Our third game of the year was against the Billikens of St. Louis University, a team coached by the infamous Rick Majerus. We arrived in St. Louis by plane early in the evening on the night before the game. We got situated at the hotel and hopped back on to our charter bus and went to grab some dinner before calling it a night. There was a Hard Rock Cafe not too far from the hotel that was in “the historic Union Station area” according to their website. It was Tony Anderson’s (one of our point guards) birthday and in order to receive his birthday dessert he had to stand on his seat and sing and act out “I’m a little teapot”. It was our first real road trip and it was a lot of fun.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the arena for our shoot around. For a mid major program, SLU plays in a great arena. They play in the same arena as the St. Louis NHL team, the Blues, play in. I guess the only drawback to this setup would be that you aren’t able to practice on the same court you play on which is always a good thing.

We played them pretty well and were only down by 3 or 4 at the half if I remember correctly. One of their best offensive players (Tommie Liddell III) was suspended or benched for the first half. It could have had something to do with his dad posting on their message board about how Majerus can’t coach.He entered the game a few minutes into the second half and the crowd went wild and their team really fed off of the energy. We ended up losing by 14 but it was a much closer game than the score indicates. You can imagine we were pretty embarrassed when later in the year they ended up scoring only 20 points as a team in a game.

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and most of my family still live in that area (most meaning 6 out of my 8 relatives). My cousin Ian and my aunt drove down from Milwaukee for the game and my dad and sister Lauren drove up from Atlanta for the game. Our shooting guard/point guard is from Peoria, Illinois and his family also came down for the game. We went out to find our families after we got dressed and we got our first autograph requests of our careers. It was pretty funny since it was from little kids that probably thought we played for SLU. I went back to the hotel, showered, and went downtown to a pizza place and got to spend some quality time with my family members that were in town. Its always great to have someone you know in town on the road.

Our team last year consisted of 8 active scholarship players: 5 freshmen, 2 juniors, 2 sophomores, 1 senior ( my roommate, Bryson Barnes, was another freshman on our roster but he redshirted). We were one of the only teams in the country to have 5 freshmen averaging 20+ minutes per game. In our second game of the season, we drove 30 miles down the road to face the Clemson Tigers of the ACC. We knew that last years team with 4 seniors had gone on the road beaten an eventual sweet sixteen team in Vanderbilt. We also knew that Clemson was supposed to be really good this year returning most of their players that were responsible for their 18-0 (or whatever it was) start last year.

I can honestly say that when I stepped onto the court for warmups and saw them getting ready for the game I was not afraid at all. Once again this surprised me, but I think this newfound confidence was because there was way less pressure on me to perform than there was in high school. In high school I was the focal point of our team and I had signed with Furman before our season even started so alot was expected of me. I guess I felt alot less pressure because with Furman I was not expected to do as much and being on a freshmen filled mid-major team means the pressure is all on the hyped up ACC team. Stepping on the court I really thought that our team which had alot of good shooters could hang with Clemson despite their size and speed.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first 7 minutes of that game. We went down 17-0. Clemson put on their full court press with NBA prospect James Mays guarding the ball and KC Rivers and Demontez Stitt ready to join Mays to trap the first pass. We turned the ball over 37 times that game which ended up being a record. The game was never in reach after that. Late in the first half I froze up on an inbounds play and was late to receive a pass resulting in the ball being tipped off my hands and almost going out of bounds. I barely beat a Clemson player to the ball he bumped me causing me to lose my balance and fall out of bounds. The ref kindly called the foul and I went to the line to shoot a 1-and-1. Free throws were kind of my thing in high school (I once made 3 in a row when we were down by 2 with 3.6 seconds on the clock to win a game). I shot 59 freaking percent this year but at Clemson I managed to go 2 for 2. About 7 or 8 of my friends from high school came up for the game and of course I was embarrassed we almost got our score doubled but they were just proud to see me out on the court and that I got in the books.

Since its the offseason and not much is going on right now basketball wise and because I wasn’t bloggings during the season, I thought I’d revisit my freshman year. As of right now my freshman year academically is still going on but my freshman season is over.

For our first regular season game played UNC-Asheville. I had played pretty well in the exhibition game, scoring 11 points in 15 minutes or so. We drove up to Asheville a few hours before tip off. I remember being surprised at the fact that I wasn’t nervous at all, whereas in high school and AAU ball I was usually nervous before games. The Asheville team was going through their warmups without their center, Kenny George, but he soon made his way onto the court. This guy is absolutely HUGE. He is one of those players that you can tell he tries harder than anybody on the court. He had at least one dunk in the game where he literally didnt leave the ground. We were down by 7 or 8 for most of the game from what I can remember. I scored my first collegiate points in that game. It was a three pointer from the left wing. I caught and fired and there was a little contact and I did the old “fall down so if the shot doesn’t go in I can argue for a foul” thing. The shot went in and no foul was called. I think I only did that move once or twice more the entire season which is pretty good considering I did it about once a game in high school. I didn’t get any rebounds and I left this game thinking that rebounding was impossible.

I’m 6′6″, 6′7″ and #41 on my team, Alex Opacic is 6′10″… Kenny George is 7′7″

I definitely have a bad case of Spring/Summer fever.  I really can’t wait to go home for summer.  Since Furman is on the Trimester schedule we don’t start until 2 or 3 weeks after other Universities but we don’t get out until the end of May.  Thankfully this is the last year we’ll be on that schedule.  But now that we are switching to semesters we will have a shorter summer than usual which isn’t really a big deal to most students but for basketball and football players those 2 or 3 weeks is a big deal. I’ll be home for 10 days in between my last final of spring term and the start of summer school and then I’ll be home for 4 weeks after summer school ends.  So basically I’ll have a 5.5 week summer. I’m not really complaining though. That is one of the things you have to do when you are a college athlete and being on a full scholarship is a pretty sweet thing.

This weekend is beach weekend at Furman. Almost all teachers cancel Friday’s classes and all the fraternities rent out blocks of rooms at hotels in Myrtle Beach and then a bunch of students rent out rooms from the frats. I ended up going to Hilton Head with some friends from high school. We got here after The Office was over but we did make it in time for the Spurs Hornets game. I’m not a big Chris Paul fan at all. I lost all respect for him after he punched Julius Hodge in the nuts during a game when they were in college. I think Lakers/Celtics would be a great series or Spurs/Pistons too even thought it would be a completely different style. Basically, I just don’t really want to see the Jazz, Hornets, Magic, or Cavs in the finals.