Last Home Game Highlights

Here is some highlights from our last home game vs Roanne. Thanks again to Cyril for creating the highlights. I will continue to put up highlights when I receive them from Cyril. I finally got videos on the blog I hope you enjoy!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hello again! I know I haven't been up to date on the blogs lately so I am going to fill you in on what's been going on over here in France. After our victory versus Roanne we played in a EuroChallenge game in Russia on Tuesday. Here is what my schedule consisted of earlier this week:

Monday- Left Gravelines 4:00am, Arrived in Russia at 8:30pm (we had a 2 hour time change, so all in all we were traveling for over 14 hours), 5 of my teammates lost their bags (eventually they were found), Stayed in a "so-called" hotel (really it was Bed & Breakfast), extremely long day and finally went to bed around midnight. I forgot to mention that as we were landing in Moscow about 500 feet up from the runway our pilot all of a sudden GUNS the engine and we are going back up in the air at a very steep climb. Well apparently there was another plane ON the runway we were about to land on. Luckly our pilot did a great job of keeping us safe and flying the plane back up in the air. We did a circle and then eventually landed. God was definitely looking out for us that day thats for sure!!

Tuesday- Breakfast at 10:00am, shoot-around at 11:30am, game started at 7:00pm, arrived back at the hotel around 9:45pm, had to get up the following morning at 3:45am (Wednesday morning) to catch a flight back to Paris, arrived in Paris around 2:00pm (Wednesday), bused from Paris to Gravelines and arrived in Gravelines FINALLY at 5:00opm (Wednesday night).

The game in Russia went well for us. We played pretty well the entire game and I believe we had 4 or 5 guys in double figures. The finally score was 77-66 which put our EuroChallenge record at 2-1.

Thursday- Had practiced and relaxed the rest of the day. My body was extremely tired from the long travel days.

Friday- We are back on the road again. We traveled to Dijon today because we have a French Pro A game tomorrow. Dijon is sitting at 4-6 I believe, but they are a very offensive minded team and can be very dangerous. It should be a great game tomorrow night.

After our game tomorrow we spend the night here in Dijon but then we bus to Paris and spend Sunday night in Paris. We are staying in Paris because we have to fly to Montenegro (spelling??) on Monday for another EuroChallenge game that we play out there on Tuesday. We will be on a 5 day road trip, and then we will get back to Gravelines on Wednesday December 16th. Then only 4 days and I will be back in the STATES!!

So there is a little bit about my hectic schedule that I have had recently. It has been a great time being with the team and it allows the time to go by extremely quick. Hopefully we can continue to play well with the rest of the games we have before Christmas. Below is a highlight video that my teammate Cyril created. He is nice enough to let me use the highlights from our games that he creates to put on my blog, so don't thank me for the video's he does all the work haha. The highlight video is from our most recent French game vs Roanne at home. ENJOY :)! I hope everything is going well and I will let you know how the next couple of games goes when I get back to France on Wednesday. Take care and of course God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

BCM wins (7-2)

I would first like to thank everyone that read my last blog and prayed for Amy and her family. I hope that you continue to pray for her and her family, they truly need it! Last night BCM came away with a great win at home. We played Roanne who was 7-2 at the time and I believe they were tied for 2nd place in our league. We came out in the first quarter on FIRE! It seemed like everything that we threw at the rim was going in. We ended up scoring 33 points in the first quarter. We continued to roll throughout the next two quarters and we were up by 30 points in the third quarter. Roanne had fight in them and they started knocking down shots in the 4th quarter and brought the lead to within 15 points. The final score was 84-71 BCM Gravelines. It was a great game to play in front of the fans that we have. I can't even explain anymore how crazy are fans are and how much fun it is to play in front of them. Last night it got so loud in the gym with drums banging, people clapping, and fans cheering I could hardly hear my teammates during the game. I gotta thank the fans for their support and hope they will continue to come support us. I ended up with 18 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1 steal. Our 3 man Cyril Akpomedah played a great game from top to bottom. He had 26 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist. He was the guy that got things rolling for us in the first quarter. It seemed like he was making every shot and that gave us a spark from the start of the game and we didn't look back after that. We all played a great team game last night and it was again enjoyable playing with the teammates that I have.

Overall, it was a great game for our team and a great win for us. It puts us at 7-2 in the league and in 3rd place. We are currently one game behind everyone else in our league because we had to postpone a game due to H1N1 virus. We have a pretty busy schedule coming up in the next couple weeks. We leave for Russia tomorrow morning at 4:45 am!! We have 3 straight road games ahead of us and then we have 1 home game Saturday the 19th. And then YES I will be flying home on the 20th.

I will post some highlights and photos when they are provided from our website. I hope everyone is getting excited for Christmas, celebrating Jesus birthday, and looking forward to spending quality time with the family, because I definitely am!! Have a wonderful night and lets go VIKES! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Prayers

Hey everyone... I got an e-mail from my Mom this morning and I got some news about a lady from Owatonna, Minnesota named Amy. Her husband died in a car crash this morning. I don't know who she and I have never spoken to her or her family before but I have heard that her and her family have been following my basketball career for a long time now. The husband worked with my good family friend Murri More.

Not only did Amy lose her husband in a car crash, she lost her son at the age of 4, and she just finished treatment for breast cancer. How much can a person take really?? Like I said I have never talked or met with this family before but I hear they are amazing people. I ask for everyone that reads this blog to say a prayer for Amy and her family. She needs the support and prayers.

