Inside My World

Final Post of the Year

2011-06-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I know I haven't updated the blog in a long long long time and I apologize for that. I want to give you a final blog post of this year and let you know how we finished up. We ended up losing in the Semi-Finals to Cholet (champions last year). We didn't have our best defensive series which really hurt us. It was a great season for us and I am happy our team did. I want to thank the fans of BCM for their support throughout the season. It was an honor to play in front of you. I also want to thank my teammates for a wonderful year. It was great being able to play with you guys and I really enjoyed your company. As for me I am heading back to USA on Sunday. I plan on taking some time off to let the body heal (even though it is extremely hard for me to do that), and then I am going to get right back into the gym and get better. I plan on doing some golfing in the next couple of days and seeing my family. I hope you enjoyed following the blog this year even though I was below average at posting haha. I hope everyone has a great summer and until next time... au revoir (goodbye). God Bless, Joshua 1:9

EuroChallenge Awards, Final 2 games

2011-05-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.. We are down to 2 regular season games this year. We play tomorrow night vs Limoges and next Tuesday at home vs. Nancy. We are trying to finish out the regular season strong. We are currently 19-9 tied for 2nd with two other teams. We have been playing really well together on the offensive end and also defensively. I have struggled the past two games. Last game I had 3 points (0-4 2FG, 1-5 3FG), 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. But thats the game of basketball and I am happy that I get another chance to go out and play tomorrow night. More importantly is that we are continuing to win and we are getting it done on the defensive end. Hopefully we can continue that way for the rest of the season and finish strong.

I know a lot of you voted for me for the MVP of EuroChallenge and I appreciate the votes. Below I copied a link that you can check out and see the final awards of the EuroChallenge. It has been an exciting season both in the French League and the EuroChallenge. I am looking forward to playing these last 2 games and see what seed we get for the playoffs. I will keep you updated on how things are going. FYI- Its been 70-80 degrees most days here in France.. Loving the sun!!! Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.eurobasket.com/EuroChallenge/basketball.asp?NewsID=224973

Update , Update

2011-04-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I want to update you on how things are going over here in France. We are currently 17-9 in the standings and tied with 3 teams for third place. Coming off of back to back road losses we had a game last night at home vs Paris and we played extremely well. It was a game in which we needed to get our defense back and be efficient on offense at the same time. We lead from the start to finish never relinquishing the lead. We had 5 guys in double figures. Juby lead the way with 17 points, Jeff Greer had 16, Dounia had 14, and Mo 12. I had 15 points (5-7 2FG, 1-6 3FG), 14 assists, 5 steals, and 3 rebounds. It was a solid game for us and hopefully we can continue it onto next weekend. We play Le Mans on the road next Saturday. We have 4 games remaining in the regular season and then playoffs start.

Everything else is wonderful over here in France, it has been very nice with temperatures ranging between 60-80. Tonight is looking like a great night to grill, sun is shining and it is beautiful out. Not trying to rub it in to people back home haha but I hope the weather starts getting nice for you guys! Gotta get out on those golf courses! Have a great day. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

15-7

2011-03-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! We had a game last night against Strasburg at home and we came away with a 71-69 victory. Our record stands at 15-7 and tied for 3rd place. It was a hard fought game by both teams and it came down to shooting free throws at the end. I made 1-2 FT with 14 seconds left putting the score at 71-69. Then they came down and we fouled, however there player missed the first free throw. He missed the 2nd free throw on purpose, the ball was tipped around and eventually the clock ran out. We had 4 players in double figures. Mo had 12 points, Jeff Greer had 11, and Cyril had 10. I had 21 points (8-11 2FG, 1-3 3FG, 2-4 FT), 9 assists, and 3 rebounds. Yannick Bokolo is out with a hamstring injury right now so it was extremely nice to see guys set up and contribute in his absence. We play again on Tuesday in the EuroChallenge Final 8 vs a very good Russian team. Should be an interesting game and I will let you know how it goes. Time for me to check out these NCAA games! God Bless you all! Joshua 1:9

