3 in a row!

Good morning everyone back home! Its a cloudy and misty day out over here in France which makes it a perfect opportunity to update the blog. Since I haven't updated the blog in awhile I am going to give you an overview of the last few games and the drama that went down in last nights game. We are currently on a 3 game winning streak after losing our first game of the season. We are sitting at 3-1 overall in the league. As you know we won our first game at home and then the following week we played Vichy where we got another home win under our belt. We ended up beating Vichy 84-48 which had us at 2-1 overall in the league. Which brings us to last nights game on the road vs Orleans.

This game was a very defensive minded game. Both teams were playing well on defense causing the other team to take tough shots. It was also a very physical game, there weren't many easy baskets to come by in this game. We jumped out to an early 10 point lead through the first quarter and a half. Orleans ended up cutting the lead to 9 by half time. Coming out of the half we were a bit sluggish and our defense wasn't clicking on all cylinders. Orleans ended up taking the lead by 5 going into the 4th quarter. We battled our way back and and were down 1 point with a 1:30 to go. We got a stop on defense and I called a screen and roll and got fouled coming off the pick. We were in the bonus so I got to shoot 2 free throws. I made both free throws and we went up by a point. We got a stop on defense, came down on offense and we hit a 2 pointer with 45 seconds to go, which put us up 3. Then we got another spot on defense, however we had a turnover immediately after that and Orleans hit a 3 pointer off the turnover to tie the game with 20+ seconds to go. We came down on offense ran a pick and roll and I passed it to one of our bigs who was right under the basket, he then passed it back out to Juby Johnson with 11 secs to go who hit the game winning 3 pointer to put us up by 3 with 10 seconds to go. Orleans missed on the offensive end and we ended up winning a dramatic game 62-59. It was a great win and a great shot by Juby to put us in the lead. Like I said before it was a defensive battle and points were hard to come by last night. Juby led the team with 13 points. I had 11 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists. And Chris Owens had 11 points as well to round out the guys in double figures. It was a great win for us which puts as at 3-1 overall.

We don't play again until Tuesday Nov. 9th so we have a little bit of a stretch before our next game. We play at home vs. Poitiers who is 1-3 but capable of beating anyone at anytime. It should be another good French League game. I hope you all are having a great Halloween back home. You know I always have to give my shout out, so today I want to give a shout out to my father-in-law Dave Durick who turned 50! Believe it or not Dave I even knew about your surprise party all the way over here in France. Hope you had a great time. Take care and God Bless you all! (Joshua 1:9)

First home game, First win

We had our first regular season home game on Saturday and we came away with a big win. Our record stands at 1-1. We played the defending champions Cholet and ended up beating them 88-52. We played a great game all around (defense, rebounding, shooting, etc). It finally felt like our team came together and played well for all 4 quarters. I think that everyone on the team is starting to understand our system and it definitely showed on Saturday night. We had 3 guys in double figures and 4 guys with 6 points or more. Cyril had 20 points and Yannick had 16 points. I had 17 points (5-11 FG, 1-2 3FG, 4-5 FT), 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. It was a great effort on our teams part and a great win for us.

Next Saturday we play at home again vs. Vichy who is currently 1-1 as well. They have a good team and it should be another great game at the Sportica. I look forward to filling you in with how the game goes next week. I want to give a shout out and congratulations to the newlyweds Travis and Sara Durick who got married on Saturday, wish I could have been there but I heard it was a great time. I will post again soon. God Bless (Jeremiah 29:11)

First game, 0-1

Hey everyone.. Sorry I haven't written on my blog in a long time. I do have a legit excuse however... my fiance is over here this year so instead of spending time on the computer updating the blog all the time I am traveling around France with her. I would say that is a fair excuse.

We had our first game on Saturday and we came away with a lose to Nancy 78-70. We didn't shoot the ball well at all (5-31 3FG). We also had some turnovers that lead to fast break points for Nancy that definitely hurt us. We didn't play our transition game well at all, and I don't know how many fast break points we got but it wasn't much at all. You have to give Nancy credit they played well and they got easy baskets in transition. Yannick Bokolo lead our team with 15 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. I had 10 points (3-7 TFG, 2-3 3FG, 2-2 FT), and 3 assists. You always want to start the year off by getting a win which we didn't do so that is kind of frustrating, but last year we started out 0-1 as well and we ended up having a pretty good year. Hopefully this year we will do the same.

Our next game is vs. Cholet on Saturday. They are the defending French Champions and it will be a tough one for us. It is at home and I am really looking forward to getting back on the court for some competition. We need to have a good week of practice for the preparation of Saturdays game. I will be updating more frequently now that the regular season has started so keep checking out the blog. Have a wonderful day and like always God Bless (Matthew 7: 7-8).