IT IS TIME!

Today is the big day! We play our first of three games over this weekend. They are only preseason games (season starts in October) but I'm still ready to go. I want to get my pregame thoughts in to compare them to my post game thoughts.

Up until now I haven't commented too much on the basketball side of things but I will do that now.

Well the first thing is understanding the coach has gotten A LOT easier now that my new teammate from Paraguay has joined the team. He grew up in Paraguay but played college ball in the United States so he definitely knows how to translate in terms I can understand. This experience has really made me appreciate knowing what the coach is saying. I know that in the past I would sometimes tune out my coaches and start day dreaming about what I had for lunch that day, or what I was going to eat for dinner. (And they tried to feed me twice a day...)

Another thing that is new to me but I like a lot is the fact that every time I see my teammates they say hi and shake hands with the whole team. They will go out of their way to say hi to everyone on the team and they do it every time we have practice-even if we have three in one day. I never experienced this on any other team that I have played with. I mean we would say hi to each other, but wouldn't go out of our way to say hi to everyone. I think we will be a closer team because of it.

Our style of play is to full court press and deny; like Clemson if you know what I mean by that. I am not really a huge fan of that, especially because I'm at the top of the press. I also have to take the ball out every time. I am Really not a fan of this. For those of you that don't know basketball, all this means is that I have to do a lot more running than I am accustomed/want to do. I'll say one thing though, by the time I come back to the US I'll be in excellent shape.

Well, it's after 2 pm, NAP TIME. I'll probably write again after this weekend; hopefully I'll have a contract by then.

The place where magic happens.