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. 

Still Streaking

This past weekend saw us pick up two more wins. This was the first time that we have had two games in two days since the opening week of the season. Its tough, wish we could have a day off in between games. Not the case tho. We played at home Friday night against a really physical team. After a fairly competitive first quarter we pretty much cruised the rest of the way and ended up winning by about 35. However, I think the farther we got ahead the more physical the other team got. It was something that we fought through and continued to keep our heads and play our game. This is good, because if we continue to play the way we are playing other teams are going to try and get a little rough with us and sometimes border line dirty. The way the game was played made the next game the next night a little more tougher to be ready for. Saturday night saw us struggle a bit more than in the past couple weeks but we were able to fight for another win. This one was a little bit closer coming down the stretch and we pushed the final margin to 10 or so. I don't think we were as sharp as we had been in other games. Some of that has to do with the game the night before. However, I thought it was very positive that even tho maybe we weren't playing our best basketball that night we fought it out and ultimately won the game on the defensive end. An example of this would be the second quarter where we only gave up 11 points and were able to have a double digit lead at half time. Its been interesting to see how our defense has improved so far this season and we'll need to keep it up if we are to continue our top level play. I think this is something we can do tho. On a personal note, I played all 48 minutes of the second game. After a physical game Friday night and then playing the whole game Saturday night I was just a little bit tired, only slightly. I wasn't able to sleep in Sunday, but made up for it Sunday night and Monday morning. 

I haven't had the opportunity to write much about Australian culture or society that much lately so I thought I might try and provide a little insight for a couple things. First thing is that music or the radio would be best explained with the word horrid. Its awful, that's all I can say. I should correct that. It's not so much Australian musicians but the radio stations. I don't know that many Australian musicians and really haven't heard all that many on Australian radio, but there are a couple that I have taken a decent liking to. I just can't get over the radio. Consider this, if (and that's a big if) a station does happen to play a song (may not even be a good one) then in almost certainty there is going to be a commercial or a radio host is going to come on and talk about some insignificant topic for 5 minutes. I know you're reading and thinking that this sounds like American airwaves.....NO, this is much worse than in the states. I can probably count on one hand the times I've heard two songs without an interruption in between. The next thing about the radio is that the choices of stations is very limited and that the same type of music is played over and over again. What I've discovered so far is that in Perth there are basically only about 6-8 stations across the FM wavelength or whatever (I'm sure the lack of choices is a big part of the problem). Believe me, I've spent some good time searching through static to see if there is anything else out there to no avail. Before I start commenting on the selection of music and musicians I'm going to step back and say that I have no musical abilities at all, BUT honestly can listen to and enjoy many different types of music. It's just that Australia radio either seems to pick very few of those types or just overly play types and artists that I have absolutely no liking of. Think of it this way, if one were to ask me to describe the general sense of Australian radio by naming a single musical artist I would instantaneously say Britney Spears. Maybe its just that I've heard her on the radio an insanely amount (which in my opinion is no good), but I think its just that this pop style is what seems to be played most (male and female artists). I'm not sure I know how to explain it anymore its just annoying to hear this kind of music constantly, well when music is actually played. Alright I got to get off the radio, but the last comment is that songs and lyrics are unedited on the radio here. One can hear the full explicit meaning and words to a song if such a song is played, and this happens quite a bit. In the meantime I'll be charging my iPod and finding my iTrip so I don't have to listen to the ads and poor selection. 

Top of the Ladder

This past Friday saw the top two teams in the league meet. We were the second place team and the opponent was the top team of the league up to that point in the season. In the week leading up to the game I could tell everybody around the club and fans were very excited for the game. I don't know how many people came up to me to tell me that it would be a big and good game and that the place would be packed (playing at home by the way). Also, apparently Lakeside and our opponent, Cockburn, are pretty big rivals and always have tightly contested and heated games. The game only turned out to be only one of those types of games. We jumped on them quickly and built a double digit lead fairly early on that reached a 30 point lead at the end of the third quarter. We began to coast a bit in the 4th quarter but the damage was already done and we ended up winning by 19. 

