past summer) were talking about where we would like to travel and live this year. We both had not been to South America at all, and we had talked about how Brazil would be a place we really wanted to visit sometime. Everything seemed to fall into place for us. So we agreed to play for the Minas Tenis Clube in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

The Club is actually in the middle of the city and has a few different professional teams that compete in the Brazilian top leagues. We have the men's basketball team, obviously, and we compete in the top league known as the National Brazilian Basketball league (or NBB). We also have a men's and women's volleyball team, swimming, tenis, gymnastics, indoor soccer, and maybe even a couple more that I can't think of right now. The Club has been around for over 80 years and has had a lot of success. We have very nice facilities and a professional administrative staff which makes playing here a lot of fun. I am thoroughly enjoying it so far and am happy with my decision to play in Brazil this season.

Our team is made up of mostly Brazilian players, our coach and team captain are from Argentina, and we have two Americans (including myself). We have a solid team and have started the season well so far. Our record is 5-2 and we most recently beat the team that was at the top of the NBB standings. It was a great win right before the Christmas break.

We are now on our Christmas break which has allowed my wife and I time to see the city more. We are really enjoying the city, climate, and culture. Belo Horizonte has the 3rd largest metro population in Brazil...quite a change coming from small town Minnesota, but we are adapting well to it. The weather is amazing; 80's everyday. Kind of interesting to go swimming in an outdoor pool in the middle of December, but we are enjoying it. This will be the first non-white Christmas for Teri and I.

I will be posting some pictures later and talking more about our daily lives here in Brazil, but I just wanted to share with you guys about where we are and that we are doing well. God bless you all. Enjoy your Christmas!!!!

Top 10 From the Last Month of the Season (Playoffs)

Finals Game 4

Facing elimination we began Game 4 with a lot of energy and passion. We were not going to give up that easily. We wanted to play Game 4 as hard as we could and not let Prokom just walk in and take the title from us on our home court. We began the game on fire jumping out to a 16-4 lead. We carried our lead throughout most of the game. We fought and scrapped for every rebound, lose ball, and basket. As the end of the game neared however, Prokom cut into our lead. They took a one point lead with 14 seconds to go in the game. We had a couple tries at winning the game but could not get great looks and ended losing the final game of the season by one point 79-80.

Our fans, coaches, players, owners, and all of Wloclawek proudly accepted our silver medals which represented a great year of success for Anwil Wloclawek.

Finals Game 3

Game 3 was in Wloclawek for our first home game of the Finals. The atmosphere in our arena was wild! We have the best fans in Poland and they were behind us the whole way. We played very hard and it was a back and forth game. With many lead changes it was going to be coming down to the wire. We had a 7 point lead in the 4th quarter but couldn't find an answer to stop Logan for Prokom. He was able to score late in the game and lead his team to the win 76-79.

Finals Game 2

Game 2 was an away game for us. We played well and had a lead for a large part of the game but Prokom shot the lights out and got us in the end to beat us by 7 points again.

Finals - Game 1

We lost the first game of the Finals on Prokom's home court. The final score was 86-93. The second half began with a very poor shooting performance by us which resulted in a 25 point deficit. We had a 'never give up' attitude as we got within 5 points with under two minutes to go in the game, but we couldn't get any closer than that.

Game 2 is tomorrow night, May 24. This game is also on Prokom's home court before we return home gor Game 3. The city we are staying in, Gdynia, is on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

WE ARE GOING TO THE FINALS!

We completed the semi-final series with an 80-76 win at Polpharma on Saturday. It was a very difficult and hard fought game. Both teams played with a lot of passion and intensity for the full 40 minutes.

We fell behind by a few possessions early but we kept the game close throughout the first half. The rest of the game neither team could go on a run to separate themselves. As I mentioned before, it was a very physical game and we got into some serious foul trouble. All of our big men had 4 or 5 fouls by the end of the night. But we persevered through until the final buzzer to hold on and win the game, and in turn, the series.

We now are in the Finals which will start this coming weekend. We are playing the #1 seed, Prokom.

Game 3

We suffered our first playoff loss of the season last night (Thursday) as we played Game 3 on the road against Polpharma. The final score was 89-99. It was a tough night from the start as Polpharma was hitting all their shots and we were struggling to get into our regular flow. We found ourselves down 33-55 at the end of the first half.

We wanted to come out in the 2nd half of the game and play our game and get things back on track. We started chipping away at the lead and cut the lead to single digits towards the end of the 3rd quarter. We were within 8 several times, but unfortunately for us it proved to be too big of a hole for us to dig out of as we eventually came up short of the comeback.

To make matters worse, our captain, and main 3 point threat, went down with an ankle injury. But we all are staying together and are ready for Saturday's Game 4.

Highlights from the first game of the semi-finals...

Game 2 of the Semis

We won Game 2! That makes the series 2-0. We need one more win to move on to the Finals! We play Thursday night at Polpharma.

First Game of the Semi-Finals

We got the win in Game 1 of the Semi-Final round against Polpharma! The final score was 86-75. Polpharma is a great team, but we played very well throughout the match. Our team chemistry was flowing as we were getting great looks on offense as well as fighting hard together on the defensive end. It was another night of balanced scoring which is difficult for our opposing teams to defend. Our fans were also there again in great force to help us along to the victory. Game 2 is schedule for Monday night (May 10th). Hopefully we can get the win and go up 2-0 in the best of 5 series.