6 Day Road Trip

I just got back from a six day road trip last night. The travel was brutal....AGAIN! However, we did end up getting two wins. Our first game that we played was on Saturday vs Dijon. As I said before Dijon is a great offensive team that can pose a lot of trouble if you let them get hot. Dijon started out the game playing very well and they played well the entire game. We found ourselves down by 1 point at half. In the second half it was back and forth each team answering the other teams run. It was a very intense game and it ended up being very loud in the gym at the end of the game. The game was tied 81-81 with 20 seconds to go. I held the ball waiting for the clock to run down so that the other team wouldn't have much time if they ended up getting the ball back. With 8 seconds on the clock I made a move at the top of the key, but the defender played great defense and ended up stopping me. As that was going on my teammate Yannick Bokolo was cutting to the basket. I made a one handed pass to him in the middle of the lane and he make a remarkable contested lay with 4 seconds in the game. Dijon ended up calling a timeout. They drew up a play with 4 seconds to go and one of their players got a pretty good look at the basket but he missed the shot and we ended up winning 83-81 on a very great basketball game. That puts our record at 8-2 in French League play.

Our next game was out in Montenegro for our EuroChallenge. It was a very physical game especially from the opposing team. The refs were letting them grab, hold, bite haha believe it or not I got teeth marks in the back of my head from one of their players. The refs were very one sided which allowed the other team to stay in the game. I ended up making 4 free throws down the stretch to seal the game. J.K Edwards had a great game for us, shooting 75 percent from the floor and having 20 points. Followed by myself with 17 points (9-10 FT), and then a lot of guys between 7-9 points. It was a great team win and we definitely showed some poise out on the floor when the other team was begin cheap and the refs were one sided. It felt good to get a couple wins on the road especially after the long travel days that we had. Yesterday I got up at 4am and didnt arrive in Gravelines until 7pm. Flights were delayed and there was traffic coming back from Paris, all in all it makes to be a very long day. I will put up highlights from our trip when they become available. Our EuroChallenge record is at 3-1 with a tie for 1st place in Group A.

I am especially excited to be coming home in 3 days. We have a game this Saturday and then I come back to the states Sunday morning. I am going to be so happy to be able to spend time with loved ones and relax for a bit. I hope all of you have a wonderful time with your family and friends. Definitely enjoy it and be thankful you get the chance to spend time together! Take care and God Bless Joshua 1:9 (RIP Grandpa John, we love you and you will be missed, you are one tough son of a gun!! And tell grandma Carol I say hi I know you are chatting with her right now, she has been waiting for you up there!!)

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