Brian Gilmore's Blog

Welcome back everybody to my blog! It’s been a long absence for me but I am back in action coming to you from Poland! For those of you that have not heard, I recently signed a contract to play with SKS Polpharma – a basketball club in Poland that finished third last year in the top Polish league! (for those of you checking out the team webpage, if you use Google Chrome as your web browser it will automatically give you an option at the top of the screen to translate the site from Polish – English). I am very pleased to have the opportunity to play in a great Polish league and to have the chance to play on a well established club in Polpharma. I really look forward to the challenge of competing in a tougher league this year and hope to raise my level of play as to help the team be as successful as possible.

Srarogard Gdanski, Poland

The Square

Polpharma’s team is located in Starogard Gdanski, Poland. For those of you as geographically challenged in terms of Europe as I am, here is a map of Europe with a star noting Starogard’s location.
I have been in Starogard for two weeks now and I have to admit that I have already taken a liking to the city. The city of Starogard is small with a population of only 49,000. The city has an antique, rustic feel as are streets lined with old brick pavers and some of the architecture and buildings are hundreds of years old. I live right around the corner from the main square and I really love the feel of this central location and all of the neat shops that surround it. And conveniently located in the center of the square is the city’s town hall.

My Apartment

my kitchen

my bathroom

bathroom

my couch/bed

my bed/couch

I am thrilled with the size, location, and quality of my apartment this season. I am living in my own apartment, although two of my American teammates live in the two neighboring apartments, and couldn’t be happier with my living arrangement. My apartment building is new and has wooden floors throughout. The setup is similar to a studio with one large room acting both as my living room and bedroom. I have a really comfortable futon that acts as both my bed and a couch (many have asked if this is comfortable and big enough for me and it is both!). I also have a very nice television which I am really happy about as I’ll be watching plenty of movies and playing lots of Xbox! I’ll also be using the TV to watch American television as I purchased a Sling Box before I left and it allows me to watch live and recorded television from my cable box back home.. pretty awesome! The kitchen is small but I havn’t had much need for it as I’ve been eating out for nearly all of my meals except breakfast. The bathroom is small but has a brand new washer and a nice shower.

The food here is very cheap, but delicious! I have loved the food so far and especially some of the traditional Polish soups/meals. I am going to continue to try some of the more traditional Polish foods as I continue to slowly learn some of the basic of the Polish language. Fortunately, we have a restaurant beneath our apartment building with waitresses that speak good English and that have English menus. This has not been common for a lot of the different places so it is extremely convenient for us to have this option available. While going into other Polish restaurants and trying to figure out the menu in Polish is fun, it does get tiring. Also, the place is open until 11 PM so I have been eating there quite regularly. The food has been delicious plus the prices are very cheap. I can buy soup, a pasta dish with chicken, and dessert for 8 or 9 US dollars. It is not uncommon to get a meal in the $4-7 range. I’m definitely stoked about this as I’ll be able to save myself from cooking and also will be able to save a lot of money! Here are pictures – one of my favorite soups and my favorite dessert from the place downstairs.

And now, onto the reason I’m in Poland; BASKETBALL! Thus far, the basketball has been tiring, but good! We have been practicing twice a day since I got into town and the team has made great strides in that short period of time. Our team name is SKS Polpharma and plays in the PLK – top league in Poland. Our team’s number one sponsor is Polpharma Pharmaceuticals. (Hence the name) A new sponsor to jump on board this year is Green Up, an energy drink company. While I cannot find much information on the company, here is a picture of the product. We have these drinks available to us at practice and while I’ve never been a huge advocate of energy drinks, I’ve tried these and they are actually pretty good. We have been running on the track, lifting weights, doing a lot of sit ups and stretching, and working on the court to become a better team. While I was fairly sore and tired the first week, I feel more adjusted and rested this week and we have our first friendly or exhibition tomorrow evening. Our gym is nice and relatively new being built only 7 years ago. While it only seats 2,500 fans, it is apparently the rowdiest atmosphere in all of the Polish league. I am very eager to play in this atmosphere and hope it will bring us a huge home court advantage. That’s all for now but check back soon as I will continue to update on my experiences here in Poland. More to come on my teammates, the coach, our league, and more!  Let’s keep in touch!  I love to hear from you all!

