Monte Carlo

Yesterday the team was playing on the road visiting Chalon while we spent the day hanging out in Monte Carlo. This beautiful little city in Monaco is just a short drive for us (2hrs). Famous for its wealth and celebrities, we thought we’d take a stroll down the fast lane. Arriving early in the afternoon we quickly learned that making a trip here means being prepared to hit the red carpet. Our first stop was the Le Grand Casino, the most popular destination in this area. We pulled up next to the casino and I noticed nothing but Bentleys, Rolls Royce, and Ferraris parked all around the front entrance. Judging by the look of things and us sporting a KIA Soul, we saved the embarrassment by hiding our car in the parking garage.

The weather was awesome so we spent the afternoon wandering around the area. Nothing but the best of the best in this area, I’m talking about Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc. you name it they got it. We spent majority of the afternoon window shopping just drooling over the items they had on display but someday we’ll be the ones in the stores while everyone will be looking at us. We also took the time to throw away our money gambling in the casinos. The casinos were similar to Vegas so there wasn’t much of a difference. We mainly just played the slot machines and there wasn’t a whole lot of luck for us. Well there was none since we came out on the negative end. Losing money is never fun but we had a great time. I guess it was nice to do something different. We didn't stay long in Monte Carlo because I wanted to get back to the apartment to watch the team online. But on our way home we decided to make a quick stop in Cannes for dinner. I guess it was a great way to finish off the day - also nice to have all these cool cities nearby.

 

The Victory…

The team came away with a much needed victory, winning 94-80. It was a great feeling at the same time a sense of relief. We played without our team’s leading scorer Rick while he is nursing a foot injury. It seems like the guys played really well, I haven't had the chance to talk with any of my teammates so I can’t go into details about the game. By the look of things I guess we improved a little bit on defense but we can’t keep allowing teams to score 80 points on us unless we are going to drop 90 every night. Our next game will be at home on Friday night against Strasbourg. Let’s hope this victory get us on a roll…

Shout out to the WSU Women’s and Men’s basketball teams on their victories – I stayed up way past 4am watching video live stream. Congrats to the both of them on their victory and starting the season off with the dub! I sure do miss playing on that court – I spent most of the day reminiscing about my playing days there. Ah long live the memories!

Before I get going I’ve got to give a shout out to the Badgers’ football program for handling business against Indiana; wow 83 points seriously! Also have to give a shout out to Iowa’s football program for once again choking at Northwestern. I got to give it to them; they keep finding a way to mess up their season against this team. My wife won’t be too pleased with me writing this! Alright time to end this post, till next time – love, peace, and happiness!

Growing Pains...

We suffered a defeat on our home floor this past Saturday – well rather an embarrassing defeat. The final score read 76-93 bringing us to a 2-3 overall record. We allowed our opponents, Pau-Lacq-Orthez to shoot an astounding 65% from the field and 64% (9-14) from long range. Credit to Pau-Lacq-Orthez for shooting lights out but our defense simply must get better. They had five guys finish the game in double digit scoring with four of those five guys scoring more than fifteen points each. We just can’t let teams have their way against us. Our defense is ranked among the bottom in the league. Our opponents have been shooting 51% from the floor, by far the highest allowed by any teams in this league. I said before that our defense can be our worst nightmare but it was even more of a nightmare to witness it from the sideline. Worse yet, our fans were frustrated and leaving the game early. It was one of those moments where you wished you could have it back and do it over. If we don’t come up with a solution, it’ll just be de ja vu week after week. I know the coaches are frustrated as well as the players but now its gut check time. Either we step it up and own up to our responsibilities and get the job done or we break as a team and become somewhat like the Dallas Cowboys. With our defense being the way it is, the relationships among the guys appear to be souring….

Aside from basketball, life is good – Jennifer is doing great and the ankle is healing great as expected. I’ve been keeping myself busy in the weight room even though the crutches alone give me a good workout daily. Shout out to the Warriors as they take on the Gophers tonight, make us proud! Well this is all for now – love, peace, and happiness!

