On Saturday January 17th, during our game against Dortmund I once again experienced another career milestone. After building a 25 point lead into the 4th quarter, I was switched out onto a guard and defended him on the perimeter. A teammate of mine stole the ball and I was able to leak out onto the fast break early. I received the pass from my teammate and turned around to see 47 feet of clear wide open space to the basket. With my mouth watering at the opportunity to throw down one of the greatest dunks of all time, I approached the basket "full running" (as my Serbian Coach calls it). The whole thing happened so fast that I didn't have ample time to decide which dunk to pull out of my dreadfully limited 3 dunk repertoire. Would I A) Throw it down one handed and "Bear Claw" the ball? B) Throw down a powerful two hander? C) Go out on a limb and try a 180 one hand dunk? Or D) None of the above. The correct answer of course is D.
I attempted a two hand power dunk but threw the ball into the back of the rim so hard that the ball flew all the way back to half court and was corralled by a player from the opposing team. Fortunately we were up 25 and I received a playful laugh from my teammates and the "K-Squad" (our fan base nickname). Just another career milestone to add to the belt. We ended up winning by 30 and my American roommate Paul and I came only 11 points short of outscoring our opponents by ourselves (35 and 32).
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Catching up
So to close out 2008...
As for my time back home and bringing in the new year I was fortunate enough to spend some great quality family time with both of my grandmothers, my cousins in Illinois, and of course my parents and sister. I also got the chance to keep it live in Ann Arbor and New Years Eve in New York City! I got the chance to spend my time in America with loved ones and and indulged myself with America's finest... burgers, Gatorades, Taco Bell, my automatic transmission Jeep, skittles, dishwashers, dryers in the laundry room, high definition television, AMERICAN TELEVISION, AMERICAN SPORTS ON American television, and many many more. I even got to watch my Detroit Lions loose their 16th game of the season. I thought they wouldn't pull it out but of course we broke the record and I'm really proud of my boys (or angry brick wolves for that matter).
Since being back in Germany, I have had some of the most fun yet. I had a special visitor from Amherst come stay for a week. Chelsea and I spent some quality time watching movies, experimenting with cooking (ever had chickamon??? chicken with cinnamon, ask for the recipe if your interested), visiting den Haag in the Netherlands, and many hours spent on the road. She even got to watch us embarrass the most low-budget team in our league with a 3o point smothering. That's about it for now. Keep on working hard with whatever you are doing and remember, "The only things we ever keep are what we give away." -Louis Ginsberg
- I stayed up until 7 am to watch the presidential election and acceptance speech from Barrack. Probably the best speech I've ever heard live in my lifetime. I'm pumped for the Inauguration!
- A wicked time in Osnabruck with big Kev and his teammates. Resulting in unforgettable partying with the doner man.
- A huge thanksgiving dinner with around 25 people, 1 turkey, and interesting side dishes brought to the table (mac & cheese??, pizza??).
- A spur of the moment trip to Koln at 1 am with Kevin, Olson, and some other teammates. What could possibly await 12 guys each paying 30 euro for a 40 minute train ride on a Saturday night?
- A visit from my White Birch Lodge friend Abby and her roommate Kelly who were studying abroad in London town which was a blast!!
- A trip to Amsterdam where I found myself down $160, completely sober, and only window shopping around the red light district (I promise Mom).
(yes this is my car)
- I also got the chance to catch up with Coach Wilcox and his team in Amsterdam. It was quite a coincidence to run into the whole team at this little cafe...
- A flight-squad throw up after a serious throw down in front of the infamous Kbomb.
- 5 Wins by a total of 65, 2 Losses by a total of 6, a new career high in points (37), a new career high in rebounds (18), the best game of Basketball I have ever played (34 pts, 52% fg, 18 reb, 2 TO, 3 Ast, 1 Steal, 1 Block in 40 minutes), the 2nd best dunk in a game of my career (Elms still prevails), my first successful alley oop in a game, and our team is in 3rd place for the first time to finish 2008.
As for my time back home and bringing in the new year I was fortunate enough to spend some great quality family time with both of my grandmothers, my cousins in Illinois, and of course my parents and sister. I also got the chance to keep it live in Ann Arbor and New Years Eve in New York City! I got the chance to spend my time in America with loved ones and and indulged myself with America's finest... burgers, Gatorades, Taco Bell, my automatic transmission Jeep, skittles, dishwashers, dryers in the laundry room, high definition television, AMERICAN TELEVISION, AMERICAN SPORTS ON American television, and many many more. I even got to watch my Detroit Lions loose their 16th game of the season. I thought they wouldn't pull it out but of course we broke the record and I'm really proud of my boys (or angry brick wolves for that matter).