Oh – and here is how you say “hello” in Polish:  cześć

As I mentioned in my last post, we don’t have a game until the 6th of March and coach gave us Saturday and Sunday off to rest from practice. Friday afternoon Aaron and I headed into town basically just to kill time and because we were bored. I had to swing by one of the committee member’s house to pick up some DVDs of games to send to my agent and am also hoping to get some highlights up on the site soon (having trouble converting the files tho, could be a while). Aaron decided to head into H&M to see if he could find anything he liked because he had $15 store credit. I joined him with no intentions of buying anything and walked out 20 minutes later with four new articles of clothing. The spending didn’t stop there. Then we walked into a couple sunglass stores and another 20 minutes later I walked out with a pair of Oakleys. I justified all this spending because only two days earlier I found out that I’ll be in Geneva until the end of April or 1st of May playing in relegation rounds for the club. We had all heard rumors that because we were so far behind the 10th place team that they would not hold play outs and that we would leave as soon as the last regular season game ended on March 27. Guess that’s not the case. So I figured, one extra month = one extra month’s salary so might as well celebrate a little.

As we were walking around town we actually ran into 3 of the American players for one of the other teams in Switzerland. The guys had traveled into Geneva on their weekend off and they were looking for a good place to go out that night so we suggested the American bar where we spent the last two weekend and ended up meeting them out. The guys play for a team called Massagno and traveled in from the eastern (Italian) part of Switzerland. We had a good time over drinks and food talking about nearly everything; college ball, professional ball, the ins and outs of our clubs and situations, funny stories from games we had played against each other, and so on. We even started a USA chant as we watched the USA defeat Finland (I believe) in the semi-finals of the Olympic hockey game. The guys from Massagno were a lot of fun. Chris, Ross, and Dan all seemed like really good guys and they were pretty hilarious too. Maybe the best part of the night was when we all did our best to impressions of the Jamaicans from Cool Runnings. I think Dan ended up winning this one, along with the best impersonation of John Legend. As the night progressed we headed downstairs to the dance floor where there was a DJ and a reggae singer. We definitely got our fair share of looks as we basically owned the dance floor. Not to say that we were the best dancers (far from it actually, although Ross and Dan did have some nice moves, no homo) but because the five of us are all 6’7 and taller. We all had a blast just being goofballs and it was pretty cool to hang out with some other American guys.

Saturday I planned to head into France to meet my agents contact in France to watch a Pro B game. Pro B is the second division in France and definitely a step up from the first league in Switzerland. Earlier in the year we had an exhibition game against Bourg and I took a train into the city to watch them face a team from Nantes. I met my agents contact, named Miloud, and he was happy I was able to come and check out the game. I think they are going to try to push for me to play in Pro B next year and I definitely think I can play, and do well, at that level. The players were a little bigger (at the forward and center spots) and everything was crisper. Better passing, better screening, better defense, and communication. The gym, although small, was packed and it was neat to hear how involved the fans were. I’m talking drums, loud chants, fog horns, and plenty of applause. I gave Miloud some DVDs of recent games and hopefully he will be able to start plugging my name around the league. Seeing the game and the crowd support definitely made me excited about the thought of playing there next year.

Today has been a typical Sunday; slept in late, got some groceries, cleaned up the apartment and did laundry, aimlessly searched the internet and talked to family and friends on Skype. By the way, a couple random entries I’ve been meaning to put up here.

It’s pretty awesome that you can drink in public. For example, while Aaron and I were having a couple beers at his apartment before we met the Massagno guys, we realized we only had a few minutes to catch the tram and needed to leave. Chug the beer before we left? No chance, just took it with us. Heck, we could take a full one for the road  too. It felt a little weird to be on the tram drinking beer but hey, no complaints out of me.

Saturday night I rode back from the game with my coach from MGS as he was coming home from France and decided to stop and watch the game. Did you know you have to pay to use the interstate in France? I think it ended up beging like 10 euros for the trip.. I was shocked.

