A Loss?.....

After about two months of not experiencing the feeling of a loss, the Lightning finally had that feeling after this past weekend. More on that in a minute, but I'll start with the victory we picked up on Friday night. There isn't much to say about this one. This would probably been somewhat boring for someone just sitting in the stands. We ended up winning by about 20, it's just that there wasn't much happening in this game and the other team was not very good. I will say that it was absolutely freezing in the gym where we were playing (away game). I walked in before our game and didn't take off a jacket until the starting five had to walk out on the floor for the tip off. This isn't the first time that this has happened. I've come to figure out that most homes and other places in Australia do not use central heating (even as I'm writing this I'm sitting by a little heater in the living room where I'm staying at). Apparently, it just doesn't quite get cold enough for a long enough time here for people to really consider needing (or wanting to pay) for heat. Instead, people just really pile the clothes on and bundle up at night. Right now during the day it warms up to about 65 to 70 degrees (great), but at night it goes down to about 40 (not good). Obviously, at night...no heat...it gets a little nippy. As you can see, this comes in to play when all our games are after the sun goes down. 

Enough of that, on to the game that we lost. As I mentioned, this was the first time that we have lost since the end of March. It's quite disappointing that we lost, but also in the way that we played and that we beat this team by 35 the time before. I could get into a lot of reasons about what happened, but basically our defense wasn't there as it has been before (a long with some offensive issues). That said, a lot of credit to the other team, who I thought was very much improved and shot the ball extremely well. We are still sitting on top and in good position, but we MUST look at this loss and improve on some areas that we haven't been doing very well as of late. Hopefully, we will do just that starting tonight at practice. 

June 11, 2009

It's about 10:30 pm here in Perth and there isn't a whole lot for me to report on regarding the last week or so. We picked up another hard fought game at home in our game last week. It was close pretty much throughout pretty much the whole game. I think the final difference was 8 in our favor. This game was pretty much like many of the ones over the past two months. We just kept grinding and grinding and eventually were able to find some breathing room. Much of this was a result of our defense which is pretty much becoming the "backbone" of our team. This coupled with our ability to run the floor, play fast, and knock down shots gives us a large edge. Again I had a pretty solid game coming off an ankle injury, so I'm fairly pleased about that. 

One thing that I've found interesting (and comical) about Australia and the people here are some of the words that they use. Unfortunately, I had several that I was going to mention, but at this moment can only really think of one or two such words. The first word that I hear often and picked up on the meaning quickly is the word "heaps". This word is used to convey a lot of something. So Australians use this word "heaps" instead of maybe hearing the word many in America.  I don't think I've ever heard this word used back in the states.  However, by far my favorite word that I've heard or even used is the word "dodgy" (I'm bringing this one home). I hear this word all the time. When someone says "dodgy" he or she is describing a bad, dirty, or sketchy person, place, or thing. Example; that is a "dodgy" area to be by yourself. What I like about this word is just its broad use to describe all kinds of things. There are a couple words that I've picked up on. If I remember anymore here soon I'll be sure to let you know. 

Time for me to get some rest. We got two games this weekend. If it's anything like the past ones I'll be needing all the rest that I can get. 

Finally

Alright so it's been quite a while since I last posted. Between a couple early internet problems and the my parents coming to visit for two weeks I never got around to making an entry. 

I guess I'll start by catching everybody up on the basketball. May was a very good month for the Lightning and myself. We didn't lose in the month of May capped off by a three point win against the 2nd placed Geraldton Bucs who also are the only team to defeat us so far this year. It was a very good feeling to get a little revenge. However, if things continue to go as they are, then I got a good feeling that we'll see them again in the playoffs at some stage. Personally, I feel like I had a very productive month as well. I'm still very pleased with how I am playing but also want to continue to play even better. With a little bit of bad news, in that game against Geraldton I sprained my ankle early in the second half and was slowed up a bit the rest of the game. It's not terrible but enough to swell up a decent amount and start to develop some slight color. With a pretty heavy load of treatment I'm pretty confident I'll be ready to go full speed for our game this Friday. Currently, the Lakeside Lightning sit atop the table with a record of 15-1 and a 12 game winning streak. 

As I mentioned Mom and Dad made the long trip from South Carolina to Perth to visit for two weeks. It was great to see them and had a lot of fun in the meantime. I saw more of Perth and surrounding areas with them in those two weeks than I probably had seen my whole time here. That's ok tho because I definitely can get around the city with no problem after all the driving I did with them. They chose not to rent a car for the first week and a half so it was all three of us in my tiny car. Right before they left we had an opportunity to travel several hours south of Perth to an area called Margaret River. This was the first chance that even I have had to go anywhere outside of the greater Perth area (other than two bball game roadtrips). Traveling down south was an opportunity to experience a landscape and environment that maybe I would have considered more "Australian", or at least would have visualized sitting in my South Carolina living room. Everything was much more rural (or the bush as Australians call it). The coast line and beaches were scenic and was just different than anything I have ever experienced before. It was just very cool. It was also the first time we had seen a kangaroo. Didn't just see one either, there were tons of them in the fields along the road (also meant seeing lots of ones as roadkill). The whole trip was just very cool. Being able to experience that and explore Perth more in depth with Mom and Dad was a great time in and of itself. Yea so all that was great, but just as good was that while they were here they saw us win 4 games and me play well. I will try and get up a couple pictures from the past month up in the next couple days. 

Life is good.