Long time, No Post

2011-03-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well it has been quite a long time since I have posted on the blog. We have had quite a few games since I last posted so I am going to give you a summary of what's been going on. We are currently 14-7 in French League play with a loss last Saturday down in Pau. We are tied for 4th place with Roanne and we have a game tomorrow vs Strasburg at home. Hopefully we can play some good basketball and come away with a win. Last Tuesday we played in a French Cup game at home vs. Asvel which we ended up also losing the game 74-70 (so we have no more French Cup games, lose and your done). We are on a 2 game losing skid right now but hopefully that will change on Saturday. We are still playing in the EuroChallenge and we have a game next Tuesday at home. We are in the final 8 right now and we play a very good Russian team. The winner in a best of 3 series advances to the final 4. We have 9 regular season French League games remaining in our schedule. Time is sure flying by over here. Not much else is going on in the basketball world, playing a couple times a week (which I haven't been updating about, my apologies).

Other than that things have been pretty nice over here in France. Weather is nice, a couple days ago it got up to 61 degrees. Spring is right around the corner. Shout out to Lynn Jordheim for getting on my a** about updating the blog, thanks I definitely needed it I have been slacking lately on the updates haha! I will try to do a better job updating, but how can you blame me when I have such a wonderful fiance keeping me company this year. Last year I would always update because it was keeping me sane haha!!! Hope everyone has a wonderful MARCH MADNESS!! How the brackets looking? Take Care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Big Road Trip

2011-02-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon everyone! I am finally back in Gravelines after a week of being on the road. First we played in a mid-season tournament for the Top 8 teams in our French League called the "Week of Aces." We ended up winning the tournament and I officially have my first professional championship! It was an amazing feeling celebrating on the floor after the game. We ended up playing 3 games in 4 days in order to win the tournament. We played Chalon in the championship game with the score being 79-71! We had 3 guys in double figures. Yannick Bokolo came away with the MVP scoring 23 points and 5 rebounds, Cyril had 19 points. I almost had a triple double with 17 points (4-8 2FG, 1-5 3FG, 6-6 FT), 9 rebounds, and 8 assists. It was a wonderful experience and I feel extremely blessed in winning my first championship as a pro!

After winning the championship of the Week of Aces, the next day we took and early flight to Sweden to play a game in the EuroChallenge. We ended up winning 94-87, which means that we are going to qualify for the Top 8 of EuroChallenge. We are 4-0 in our group and in 1st place. First place and second place both move on into the Top 8. It was a rough start for us at the beginning of the game. You could definitely tell that the traveling over the past 5-6 days was catching up to us. However we stuck together and pulled away in the second half. We had 4 guys scoring in double digits. Cyril had 24 points, Yannick had 12, Jeff Greer had 11. I had 21 points (3-8 2FG, 3-3 3FG, 6-8 FT) 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals. It was quite the road trip for us men at BCM, however it was well worth it. Coming away with a championship and qualifying for the Top 8 in EuroChallenge, definitely makes the long road trip a lot more pleasant. Time to do some relaxing! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Good road win

2011-02-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Well I got back this morning from our road game at 7:45am. We bused back after the game and it took seven and a half hours. It was an extremely long road rip, however we came away with a win so that makes the trip a little better. It was a nice road win for us vs Vichy. Vichy has some of the best fans in the league and it is always a tough place to play. The final score was 75-61. Both our big men played great games. Mo had a double double with 15 points and 10 rebounds and Dounia Issa also had a double double with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Jeff Greer was the only other player in double figures with 15 points. I struggled from the field yesterday missing lay-ups and open pull ups. I finished with 9 points (2-12 2FG, 1-3 3FG, 2-2 FT), 7 assists, and 6 rebounds. It was a great win for us putting our record at 11-6. We are currently still in 5th place.