I love that there is no sales tax. When I have some change in my pocket and I walk into the COOP – local store – and want to buy a couple things to eat, no need to worry about if I have enough with the extra tax. Plus, no pennies!!!!

Every other week or so we’ll be walking back home from practice and we will smell something really, really sweet. I’m talking about a strong odor but a good one too. It seriously smells just like cotton candy and there’s no way you can miss it. We’ve all had theories on what causes the smell; some local factory, trees, a giant that lives in the mountain and makes cotton candy, a giant scented candle  atop of the bell tower – but nobody really knows. I have 20 swiss franks for anybody who can tell me what causes this.

That’s all for now. Another full week of practice before our game on Saturday. Will check back soon.

Nash - my friend from AU

It’s been a while since I’ve thrown a post up here and I’m definitely trying to be better about doing so frequently. This past weekend one of my favorite people from AU came to visit me and we had a great time catching up and spending time together. Christina was in the same class as me at American and she had an amazing career setting for the AU Women’s Volleyball team. She is currently playing for a team in Switzerland an hour east of Zurich and took a four hour train ride into Geneva on Friday afternoon. Nashie got into town in between our morning practice and evening practice and came to practice and snapped some pics for me. She was also with me when I found out that my sister Joy gave birth to my new nephew baby John Alton Knighton!  I was so excited to hear the news and am so stoked to get home to meet the lil guy!

Saturday we had a game at 5:30 versus Basel, the current fourth place team. We got up Saturday morning and headed into town to grab a bite to eat – we had a nice meal at an Italian restaurant and then walked around the lake taking in the scenery. Luckily it was fairly sunny and clear out so it made for a nice walk.

Geneva Lake Waterspout

When I found out that I would be leaving the States for Geneva my dad started to ‘google’ Geneva to check out the city. One of the first images we saw was of the lake and the giant spout (not sure if this is the right description) that is fairly popular here. I was pretty stoked to check this thing out in person but upon my arrival I had no such luck. Saturday was the first time I saw it in action. I was so tempted to run underneath all of the falling water but figured it probably wasn’t the best idea only hours before game time. However, I did promise myself that before I left Geneva I would run out and test the waters. That will surely make for an interesting blog post.

The game against Basel was tough and exhausting. We gave up an 8 point fourth quarter lead to end up losing the game by 4 points. We actually played fairly well throughout the game but down the stretch Basel switched to a zone defense and we became stagnant and settled for deep 3′s instead of trying to get something inside. This was another really tough loss and the 8th loss of the 15 games I have played where we lost by 5 points or less. Karon and I finished with 25 points a piece to lead the team. I was named man of the match (I think just because I had a stretch of points in the fourth quarter that helped us maintain our lead) shooting 7-9 from 2, 2-6 from 3, 5-6 FT, and with 5 rebounds. I was bummed I wasn’t able to knock one or two of the threes down because I had wide open looks but was pleased with my over all performance. I received a $100 gift certificate to a store called Jeans and Jackets – they are one of our sponsors. Karon won this earlier in the year and bought himself a jacket but told me they probably wouldn’t have anything my size which means it looks like I’m bringing somebody home a gift in a few weeks.

After the game we went upstairs to the mezzanine, said hello to fans and committee members, enjoyed some snacks and drinks, and then headed to Aaron’s apartment to play some Wii and have a few drinks before we headed back to the American bar we had visited last Saturday. Aaron backed up his talk in Wii tennis but I gave him a good beat down in golf so I felt like we broke even. The American bar was a lot of fun. We watched some college bball games and enjoyed drinks while listening to another cover band playing some good tunes. It was nice to get out and blow off steam after another frustrating close loss. As we left the bar around 2 in the morning we were waiting for the night bus to take us back to our apartments and Ricardo and Lanky decided to try and steal bikes as their bus wasn’t going to arrive for another hour. We wished them luck as they left to find bikes figuring we wouldn’t see them again. No more than ten minutes later I heard Nash say, “you’ve got to be kidding me” and sure enough – Lanky strolled up on a bike. I cannot tell you how funny this was because we figured there was no way he’d actually get hold of an unlocked bike at 2 in the morning. Unfortunately for Lanky his tires were flat and Ricky couldn’t find a bike and they ended up waiting an hour for their bus.