Happy Halloween

Allow me to reintroduce myself – at the same time reconnect you to my world. These past couple of weeks has been a roller coaster ride with some twists and turns that provided some scares. Instead of being focused on the game of basketball, I’m exhausted from battling the front office staff. From bad checks, to late checks, to not honoring the contract – it’s just a constant battle that had me feeling bitter. I won’t go into more details but I’ll just say the business part of basketball has been very unpleasant. With all my bitterness, I guess karma can find a way to get the best of you – this past week I suffered an injury that will sideline me for the next two months. I tore a ligament in my left ankle – no surgery is needed but for the next three weeks I’m walking around in a hard cast and crutches. The team has already announced that they are bringing in a player to replace me for the next two months. I can’t say that I am thrilled about that but it is what they need to do. I do know that I won’t be cut or released so I have no worries in that aspect. It’s weird because now that I’m hurt I don’t have to attend any practices or travel with the team on road. I’m just free to do whatever that is till I begin physical therapy. Despite all that happened I somehow see my injury as a blessing in disguise. I can get away from basketball to focus on myself, to focus on my wife, and enjoy this life that we have. Earlier I mentioned about me being bitter, well now it is time to get rid of all the negativity and just enjoy. This whole experience won’t be a smooth ride and I just have to take the good with the bad.

On the flip side we’re doing ok as a ball club. We are 2-2, winning two games at home and losing two games on the road. Both road losses can be credited to bad defense – transition defense and defending the pick and roll. If we can’t come up with a solution, defense will be our worst nightmare. Somehow, someway we have got to find a way to toughen up on defense if we are planning to be among the top in the final standings. Through the first three games I averaged 25 mpg, 8.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, and 1.7 spg. Nothing flashy but I do my best to provide an energy boost for the team.

With France being all over the news I’m sure some of you are wondering if any of the strikes have affected us in any way. Thankfully, nothing has really hit this area beside a few small strikes along the downtown area in the city of Toulon here and there. There has been a rise in the number of gas stations that have closed down in the area due to the shortage. But other than that nothing has been serious. I think all of this is really interesting but I’ll let you be the judge – do you work a few more years to keep the country from folding or do you strike and watch the country fold???

Well folks that’ll be all for now – I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! Trick or treat, smell my feet, or give me something good to eat!!

As always…love, peace, and happiness – God Bless!

1-0!

We emerged from the weekend with a victory against Poitiers – the final score read 68-64. We didn’t exactly play great basketball but somehow we prevailed with a win. We didn’t execute as we have been doing all preseason, our offense was out of sync and our defense was average at times. But at crunch time it was our defense that won us the ball game. The team and myself just played out of character – too many unforced turnovers and too many missed lay-ups. We’re happy we came out with the victory but we know we could have done a better job. We held a 7 point lead throughout most of the game but we just could never put them away. We kept giving Poitiers opportunity after opportunity to make a run at us and stay in the game. Now that I look back on the game, it is surprising that they didn’t take the lead. I’m not trying to knock on my team but we played bad enough that we should have been dealt the loss. Odd thing is, during the game I never once felt we were going to lose the game despite our play. After the game, coach was bittersweet – happy we won but not happy with how we played. He knows we can play better and he believes we can do something special this year as a team.

More on a personal note, I finished the game with 9 pts on 4-11 shooting, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, and 3 turnovers. I did some good things and I did some bad things, I played the game overly excited. I think it was because my parents were here and because it was the first game of the regular season. I was disappointed with myself because I wanted to have a better performance for my parents. They were just excited to be there and see me play but I know next time in the future when they watch me play it’ll be better!

My parents flew back home yesterday and made it back safely but it was sad to have them leave. We had a great time and it was so much fun having visitors. Now I can’t wait to come home for Christmas and see them again. I posted some pictures below from their stay and from the game, I hope you enjoy them. Well it is about that time for practice – as always love, peace, and happiness!

Let's Get It Started...

Back to blogging – sorry there haven’t been any updates the past couple of weeks.The preseason kept me busy but that is finally over. Now I have a chance to slow down and catch everyone up with our progress. The month of September was filled with preseason games/tournaments. We played a total of 14 games finishing with an 11-3 record. We played all of our preseason games on the road except for one game, so it been a long preseason with all of the traveling. Coach has been happy with our progress as we won 3 of the 5 tournaments we participated in. Our performances have been outstanding and I believe we have a lot of people excited for this upcoming season.

This Saturday we open up the regular season with a home game against Poitiers. I’m excited for the game and for this season because this is what I’ve been working all summer for. I am really ambitious about this season and striving to have a great year. A lot of people said I had a good year last season but I’m looking to do more and put up better numbers. I’m getting all pumped up just writing about it…

But I’m also excited because my parents will be here today. I’m at the apartment waiting for them as they should be arriving anytime now since Jennifer went to get them by herself because I had practice. This will be my parents’ first adventure over the Atlantic Ocean so I hope it is a great experience for them. I’m making this a short post – now it’s time to sit back and relax on the patio with a nice cold drink and wait for my parents and my wife to come join me and enjoy this beautiful weather. I’ll be back on this weekend to give an update about the game and hopefully we start the season off with a win. Take care, as always; love, peace, and happiness – God Bless!