This week we are playing in the "Week of Acres". It is a tournament which is held for the top 8 teams in the league at the half way mark. It is a three day tournament, if you win you keep playing if you lose you are done. Our first game is on Thursday vs Roanne. The tournament is being held in Pau, which is in the south of France. Thats about all I have for you now. Things are going well over here and we are staying busy. AJ's folks are coming over in 11 days and we are VERY excited to have them visit. It will be a great spending some time with them. Hope you all have a great Sunday. Superbowl! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

3-0 EuroChallenge Group

2011-02-03T04:44:00.001-08:00

Good afternoon! We had a EuroChallenge home game on Tuesday and we came away with a 74-70 win. It was an intense game from start to finish. Our record sits at 3-0 in our group and we are in first place. Every other team in our group has a record of 1-2. Hopefully we can keep it rolling and advance into the next round. We had 4 guys in double figures. Cyril had 10, Juby had 11, Mo Sene had 15 points and 10 rebounds. I had 30 points (8-12 2FG, 2-4 3FG, 8-8FT), 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Our next EuroChallenge game isn't for a couple weeks because we play in a tournament called the Week of Aces next Thursday.

Our next league game is Saturday down in Vichy. Vichy has some of the craziest fans in the league so it is going to be a loud and exciting atmosphere to play in. I am looking forward to it. Not much else going on, I hope that everyone is safe from the big storm and staying warm. Take care and God Bless. (Joshua 1:9)

Euro Win, League Loss

2011-01-31T05:49:00.000-08:00

We have had a couple of games under our belt since I last updated the blog. First we played down in Portugal for a EuroChallenge game and came away with a 67-64 come back win. Our defense struggled in the first half and we found ourselves down a couple baskets. The second half was a different story. We held them to 23 points total in the second half. Our defense really stepped up which allowed us to make our comeback and eventually win the game. We had 4 guys scoring in double figures. Yannick Bokolo and Jeff Greer both had 11 points, Mo Sene had 15 points. I had 17 points (4-9 2FG, 0-1 3FG, 9-10 FT) 5 assists, and 1 rebound. We are currently 1st in our group for the EuroChallenge with a record of 2-0. We play tomorrow night again at home vs a team from Latvia.

On Saturday we had a league game on the road in Cholet. I am going to try to keep this as short as possible, because it was the most frustrating game I have ever played in. I have NEVER seen a game refereed so poorly in my life. It is going to be to hard to explain all the details that went on during the game, but basically I fouled out while only playing 15 minutes. Every time I stepped on the floor the whistle would be blowing and they would be giving me a foul. I ended with 5 points (2-4 2FG, 1-2 FT) and 5 fouls in 15 minutes of action. It was a complete joke! We had 3 guys in double figures. Yannick had 11, Cyril had 10 and Juby Johnson had 15. We were down by one with 10 seconds to go and Juby had a shot for the win but it rattled out and we ended up losing 69-68. Thats all I can write about this game because even as I am writing this little paragraph I am getting heated and I have a little sweat forming on my forehead. Our record stands at 10-6 in league and we are currently in 5th place.

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Monday back home. Quick shout out to the Bison for getting that 2OT win on Saturday night. Tveidt scoring with a last second alley-oop lay up, so congrats to the Bison. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Great Win

2011-01-23T04:08:00.001-08:00

Good afternoon everyone! Friday night we played against Limoges and we came away with a 87-73 victory. Limoges has the top scorer in the league and they are capable of winning any game they play so it was nice to get a home win. Limoges played zone defense the entire game. They actually played a Box-in-one on me. A box-in-one is when they have a player face guard me everywhere I go on the court and deny me the ball. Basically its a defense to try and keep the ball out of my hands as much as possible. I must admit I would have never thought that a professional team would play box-in-one, usually you see that type of defense at the high school level. But, in the end it worked out best for us and we got a great win. We had 3 guys score in double figures. Juby Johnson had a great game with 24 points. Yannick and Cyril chipped in with 19 points and 12 points. I had 9 points (2-6 2FG, 1-5 3FG, 2-2 FT), 6 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1 turnover. Overall it was a great win for us and it puts us at 10-5 in the league now and currently still in 5th place.