Christina headed back Sunday morning and I slept the day away as I was pretty exhausted from the long weekend. We don’t play again for 2 weeks until the 6th of March. We have a long week of practice but fortunately have off days on Saturday and Sunday. My body is pretty tired so I’m really looking forward to having those two consecutive days of rest. As exhausted as my body is, I’m definitely trying to push to get better this week seeing as we only have 6 games remaining and I am hoping to really end on a strong note.

The school where we practice - really over the white stuff though.

Today the guard/wing players had a light practice from 12-1 before lunch. While I was dreading any kind of basketball related workout this morning when I got up (@ 10:15 am – threw that in there to make all of you that have “real” jobs envious) I am glad that we had the practice because it was a good workout. We worked on some shooting off the dribble (something I particularly need work on because of how differently they call traveling here) and finished up with some one v one work. After the workout we grabbed a quick shower, waited for the kids to leave the lunch room, and ate lunch with the team.

In all of our contracts we are guaranteed one free meal. Because none of us are making big money, we are all obviously trying to save the money that we make (the money is tax free and our only expense is food). Typically guys will bring a container to lunch hoping to score some leftovers to eat later in the day as to not have to buy dinner. The chef in the cafeteria serves the food in a big container and then we go at it buffet style. Sometimes there is a ton of food and everyone leaves with a bit extra. Other times the proportions are limited and it means we have to shell out the money in order to eat dinner later on. Typically if the entire team comes to lunch than there are no leftovers available (sometimes we only have one practice at night and guys choose not to come to school to get lunch – I’ll admit I even do this at times because it’s about a 35 minute trip to get to school and sometimes staying at the apartment and relaxing just takes priority) but at times there are only be a couple of us and that means leftovers galore! These days are few and far between but they are great ones.

After lunch today a member named Julien on the committee took me to finish the paperwork for my workers permit here in Switzerland and the trip was fairly pain free. I’d compare it to the DMV – wait in line, fill out your paper, take a picture in the photo booth, get your ticket stub and just hope that they call your number as soon as possible. Luckily, unlike the DMV, my trip took less than 5 hours (only about an hour and a half really). Julien said I would get the hard copy of my workers permit in about 3 weeks – awesome, that means I’ll have the permit in my possession for a whole 3 weeks before I head back to the States.  Hmm, I wonder if I could take a second job for those weeks before I head back… any ideas???

Before this game everyone was dunking and I really thought it created a good energy for our team before the start of the game.

I started to wonder when, if ever, I would be able to write a post about the time that our team won a regular season game. Fortunately for me, and for your sake so you don’t have to hear me complain about how we lost again, that day has come! Yesterday we defeated BBC Nyon at home 86 – 78 and it was a great win for our club. BBC Nyon is currently in fifth place and their team is led by Austin Johnson who was the starting point guard for last year’s Oklahoma team that was well known for player of the year Blake Griffin. Austin is having a really good year in Switzerland and I’m really impressed with him as a player. Nonetheless, we were able to limit him and our team played stifling defense for a majority of the game to come away with a MUCH needed win.

Ryan Randle got us off to a great start by scoring the first 7 or 9 points – the more I play with him the more I love his game. He’s got great hands for a big man and a really good stroke out to three. He is still out of shape, and will even it admit it ( we’ll be watching film and frequently will see Ryan stop running at half court while we’re on a fast break – he says he knows that I’m gonna shoot a transition 3 so he doesn’t waste his energy running the court! ) but the guy can really play and has definitely helped us. I struggled offensively in the first half missing a couple lay ups and open 3s but played good D and created some opportunities for the guys to get shots. Our team really came alive in the third quarter as we play great help defense (something we’ve struggled with at times) and we forced bad shots, blocked some shots, rebounded and were able to score in transition on the other end. Nyon did stage a little run in the fourth quarter – cutting our 10 point lead to 2 but we made some huge plays down the stretch defensively and were able to sustain the lead to hold on for a victory. Members of the committee came down onto the court to congratulate us and it was very clear that they were elated with our performance. It felt really good to see how happy they were for our success.

