Hoopin..

After reading my last post, I decided I wrote far too little about the real reason I am here in Germany: Basketball. Basketball thus far has been great. After two ok scrimmages in August, I finally got used to the Euro step and all it entails and have been doing great ever since. I am probably averaging around 20 points a game with a little under double digit boards and a consistent near foul out. The refs here are ridiculous. I swear they just absolutely despise Americans, I mean, how could they call fouls on me when all I do is stuff like this? I know what you may be thinking, but he ran into me, and he was a punk to boot. Deserved whatever he got, I say.

Last night we won our second cup game, putting us at 5 - 0 on the season. Andrew came to the game with his teammate and our agent, Daniel. It was nice having a familiar face in the crowd, so I obviously got some FGA's up. I was pretty tired coming into the game, but I managed to have around 25 or so with a bunch of rebounds, a few steals, and some assists. The other team had an absolute legend. He looked like a 40 year old biker gang member similar to this guy in the middle.

Yes, he was a bit overweight. On the first possession of the game, he backed in our center and turned around for a fade away shot that he pushed towards the basket from around his chest - nothing but net. He came down for the second possession and stroked a three from the other side of the court which I swear never went above 10.5 feet, just an absolute line drive destined for greatness. Of course, as soon as the second half rolled around he could barely get back on defense let alone get on the offensive side quick enough for a set. Therefore, he sort of roamed around the middle of the court for most of the second half while trying to take me out every chance he got, and the legend of the 40 year old, fat German biker Kobe Bryant was finished. If he came to America though, we could do some serious "White Men Can't Jump" schemes on people and make some dough, as long as we never played a game to more than 7.

With the other two Americans, Trevor and T, we have a great chance at winning every game we play here. The three of us probably score about 85% of the team's points but that is the way we like it. It is so different for me after coming from Amherst where we could have 6 people in double digits every single game. But, I will be honest, I like being the first or second option on offense every time down the floor. It is a nice feeling knowing that the rest of the team is looking at you to score constantly. The rest of the team is pretty young besides our captain Longos. He is an interesting one, but I will save that for a Keepin It Live post in the near future. This is a picture of us representing our main sponsor FMI systems. Just to let you know, I have absolutely no idea what FMI systems is or does. Our other roommate Marko is from Serbia. He is young but has a ton of potential, and has been really helping the team out as of late. Most of the younger guys do not have alot of the basic basketball knowledge like help side defense, etc., so it gets a bit frustrating at times, but they usually play hard and thats all a man like myself can ask for. We have around a 2 week break from games now, so that is all for basketball for a good while, but we are playing soccer against our fans on Friday. I will make sure I represent the Morris United Lightning Bolts in all its glory and score a few. I wonder if they exchange soccer patches after the matches?

- MFG