A couple of pictures from media day as one well one from our only home preason game vs. Antibes

Preseason in Italy

Hey everyone how is it going? I thought I’d take the time to give everyone an update from the tournament last weekend in Italy. I originally wanted to do a day by day blog while I was out there but internet ended up being a little too expensive (10 Euros for 4 hours) so I just kept a day by day diary.


Bormio, Italy Day 1:

We started the day by meeting at the gym at 9:30am. From there we packed 10 players, 2 coaches, and 2 staff members into 2 mini buses. Before I go any further I have to say that the French version of a mini bus is not the same as what us Americans would consider a mini bus. You are probably thinking of something like a short bus or something that is suitable to carry a good amount of people. Well that wasn’t the case! These mini buses were more like Scooby-Doo hippie vans. Now try to imagine 10 basketball players trying to fit into these little vans. We somehow managed to get everyone into these tight vans but the real task was surviving the 8 hour drive to Bormio, Italy. Let’s just say that it was a real struggle for everyone throughout the trip. However on the bright side, it was one of the most beautiful drives I ever seen. It’s hard to explain but we drove along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, along the edge of the mountain overlooking everything. It was just gorgeous, what an amazing view. Of course I had to forget to pack my camera so I wasn’t able to take any pictures for you all.

We finally arrived to our final destination a little after 6pm. After settling into our rooms, we had practice at 7pm. It was just a light practice, just to get our body moving and get our legs stretched out. Practice only lasted about an hour and after that we had dinner at the hotel and then it was lights out for me. I was exhausted and excited to be lying in the bed.

Bormio, Italy Day 2:

 Day 2 would be game day but also would be the first time seeing Bormio during the day. It is a small community up in the mountains and is one of the most beautiful small towns I have ever seen. I know I keep using the word beautiful but seriously everything was. The room I was staying in had a mountain view. I could open up the patio door and see everything, it was nice. If you’re interested I am sure you can Google Bormio and find some pictures so you can get an idea of where I was at.

 Anyway we started with breakfast at 9am followed by morning practice at 10. For practice, we just ran through some of our plays and put up some shots. After that we had lunch at the hotel and then we were on our own till game time. The game was scheduled for 5:45pm against a team from Turkey. This game was a great test for us as we were playing against a team who will be competing in the Euro league. For those of you who don’t know, the Euro league is a big deal in Europe basketball and is the prime league to play in and where the money is at. I hope to be playing for an Euro league team next season if I’m not playing back in the states! But back to the game, we won by 20 points. It was kind of a surprise but shouldn’t have been for this team. We played well together and played great team ball. I said this before but we have so many different options that I think it’s going to be hard for teams to match-up against us. The Turkey team tried switching to zone defense hoping to slow us down but we just picked that apart. The funny thing is that we haven’t even worked on our zone offense yet this season. There wasn’t any set plays or anything, coach just let us play and we just naturally clicked on offense. After the game we all felt pretty good about ourselves and we’re feeling optimistic about this upcoming season. I think a lot of the guys including myself are excited about some of the things we can accomplish as a team this season. HTV isn’t considered one of the big teams in France but I know we’re going to surprise some teams this year. All of us already have the playoffs in the back of our mind but we know we need to keep working hard and let things play out.

 From a personal standpoint from the game, I would say I played well, played an all around game. I did a little bit of everything; scoring, rebounding, steals, and assists. I didn’t get to see any stats after the game so I don’t have any numbers to provide you with. This will be it for day 2, time for some sleep.

 Bormio, Italy Day 3:

 We started the day the same as the day before, breakfast followed by practice. Tonight game was at 8pm so we had a little more time to ourselves today. After morning practice a couple of my teammates and I took a stroll through the downtown area. There was nothing too exciting about the downtown area, just a bunch of shopping places and café everywhere. It was cool just to get out walking around chatting with the teammates.