Bundled up in my Elmer Fudd hat - it's been really cold/windy the past week or so.

I was lucky enough to be named Man of the Match and even won a bottle of Prosseco as a gift. The official stats are not out yet but I finished with 23 points, 6-8 rebounds, 6 blocks, and 2-3 assists. I actually did struggle a little offensively for parts of the game but I was pleased that I was able to help so much on the defensive end. The man I was guarding for a majority of the game was a slasher/athletic wing that was not a good outside shooter so I was able to play a lot of help defense and come over to block shots. This was a great team win – a lot of guys contributing in different ways – and we were all really pleased with the result.

Karon, Aaron, myself, and Laurent.

Aaron, Ricardo, Laurent, Karon and I went out to an American bar called Pickwicks to have some drinks to celebrate the victory. It was a lot of fun to get out, have a few drinks, listen to a pretty gnarly band that played ACDC, Chili Peppers, U2, Black Eyed Peas, and some other classic rock songs, and to just enjoy spending time with the guys. I would love to make winning and celebrating a frequent thing for the remainder of the season.

This was on the way to our game at Masagno. The mountains were insanely beautiful. The pictures do no justice.

Sunday, as usual, is our day off and I spent the day just relaxing, reading, cleaning, doing laundry, cooking some food, and letting my body rest. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind as we have two practices and lifting so it’s good to be able to shut down for a day. We don’t play again until Saturday the 20th and we are facing a very good, offensively explosive team in Basel Starwings. We have 5 days of practice to prepare and I’m hoping this game will give us a little confidence and that we are able to build on the things we did well.

Today in practice we were going through some 4v4 drills and Ryan took a shot to the balls and went down on the court and did what any other guy does when they get hit there; assumed the fetal position. We all came over to make sure he was alright and to lend him a hand getting up. Apparently Ryan wasn’t ready to get up and kept squirming on the ground until coach finally said something along the lines of “oh come on, it’s not like you will use this”.  Definitely the funniest thing I’ve heard out of coach and it had all of us rolling. You have to understand that his English isn’t that good and he is usually pretty serious in practice so this definitely gave all of us a good laugh.

Fun fact – Aaron, Moose, and I were on the tram after practice on the way home conversating in English as usual and a man asked us if we played basketball. The three of us ( 6’7, 6’9′ 6’8 ) rarely get asked this…. yeah, you got it, that was sarcasm. Anyhow, we started talking about all sorts of random things and we got to talking about drinking tap water. The man, hailing from Egypt, told us that NYC has the freshest/most drinkable tap water in the world, followed by Tokyo, and then Geneva. I was pretty shocked. Not about Geneva being ranked third in high quality H2o – I’ve already noticed the tap water here is delicious, it’s all I drink. But NYC first? I’m gonna have to dig around and do my research on this one. Actually, I’m too lazy for that. Anyone else heard these ruminations?

Yesterday we started the third and last leg of the Championship. We faced Fribourg who was currently in a three way tie for first. We played a horrid defensive first half and found ourselves 14 points in the hole. Fortunately, we turned up the intensity on defense and fought our way back to a small lead at the end of the third quarter. The fourth quarter saw us battling with several lead changes and a good chance to win the game. We had the ball with a chance to win the game with the score knotted at 89 but we missed our attempt and Fribourg got the ball with just under 9 seconds left. One of their new recently acquired Americans made a dribble move and got into the lane and hit a floater with 1 second left to leave us in defeat, again, by only 2 points. It just seems that our team cannot catch a break and we have lost so many games by a small margin this season.

As much as I don’t believe in moral victories, I’m hoping that this win will give us a little bit of confidence. We cannot sulk about this loss if we want to try to put together a string of runs wins because time is of the essence – there are only 9 games left in the season. We have games Wednesday and Sunday so hopefully we can use this momentum to get one starting Wednesday. I played ok last game – didn’t shoot particularly well but Moustafa and Ryan were playing well so we were really trying to get them going. I finished with 9 points and I believe I had a good amount of rebounds and assists but I’m not sure as the official stats are not available yet.

