Selection Monday

Selection Monday! You might be thinking WTF is he talking about, but for those of you basketball enthusiasts, I had to wait until Monday (today) to view the NCAA tournament brackets. Yes, the Sunday night selection show actually takes place on Monday here. I have yet to fill out my bracket, but Kansas is my team.

Anyways, once again I hope that this post finds you doing very well. This might get redundant, but I am happy to report that things are going wonderfully in the southern hemisphere. The water continues to swirl the opposite direction. The weather has been lovely with warm temperatures and no rain. Kalgoorlie is in the desert and it is very dry and very red. It is quite nice and picturesque. This past week has brought some pretty fun activities and some changes as well.

There has been a bit of a change in my work situation. I am still doing the same things, but focusing more on specific kids / groups of kids during the day and tutoring after school. Instead of working with individuals that have disabilities, I am working with other students and monitoring their progress in classes and visiting them in their classrooms during the day. It will be a fun change and it will allow me to get to know a group of kids quite well and hopefully I will see improvements in their studies.

I spent a couple nights out last week at barbecues. I have so under appreciated the essence of a bbq back home and hope that I change that when I am home. These “feeds,” as they, “the Australians,” refer to them, are tremendous. Friday night I was at Cliffy’s place for dinner and to watch the National Basketball League Grand Finals. The Perth Wildcats defeated the Wollongong Hawks to win the championship. That is a pretty big deal for Western Australia as the Wildcats are the only team for the state. The food was great and it was fun seeing some live sports on television. I have been without cable since I arrived!

Randall and Karen Hulme, my teammate Ryan’s parents, had the new players over on Wednesday night. Randall had both grills going with an assortment of meats, there were varieties of salads, breads, potatoes, etc. It was absolutely fantastic! So many people here have taken such wonderful care of me since my arrival! I am very thankful for that. Our team has had some big changes since last year, and that is why I say they had all the new players over. Lordan Franich and his girlfriend Leia were over. They moved from Perth together where they both played for the Lakeside Lightning the previous years. Lakeside is a big rival for us. Hamish Bowden, a guard from Tasmania, and his girlfriend, Abbie, were also there. Those are the new players other than me and they are great guys and their girlfriends are lovely too.

This season we have a new coach, 2 new Australian players (mentioned above), a new import (me), a couple new junior players, and several departures of long-term players from last year’s team. I get the feeling around town that everyone is quite anxious to see how the team goes. The Giants have been very successful the past 5 years and everyone wants to see that continue.

We began the opening round of games this weekend in Perth playing a doubleheader against the Sterling Senators and Kalamunda Eastern Suns. I have done many road trips for basketball in my life, and this one was full of firsts. We left at 6 am Saturday morning. It is a 6 hour ride from Kalgoorlie to Perth, essentially driving from Minneapolis to Chicago. We arrived in the afternoon, checked in, walked around to get the stiffness out, and went to the game. That is one of the first times that I have bussed that far and played that night. One thing came to mind when the players asked me about traveling for games back at UMD. I said we always went the day before the game. We would practice there and stay over. Then I realized there were a couple exceptions (Bemidji, St. Cloud, Concordia, Crookston…) I explained that those were within 2-3 hours of each other. Except Crookston was 4 hours away. Then again, Mankato was 4 hours away but we always traveled the day before for that game. Hmm… Holqy, is there a difference in respect for one team over the other??

The game went well on Saturday night. We won by over 30 points and played very well. Personally I did not play my best, but we got the win. I only played 23 minutes due to foul trouble. I accumulated 3 fouls in the span of 3 minutes to start the 2nd quarter. I sat the remainder and then sat most of the 4th as we had a very convincing lead and another game in 14 hours or so. I finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists. I had four fouls, but luckily we get 6 here due to the 48 minute games. I think it is going to take some time to adjust to the officiating here. This is on my part as well as for the officials. The past few years the league has not had as many “big” players. This year most teams have 7 footers and it provides a new aspect of the game. One team, East Perth, has 3 players over 7 feet.

Sunday we visited Kalamunda for a noon tip off. They are expected to be a very good team this year. They have a very good left handed forward that can absolutely fill it up. Their import is a former Georgetown / Fresno State point guard that is now sponsored by And1. He left Fresno after some charges were presented…weird for a Fresno State player… They also have a player named Justin Brown that is a 7 foot center who played college ball at UConn. We were winning the majority of the game, by as much as 17 points, and managed to lose. I fouled out with 19 points, 12 rebs, 5 assists. It was a pretty poorly officiated game, 30 fouls – 17. It is not an excuse to lose; you should never lose a game where you have a lead like that no matter what point in the game. We played well at times, but also very poorly. We have a lot to work on this week before our home opener on Saturday against Willeton.

After my first weekend of international basketball the biggest difference was in the road trip home. This was where several Coronas were consumed, something that never would have happened at Duluth…Maybe if HB was running the show.

Other than that I am working hard and enjoying this wonderful opportunity, the people, and the experiences. I hope everything is going well at home and I am anxious to hear how everyone is doing. God Bless! Until next week.