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.

    These last few weeks of April have been pretty uneventful. Last weekend I stayed up at school for only the first or second time of this term. It was really good to not have anything planned and to just hang out for the weekend. Lately I’ve been pretty much addicted to the NBA playoffs. For those of you that know me, I’m sure this comes as a shock. I don’t exactly know the reason why but I can’t stop watching. Being from Atlanta it has been awesome to see the Hawks give the Celtics a run for their money. I’m not about to claim to be a Hawks fan because being born in Milwaukee I would say the hawks are my favorite team if I had to pick a favorite team. I’m definitely pulling for the Wizards to claw their way back and beat the Cavs even though it is looking next to impossible. I remember reading a really good article about Gilbert Arenas three or four years ago in ESPN and he has impressed me with his attitude. Sure he can be a ballhog but I love his attitude and his big mouth. Everybody is making fun of Arenas and Stephenson (even Brendan Haywood has gotten into the mix) for talking smack about Lebron and I’d love to see them win a couple more games.

Lately I’ve been trying to plan my class schedule for the summer and fall. I’m hoping to take two classes during summer school and underload both semesters next year. We got a new assistant coach after losing John Montgomery to go work for his dad up at Cal. Coach Vanderslice is coming to us from the University of Toledo and he seems like he’s going to fit in pretty well with our coaches and our staff.

My favorite band O.A.R. just announced they are coming out with a new cd in July and have 2 new tracks up on their myspace so I’m getting excited for the release of that. Overall I’m pretty much ready for school to end so I can get my 2 week break before coming back up here for summer school.

Well let’s see. Last Wednesday, the 9th, I drove down to North Georgia College and State University to see my favorite band - O.A.R.. A few of my friends from GCSU drove up for the show and O.A.R. was great as usual. It was my 8th show of theirs and once again I was inspired by their passion for their music. This past weekend I drove over to Athens once again to visit some friends there and had a great time down there. I was able to hang out with the infamous Matt Waldman.

The individual workouts, or shall I say individual weakness exposure sessions have continued. Its hard to not get frustrated at these workouts because it is literally 40 minutes of exposing your weaknesses but thats the only way to improve and I definitely have alot to improve on.

I’m reading Can I Keep My Jersey? by Paul Shirley. I’m about 100 pages in and its a great book for any basketball fan. He played for 11 different teams in 5 different countries in a span of 4 years. As a player I can relate to almost everything he is going through except getting paid to play. The book is an easy read and is very entertaining.

I’ve been listening to alot of O.A.R. lately. They are great about allowing fans to record their live shows and you can download them for free. I recommend downloading some of their stuff especially this show.

So this week will be the 5th week since our season ended. We started individual workouts last week and we started our lifting program a week before that. Personally one of the most important things for me to do this offseason is gain weight. This will come from building muscle in the weight room and also from just eating as much as possible. One of the biggest adjustments I had to make in my transition from high school to college basketball was competing with much more physically mature players than me. I can already tell after only 2 individual workouts that they will be an extremely important for my development as a player. We’ve also been playing alot of pickup lately. Watching the NCAA tournament on TV has us all itching to get back on the court so we’ve had some pretty competitive pickup games lately. These games give me a chance to work on things that are harder to work on in individual workouts such as driving and kicking, creating my own shot, and my on ball defense.

Since the season ended I’ve had more free time and have been able to take advantage of and catch up with some high school friends. Last weekend I drove down to Athens to see some good friends from high school and this weekend I drove over to Clemson to do the same thing. One of my biggest reasons for choosing Furman was the distance from home it was. Most of my friends went to places within 2hrs from Furman so I’ve been able to see most of them.

Music I’ve been listening to lately: The new cd by Virginia Coalition - Home this year -

What I’m reading: Nothing at the moment. Hoping to get either 40 Million Dollar Slaves by William Rhoden or Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich soon.

I’d just like to start off my saying welcome and thanks for checking out my blog. My name is Connor Nolte and I play basketball for Furman University. I recently started a sports website with some friends of mine called www.SamePageSports.com. I got the idea to do a personal blog after finding Bryan Smithson’s blog earlier this year. I plan on updating this blog regularly over the next few years as I continue my basketball career. If anyone has any questions please email me at Connor.Nolte@samepagesports.com.