On some non related topics – we have night practices usually from 8-10 and unfortunately after we take the tram from practice our bus doesnt come to our stop that frequent because of how late it is so we typically end up walking back from the tram stop to the apartment which is about a 10 minute walk – probably right around a mile. This walk is usually pretty dreadful; we’ve just gotten out of a tiring practice, the second of the day, it’s late, it’s freezing outside, and our legs are just done. Moose, K, and I have literally gotten off the tram several times and just started running all the way home. That’s how much we hate the walk and that’s how badly we want to get back to our apartment where its’ warm and we can eat. Anyhow, the other night K and Moose were listening to their iPods (still not sure why I don’t have one…) and I told K to play the music so we could all hear it. It turned into a ten minute walk of Michael Jackson hits and loud singing and dancing – the entire way home. Not sure why I’m sharing this other than because it was hysterical and we passed several people on the way who probably thought we were crazy.

Today is Sunday and just like nearly every other Sunday, it’s our day off. I’m just resting, playing Xbox, enjoying some fine Senegalese cuisine (compliments of Moustafa) and doing some light reading – well, now that I think about it, I hardly consider it light. My friend Erica recently recommend I read Dante’s Inferno – I’ve just jumped in and while I’m enjoying it, it’s no easy read. Anyhow, hope everyone back home is surviving the blizzard and staying warm for the Super Bowl this afternoon!

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve put an update up. Sorry for the delay but let me fill you in on what’s been going on. Let me give you all a quick synopsis of our season thus far. I joined MGS Grand Saconnex 9 games into the season. In the the first league in Switzerland there are 11 teams. We play a regular season of 30 games (playing each team 3 times, thus having 3 legs of 10 games each). MGS had a record of 1-8 when I joined the team and unfortunately, we have not won a regular season game since I’ve been here and are now 1-19. You may remember me blogging about winning my first game here. That game was a Swiss Cup game and does not count towards the regular season standings. The Swiss Cup is merely a single elimination tournament that is played throughout the regular season that involves all of the teams in Switzerland, both 1st league and 2nd league. Needless to say, we are struggling.

Many of our games have been lost by very close margins. We just cannot seem to pull together at the end of the game and make the necessary plays to win games. I’ve been particularly frustrated lately for that reason – we cannot seem to get over the hump and losing never gets easier. However, there’s nothing we can do except continue to work in practice and give our best and hope that we can string together some wins here as we prepare to begin the third leg next Saturday.

The last three games have been stronger for me and I hope to build off of that momentum for the remainder of the year. I have strung together performances of 17, 26, and 18 point games. I think that this is a result of a combination of things; confidence, shooting the ball better, teammates looking for me in scoring opportunities, getting to the free throw line, and getting the ball in the post a little bit more. I’ve had a lot of fun playing with the guys the last few weeks, whether it be in the game or practice. I know it will only get more fun if we are able to win some games soon. I am really hoping we can break through and get some W’s for the club.

In our game versus Geneva Devils, our cross town rival, the committee recognized Gino Lanisse and brought awareness to the crowd about how Gino’s family has been affected in the tragedy that has occurred in Haiti. Gino, originally from Haiti and also a Swiss citizen, is a really energetic and great guy. Gino plays the 5/4 for us, he is built like a NFL tight end and really has a lot of skill. Gino is always bringing energy to practice and the games and has been a pleasure for me and the guys to be around. We all are hoping that his family is all recovering from the earthquake and that Gino will be able to see them soon. The local news came and filmed the game and put a small clip on Youtube with pictures and video from the game. You can watch the video here. As I mentioned previously, Gino is really a great guy and we are all praying for him and his family in this time.

Life has been good here. Other than basketball, I really don’t do too much. We typically practice twice a day and during our free time I usually just rest/read/and play xbox. I am waiting on some copies of my games from this season and once I get them I am going to try and post them online for those of you that care to watch some of the action. I’m also going to try to put together a short highlight clip just to show some of the bright spots from the season thus far. I also hope to put up a couple of video blogs here soon so be sure to tune in for that.