We have a EuroChallenge game coming up on Tuesday in Portugal and then a French League game on the road in Cholet. It will be another big week for us and as always looking forward to playing a couple games a week! Hope everyone is doing well back home, we are thinking about you all! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

EuroChallenge Win

2011-01-20T07:09:00.001-08:00

How is everyone doing this Thursday afternoon? Things are going pretty well over here in France. It is cloudy this afternoon however I would take that over the weather that people are getting back home right now. On Tuesday night we played a team from Sweden in the EuroChallenge Top 16. We came away with a 75-65 win. The Sweden team played really well in the first half and ended up scoring 47 points. We turned our defense on in the 2nd half and held them to 18 points. It was a nice win for us at home before we play again tomorrow night vs Limoges. We had 3 guys scoring in double digits. Cyril played well with a double double; 15 points and 12 rebounds. Yannick Bokolo had 10 points. I had 23 points (8-12 2FG, 1-3 3FG, 4-6 FT) 7 rebounds, 4 assists. I also had 5 turnovers that I wasn't very happy about. It was a good first win for us in this round of the EuroChallenge. Now we have been focusing on our game tomorrow night. As I stated before we are playing Limoges who is a very good team. They have a number of different guys that can score the ball and they play well together. It is going to be a tough and exciting game. My agent Brad Ames will be coming to check out the big city of Gravelines (joke!) and watching us play so that is another perk for the game on Friday.

I hope that everyone is staying warm back home. Shout out to my sister who broke her foot a couple weeks ago. Get better, we are thinking about you, love ya! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Winning way

2011-01-16T03:56:00.001-08:00

Good morning! We had a game on Friday night down in Hyeres-Toulon and came away with a big road win. Toulon was one game behind us in the standings so it was great to get a win and get a little bit of separation. It was a great game defensively for us which allowed us to come away with a 91-68 win. We had 4 guys in double figures. Juby Johnson and Yannick Bokolo both had 18 points, Cyril had 12 points. I had 21 points (3-4 2FG, 3-4 3FG, 6-6 FT), 2 rebounds and 8 assists. I was impressed with our defense because Toulon is a team that likes to outscore their opponents and they have the players that can put up big numbers. Our record stands at 9-5 in league and currently in 5th place.

This week we have a EuroChallenge game on Tuesday and a French League game on Saturday. We are back to playing 2 games a week for the moment. I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Loss to Le Mans

2011-01-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

Good evening! We had a French League home game on Saturday and suffered a defeat by Le Mans 86-91. It was a rough game for us defensively. We found ourselves making rotation errors and giving the other team some open shots which they made us pay. The entire game it was back and forth with neither team extending the lead by more than double digits. We had 3 guys scoring in double figures. Yannick Bokolo had 17 points and Ruby Jomby had 10 points. I had a double double with 26 points (5-8 2FG, 4-5 3FG, 4-5 FT), 11 assists, and 2 rebounds. It was a frustrating game defensively letting Le Mans score 91 points after last weekends performance by us when we held Paris to just 55 points. We have to get back on the defensive track and play well because on Friday we play a high powered offensive team in Hyeres-Toulon. I will keep you updated and let you know how it goes.