Despite it not being a very close contest it was still very competitive. I would say this was one of the most physical games that I have been apart of (definitely since I've been here). This was especially the case for me. One of the things that has annoyed me the most about the refereeing in this league is that they call absolutely nothing off the ball. It has to be murder for them to make a call. Holding, grabbing, robbing, throwing, you could almost do whatever here. This is tougher for me because teams have really started to try and focus on doing as much of this as possible to me to try and slow me down. So far, I've done a really good job of playing through it, using other alternatives, and keeping my cool and not letting the defenders throw me off my game. BUT, that still doesn't mean it hasn't affected me physically. Saturday morning I was absolutely a wreck. So sore and bruised and knocked. At least thats all it was tho, and nothing serious. So I'm ok and as I'm writing this on Thursday, but wow it can take a toll especially if we have back to back games like we do this weekend. All in all tho, I had another good game against Cockburn, and was very satisfied with the result. 

Also like to note that this past Saturday I got to go to another AFL (football A.K.A. footy) game. This time it was a regular season game and the action was much more intense and interesting. Me talking about a physical basketball game compared to this game makes me almost want to never complain about getting bumped or bruised again. Maybe I should just suck it up. These guys absolutely look like they could kill each other sometimes. Made for some very entertaining football and a fun night.  

Nice Road Win

This past Saturday we made the road trip into somewhat of the interior of Western Australia to the mining town Kalgoorlie. This wasn't just a short ride, it was an 8 hour bus ride. This would equal about one of the longest bus rides I've ever made to play a game. The difference is that in the past we have never made such a long ride and then played the SAME day. Yep, thats what we did. Well not only did we do that but we played a really good game and ended up winning against one of the better teams in the league. They had also won the league championship each of the last two years. Needless to say, everybody was very excited. Of course we knew we could win, but given the circumstances of the trip and also that very few teams ever win there it was a good feeling, and made the ride home a lot easier. As for me, I also had a very good game. I think I scored like 21 points in the first half, and in the second half they made it more difficult by throwing a box in one on me and I finished with 30 points. However, late in the game they had cut our lead to 4 points and not too long after that I hit a couple big shots that gave us a little more space. That was then tho, and now we got another big game this week against the team that is tied with us atop the standings. So obviously, whoever wins will be in first place in the league at this moment. Let you know how it goes!!

Blowout

This past Thursday we had a very easy win. I believe we won by 41. It wasn't necessarily that the other team was very bad, but it was our most complete defensive performance thus far this season. We totally dominated the game defensively. In the third quarter alone we gave up only 7 points. Guys were all over the place on the defensive end, and this was the first time all year that it has been like that. I probably had my weakest offensive performance of the season (16 points on 5-15 shooting) but despite that still thought I played a good all around game. 

Our game was on a Thursday instead of the usual Friday or Saturday allowing for a long weekend without any commitments. I haven't really planned to do anything in particular. Several of the guys that I would usually hang out with have gone away for the holiday, so that's not really an option for me. I do know that Australia will get Masters coverage, so I'm sure I'll be finding time to check that out. Also hope to get out and about and maybe explore a little more of Perth and the local area. Who knows tho, we'll just have to see what comes about. 

Hope everybody has a wonderful Easter and takes time to reflect and appreciate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Win

We picked up another win Friday night here at Lakeside. I believe the final score was 111-89. It was a better showing by us compared to last weekend. Also helps to have our best rebounder back playing with us. We still have many areas that need improvement, but its always good to get a win regardless. Personally, I had a pretty solid game finishing with 30 points. 

Not a whole lot going on right now. Basically been relaxing a bit and then either practicing or working out. Although today (Sunday), is the first game for the 14 year old team that I am helping coach at Lakeside. Be interesting to see how that goes but it'll be fun. 

Also know that the Final Four games have been on and already played. I'm trying hard to keep my eyes and ears closed around here as to not hear or see the result of the games, to some success. I think I've heard that there was an upset. I'm guessing that that mean's either UCONN or UNC went down. Also, would mean that any hope I had at winning my bracket competition just died. My suspense will be lifted later tonight when the games will be broadcasted here. So hopefully, I won't hear anything else till then.