This past Saturday we faced Vacallo, currently the second ranked team in the Swiss league and they lived up to their reputation. Here it is, Monday night, and I am still impressed with how well their team plays together. Rumor is, from some of the guys on the team, that Vacallo has made only one or two changes to their roster in the past three years. From what I have experienced, read, and just observed, this is a rarity. It is very typical for players, especially foreigners (in this case the US players) to move from team to team and country to country year after year. However, it definitely shows as their team truly plays as a team should. We held our own for the first quarter only down by one point 28-27 but then the superior team stepped up and we never really recovered. Any basketball fan would love to watch this team play. They move the ball incredibly well and the ball rarely sticks in one players hand for more than a second. The players are constantly cutting, always in the right place, crash the boards and are very unselfish. They execute the pick and roll as well as I’ve ever seen. One big man rolls to the basket, the other big man fills to the top of the key for a high low option and the two wing players are always keeping the floor spread on opposite sides waiting for the point guard to throw a skip pass so they can knock down the open 3 while the defender plays help defense on the big man rolling to the basket. It is truly a thing of beauty. It never seemed as if one player was hogging the ball, they always seemed to hit the open man for the best shot, and they communicate very, very well on defense. As frustrating as it was to lose, I have to admire the players and coaches for Vacallo because they are an extremely well coached and disciplined team.

Our team did have some bright moments. Our new addition Ryan Randle showed his prowess in the low post notching 14 points in only 21 minutes of play. The committee has already named him “Baby Shack”. I think what they are going for is, “Baby Shaq” (something got lost in translation). Ryan uses his big body well to get good post position and has the ability to hit a jump hook or even a little fade away in the post. He also has soft hands and is very good underneath the basket finishing on either side. My hope for him is that he will continue to get in good shape and will help us guard other centers while giving us a good offensive presence on the other end. Baby Shack also plays with a lot of energy and is very vocal. You can tell he is excited to compete and loves to get after it.That kind of play is always welcomed as far as I’m concerned.

Karon played his usual solid game with 21 points. (K – I’m not trying to undermine your game but you always seem to be good for 20 points and it’s rare you have bad/off games – take it as a compliment)  Thanks to his quickness he was able to penetrate against Vacallo’s zone defense (they started out man to man but we jumped out to a quick 9-2 start. they switched to zone and never looked back). I finished with 14 points. The official stats are not out so I am not sure what my shooting percentage was but I did shoot a little better this game but still not great. Like I mentioned earlier, as frustrating as the loss was, we played a very tough team and had some moments that we can definitely build on.

Yesterday we had the day off and my parents’ best friends were in town because they were flying out of Geneva and I had a great dinner with them. It was really nice to meet up with them since they were staying only minutes from my apartment and I got to take them downtown by the lake and show them around. It was a blistering 15 degrees outside but we still walked around a bit and the city looked beautiful with all of the snow and the lights. Doug and Colleen treated me to a fantastic meet at La Boucherie . I had lamb, Doug a steak, and Colleen a chicken and we all thought our meals were fantastic. A nice bottle of red wine with some chocolate moose and sorbet for dessert and that marked a fantastic meal. Doug and Colleen have been great friends to the family and myself and I am grateful for their friendship and it was a nice break from the typical routine here to have some time spent with them.

Moose, my roommate from Senegal, cooked dinner for Karon and me tonight (it’s the least he could do after giving me a huge fat lip tonight in practice, accidentally of course) and it was pretty darn good. He is always cooking himself dinner, typically something with chicken and onions. I mean, you can bank on smelling onions anytime you walk into our apartment. I’ve actually grown quite fond of the smell. Anyhow, I finally convinced him to let me in on his Senegalese specialties and I was not let down. The dinner was delicious and that marks two really good, free,  dinners; consecutively. I am going to try to keep the streak going tomorrow night but I havn’t quite come up with a plan as to how I’m going to make that happen. Wish me luck. It could make for an interesting post if I’m successful.