Amy I am praying for you and your family. Stay strong! (Joshua 1:9)

EuroChallenge #2

Hello again!! I wanted to give you a quick update on our last game and also our up coming game. We played in Germany last night and we played the worst game our team has played. We ended up losing 81-51. OUCH I know! Basically on every aspect of the game we were terrible. We shot 2-24 from 3 point land and got out rebounded 47-24. It was a rough trip since we bused there and our bus ride was over 8 hours long. I got back this morning at 7:15am. We bused through the night and it wasn't enjoyable at all. Our EuroChallenge record is now at 1-1. We play this Saturday at home in a French league game. Every Tuesday we play a EuroChallenge game and Saturday's we play our French league games. Our next opponent in the French league is Roanne. They are currently 7-2 in our league. We are currently 6-2 in our league. We are one game back overall because our last game in French league got cancelled because the other team was contagious with H1N1. But, it should be an exciting game coming up on Saturday and I am really looking forward to it. I was planning on putting up full game videos on my blog however the videos are too big for my blog so it won't work. But, I will continue to put up pictures and highlights for you. Below is a highlight link from our first EuroChallenge game at home over Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?saison=&cat=4&id=2230

Thanksgiving, Games, Family

Hey everyone!! Sorry I haven't written a blog in awhile but I was with my family all week enjoying their company. My family got in last Saturday and they just left today for Paris. They had a chance to catch two of my games and we also had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving together. When my family got in on Saturday we had a game vs Cholet who was at the time in first place in our league. We ended up winning the game 79-75 in a battle. It was a very intense and physical game but we manage to hold off in the end and got ourselves a big win. We started the EuroChallenge this week and we had another game on Tuesday vs Budconust (I believe they were from Montenegro). Again it was a physical game but we came out with another win beating Budcnoust 70-59. So, our French ProA record stands at 6-2 and our EuroChallenge records is 1-0. I am really enjoying playing twice a week. The more games the better. A little FYI, our game tomorrow has been cancelled because some of the other players from Vichy (team we were going to play) have the H1N1 virus. We wont have another game until next Tuesday Dec. 1st.

As I stated before my family came to visit me over the week of Thanksgiving. It was wonderful being able to see them and having them at the games this past week. I ended up taking them to Brugge, Belgium to show them around a little bit and explore Europe a bit. We didn't have too much time to be able to do much because of the two games that we had and also because of our practices that we had. We manage to be able to get out on Monday and head to Brugge. It was a great place to sightsee and check out. I had never been there before and I thought it was a great place and a place that people should check out if they get the chance to. It is called the city of lights and the whole city center is lit up by lights. It looks really neat at night. My family and I thought that it was a lot of fun and very enjoyable. For Thanksgiving we cooked (meaning my Mom) our own little feast and it was spectacular. Mom cooked some turkey, corn, and potato's. It was amazing being able to sit down at the table with my family and have a nice enjoyable supper together! I was really happy that my family got to experience the lifestyle over here in France. It was funny seeing them try to interact with people over here. I really got a laugh when we went to the grocery store and they were trying to figure out what type of food is what. It was a wonderful week with my family, Thanksgiving, and a couple basketball games. I will be praying they have a great time in Paris and safe travels home.

Again sorry I havent written a blog in awhile but now that I am back to myself at my place and some time on my hands I will be written them more frequently haha. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, there is plenty that we can be Thankful for. I will write again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)!

Update, Preview of Upcoming Game

Good Afternoon! This week has gone by extremely fast and I wanted to give you a quick update on how things are going and a little preview of our next opponent. I won't have any other time to let you know how things are going so I figured I would write a quick note this afternoon. The reason I won't have much time to write tomorrow is because I am cleaning and doing some maintenance around the townhouse so it looks nice and clean for MY FAMILY!!! That's right my family will be here Saturday morning and they will be here through Thanksgiving. Now, just to let you know I am GEEKED, EXCITED, PUMPED, HAPPY, THRILLED, ANXIOUS, ETC, ETC that they will be with me for over a week. Those are just a couple words off the top of my head which describes how I'm feeling about there appearance in France. Finally, I will be coming home to my family after practices and games and will be able to communicate with them live and in person instead of via computer/skype. So thats a little bit about what I am looking forward to in the next couple days besides our game on Saturday.

Saturday we place the first place team in our league Cholet (6-1). We are currently 5-2 and in a tie for 3rd place in our league. We are at home this weekend and it should be a great game. I am looking forward to playing in front of our crazy fans again. Its always a great experience playing in front of the type of fans that we have. Hopefully we will have a sell out crowd again and the gym will be rocking. Cholet is a great team from top to bottom. They have a lot of players that have many different qualities. I am definitely looking forward to this next game. Well there is a little update about my family coming over and a little preview of our next opponent. The link below is some highlights from our last game. Again it is in French and there is more talking than highlights but that will have to do for now. Also I got the "OK" to put videos directly on my blog page but I am not so good with HTML so I am going to learn how to place a video in HTML from a staff member so you can view it directly on my blog page. I will get it eventually I promise haha. One other thing I want to ask you. I have the games that we have played on my computer and I was wondering if you would want me to put the entire game on my blog that way you can watch it??? Let me know through facebook, twitter, comments area, email. If I get enough people that would want to watch the entire game I will put them up. Take care and of course GOD BLESS. (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2227