 The game tonight was against a team from Russia. By the way none of the teams competing in this tournament are from Italy; all the teams are from a different country. I thought this was weird considering we’re playing in Italy. The team we played against tonight had a couple of former NBA players such as Gerald Green and JR Brimmer on their roster. I thought it would be a great match-up for me to go against Green but instead I had to spend my time chasing after their 3 point specialist. That was not cool, tonight was one of those time I didn’t feel like chasing after anyone, especially through tons and tons of screens. The guy I was going against was a good shooter, he was able to get off a couple of threes but that was it for him. The game was played at a fast pace, just up and down the court. Both teams kept going back and forth at each other but we were able to control the lead most of the game. Well that is until the last minute of the game. With about 30 seconds to go in the game and their shot clock was winding down, they threw up a desperate 3 point shot by their post player and it went in. We missed our shot on the other end and they won the game by 5 points. As a team we missed a lot of easy lay-ups and free throws which allowed them to stay in the game. It was a tough loss to take but at the same time we understood it was our fault. Again there wasn’t any stats sheet after the game so again I don’t have any numbers to share with you. Day 3 is over with, my body is feeling sore and it is definitely time for some sleep and hope I can recover for tomorrow game.

Bormio, Italy Day 4:

 The start to this day would be a little rough. My body was pretty sore, it was like every movement I made I felt some kind of pain. Coach gave us the morning off so there was no practice and felt good to sleep in a little. I did get up for some breakfast but quickly made my way back to bed.

 Our game would be at 5:45pm against another team from Turkey. This would be our third game in 48 hours so you can imagine that everyone just wanted to get this game over with. Our bodies were just hurting and playing another game was the last thing we wanted right now. You would think the other team is feeling the same way but we’re the only team in this tournament to play 3 straight games in 3 days. Not to make any excuses but some of these teams have been out here for a week or more and only played 2 games. Anyway we got off to a fast start and to a 20 points lead in the first quarter. After that I think everyone thought we could just ride it out and conserve our energy. We became less aggressive and they became more aggressive; they were able to get back into the game and trim our lead down to two points at half time. We tried to make a strong push at it again in the second half but they just kept fighting keeping the game close. We were able to maintain the lead throughout the second half until the last minute. Again we lost the game in the last minute. This time coach wasn’t so happy with our play but it is what it is. We talked it out and that was the end of it. Even though we lost the last two games in the last two minutes, I felt we had a good tournament. We played against some good competition and I know we’ll be more than ready when the season starts. We will be staying one more night and then making the long drive back to France early tomorrow morning. Our next tournament will be 3 games again Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Paris. Our first game will be against Vichy again so I’ll be looking forward to that game. I will post again after that trip but until next time love, peace, and happiness.

Back In Action

Hello everyone, welcome back to the blog. I am back to work in France preparing for this upcoming season with a new team. During the off-season I agreed to a one year deal with a different ball club in France. I signed with Hyéres-Toulon Var Basket (HTV). I will remain in the same league (Pro A) that I played in last season but just with a new team. I chose to play with HTV because of the potential opportunities, the location, and the coach. I heard a lot of great things about the coach and so far everything has turned out to be true. I am happy to be here; I feel confident about my new team, my decision and hopefully we can accomplish a lot this year. I am located in the south of France right off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in a city called Toulon. Jennifer and I are very excited about spending the next nine months here.

I arrived here a couple of weeks ago, on Monday August 23rd, and within hours of stepping off the plane I was participating in my first practice. We’ve been in full force, practicing twice a day and already played in two preseason tournaments. Our first preseason tournament was the weekend of August 28th-29th. That tournament consisted of four teams and two games. We won both games and the tournament. I did not take part in that tournament because I suffered a muscle strain in my left calf two days prior to the tournament. But that is all behind me as I’ve been playing and practicing without any pain. I did play in our second preseason tournament which took place this past weekend in Vichy. This preseason tournament had the same setup, four teams/2 games. Again we won both games and were presented with a team trophy. I was looking forward to this preseason tournament and being back in Vichy. It was great to see everyone from the front office and some old teammates again. On top of all that I was named MVP of the tournament. I was surprised by this because I didn’t put up any flashy numbers. For the two games I averaged 11ppg, 6spg, 4rpg, and 3apg. I guess I can say I did a little bit of everything but the real highlight for me was having 8 steals in the first game and 4 in the second game.

After four preseason games I believe this team can make a lot of noise this season. I know it’s only the preseason but we have the necessary tools to be successful in this league. We have a balanced team with multiple scorers and unselfish players. My teammates are great guys with great attitudes. We all get along with each other very well and that is very hard to come by at the professional level. I am really excited about this season. For now we’ll continue working hard and preparing ourselves. We resume play this week with another preseason tournament in Italy. This time we will be playing three games, playing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This will be my first trip to Italy so I am anxious to see the country.

Well I just wanted to give a quick recap of what’s been happening in my life with basketball. I will be posting again this weekend when I am back from the tournament and will let you all know how we did. I hope all is well with everyone and that everyone had a great summer. Till next time; peace, love, and happiness!