Since being back in Germany, I have had some of the most fun yet. I had a special visitor from Amherst come stay for a week. Chelsea and I spent some quality time watching movies, experimenting with cooking (ever had chickamon??? chicken with cinnamon, ask for the recipe if your interested), visiting den Haag in the Netherlands, and many hours spent on the road. She even got to watch us embarrass the most low-budget team in our league with a 3o point smothering. That's about it for now. Keep on working hard with whatever you are doing and remember, "The only things we ever keep are what we give away." -Louis Ginsberg
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
I bleed Purple and White
Saturday November 1st
The first matchup between Iserlohn and BBV Hagen who is lead by none other than Andrew Olson 08' was a very even game with many shifts of momentum. This was the first game I played in Europe where I could feel a heightened level of emotion and excitement from the crowd. Iserlohn and Hagen are only about 10 km from each other and many players on both teams have played for the other team at some point in their career. That being said, unlike the great rivalries that I have been apart of in the past such as Pioneer-Huron or Amherst-Williams, this rivalry was all in fun and good spirits. In my time playing basketball with Pioneer and Amherst, I have gone 19-1 against my rivals. A big reason I fell in love with the game of Basketball was because of these games where everything is on the table and both teams want to win by any means necessary. However, I did not feel this same urgency to win while playing against Andrew because I was unable to get into "kill mode" as I like to call it. There was just way too much respect for my opponents. Although we did win by 5 and I had 17 points (olson 22pts), at the end of the day there were four people in that gymnasium who bleed purple and white (Brooke and Goldy were there watching) and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives. Terras Irradient.
The first matchup between Iserlohn and BBV Hagen who is lead by none other than Andrew Olson 08' was a very even game with many shifts of momentum. This was the first game I played in Europe where I could feel a heightened level of emotion and excitement from the crowd. Iserlohn and Hagen are only about 10 km from each other and many players on both teams have played for the other team at some point in their career. That being said, unlike the great rivalries that I have been apart of in the past such as Pioneer-Huron or Amherst-Williams, this rivalry was all in fun and good spirits. In my time playing basketball with Pioneer and Amherst, I have gone 19-1 against my rivals. A big reason I fell in love with the game of Basketball was because of these games where everything is on the table and both teams want to win by any means necessary. However, I did not feel this same urgency to win while playing against Andrew because I was unable to get into "kill mode" as I like to call it. There was just way too much respect for my opponents. Although we did win by 5 and I had 17 points (olson 22pts), at the end of the day there were four people in that gymnasium who bleed purple and white (Brooke and Goldy were there watching) and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives. Terras Irradient.
1L and the German Jordan
October 23rd
We traveled an hour and a half to play the second place team STV Leverkusen at their place. It was unfortunately our second loss of the season after we blew an 8 point lead at one point in the 3rd quarter only to loose by 7. I had a very poor performance as I was in foul trouble early and often. There was one point in the fourth quarter where we went 8 minutes without scoring and still managed to loose by only 5. This game taught our team a lot about ourselves as we have learned in our most recent games to find other ways to score when we are not making our 3's. I also learned that as the only "Center" on our team who has played more than 5 minutes all season, I must stay out of foul trouble by any means necessary.
Some notes on the game...
We traveled an hour and a half to play the second place team STV Leverkusen at their place. It was unfortunately our second loss of the season after we blew an 8 point lead at one point in the 3rd quarter only to loose by 7. I had a very poor performance as I was in foul trouble early and often. There was one point in the fourth quarter where we went 8 minutes without scoring and still managed to loose by only 5. This game taught our team a lot about ourselves as we have learned in our most recent games to find other ways to score when we are not making our 3's. I also learned that as the only "Center" on our team who has played more than 5 minutes all season, I must stay out of foul trouble by any means necessary.
Some notes on the game...
- It was the first wooden floor I have stepped onto since my arrival in Europe. It felt good to actually play the game on the surface it is meant to be played on.
- I got the chance to take a picture with the German Michael Jordan before the game which was pretty cool.
Turns out we actually wear the same jersey number!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Real Oktoberfest
Last week I celebrated my birthday... a few times. This is actually a picture of my dream German birthday. Need-less-to-say, it was a different experience being in another country away from my family and friends. Thankfully my teammates and former teammates were here to help celebrate. Since Goldy (who played with me at Amherst and lives an hour away) has a birthday on October 17th and my birthday is on the 15th, we usually have a 4 day extraveganza. If you check out his blog, we pretty much kept true to tradition with American sports, German drinks, and the male-bonding. However, I really missed my family and friends and I didn't even get to speak to any of them on my actual birthday. This is actually my fault seeing as I have a skype account where I can call my family or my ex-girlfriend whom I miss both VERY much.Last Saturday we beat an easy team at home by 20 and my roommate had 33 points! (I had 24) Today (Thursday) we play the #2 team in the league in their one of a kind gym. I will explain why it is so one of a kind later, stay tuned.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Arrest me for what?
On Saturday we knocked off one of the undefeated teams and moved into 3rd place. Yesterday, we were informed by our manager that the undefeated 2nd place team forgot to send in photocopies of two of their players into the league officials. Therefore, two of the games they have won, are now counted as 20 point losses. So now we are in 2nd place!
The team also has 2 stars next to their team name in the standings. The team with more stars automatically looses any tie-breaker at the end of the season and it also counts towards the 3 strike and you're out policy. If this team gets another star (3 in total), they get demoted one league lower no questions asked. I expressed my disbelief at the strict rules of our league and how this honest mistake acquired them not 1, but 2 stars and my manager simply responded, "Welcome to Germany!" as he held his hands out as if getting arrested.
Not only can the police pull you over whenever they want for no reason whatsoever, the Basketball referees can give away technical fouls for facial expressions, and the league officials can ruin your season and your teams goals of league promotions in a blink of an eye.
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