Congrats to the Bison Mens Bball team in getting 2 big conference wins at home this past weekend. I ask that you say some prayers for the victims families down in the Arizona shootings. What a horrible event that took place and there are people that definitely need your prayers. Well, I hear my name being called from the kitchen so it must be time to eat a wonderfully cooked meal by my fiance :):)!! I hope you all have a splendid day! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Nice Road Win

2011-01-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

Last night we played down in Paris and we came away with a nice road win, winning 76-55. It was a close game throughout the 1st half, we found ourselves down by 1 at half. In the 2nd half our defense really put on the pressure forcing Paris to turn the ball over and allowing us to get easy baskets in transition. It was nice to see our defense hitting on all cylinders. Our record stands at 8-4 in the league. We had 4 guys in double figures last night. Yannick and Cyril both had 10 points, Jeff Greer had 16 points. I ended with 18 points (8-13 2FG, 0-1 3FG, 2-2 FT), 8 assists, 6 rebounds, and 2 steals. I have to say thanks to our fans who traveled down to Paris to support us. It was great seeing you fans in the stands! Come support us Saturday when we play Le Mans. As I just stated our next home game is vs Le Mans, it should be another great game. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!! It has been pretty hectic over here France between traveling, practice, All-Star game, and traveling some more. I will give you a little insight on what has been going on lately. So AJ and I went back to the USA for 4 days during Christmas break. It was a short break however it was well worth it. We went to AJ's parents house and my family came up and visited and we all celebrated a wonderful Christmas together in Fargo. Definitely thankful for the wonderful families we have! After Christmas we boarded a plane back to Paris where we met Dimer (Mike Nelson) and Shan (Shannon) and we all took a train back to Gravelines. Dimer was also on break from his team in Switzerland and he celebrated Christmas in Paris so it was a perfect opportunity for us to get together for a few days. They stayed with us for two days up in Gravelines, and during that time I had practice both days and then I had to head back down to Paris for the All-Star game. So we all went down to Paris where us 4 went out to eat one night and enjoyed each others company. On Dec. 30th I was part of the 2010 All-Star game where the USA (foreigners) beat France. I had 7 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals in the game. They had a dunk contest and a 3 point contest during the all-star game as well. It was great opportunity to put on a show for the fans. Immediately after the game I had to go back to Gravelines with AJ because we had practice at 10am the next day. Unfortunately we didn't get back to Gravelines until 4am so the next day I was pretty tired. We had practice the next day (Dec. 31st) and then on Saturday, Jan 1st our team traveled back to Paris because TODAY (Jan. 2nd) we are playing Paris. WOW!!! and that is my hectic week in a nut shell. So currently I am sitting in a hotel room in Paris waiting to go to our game at 5pm. It should be a great game tonight and hopefully we can come out with a win. We are currently 7-4 in league games and sitting in 5th place.

I also want to mention that we made it to the Top 16 in EuroChallenge. We won't play a game for a couple more weeks, however it is nice knowing that we will be playing twice a week again in the near future. Its time for me to get some lunch before the game. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! Shout out to Dimer and Shan: thanks for visiting us, we had a great time and hopefully we can make something happen again at the end of the year! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Another Loss

2010-12-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

Tough loss last night for BCM at home. We played the #1 team (Roanne) in the league and lost 80-74. This loss definitely hurts us and puts us all the way back to 5th in the league right now. Its still a long season but I really wanted that game last night. Roanne ended up hitting 17 three pointers. They scored 51 out of their 80 points off of 3 pointers. We had 3 guys in double figures last night. Juby had 10 points and Yannick had 15 points. I had 25 points (7-14 2FG, 2-4 3FG, 5-8 FT), 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals. You have to give credit to Roanne they were hot last night and it didn't seem like they ever missed. We have to get ready for our next game on Tuesday. We have a EuroChallenge game at home vs a Hungarian and if we win by more than 2 points we qualify for the next round. So no matter how much last nights game hurts we need to get ready to play a big game on Tuesday.

Otherwise not much else is new over here in France. We are getting some snow right now, not nearly as bad as it is back home but it is the most I have seen over here in France. Looking forward to spending time with the family of Christmas. Shout out to my sister Bryn, she is currently the starting point guard for her high school team as a 9th grader. She is doing really well so keep up the good work! Thats all for now, take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

EuroChallenge

2010-12-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

Good evening, it is cold over here in France but I am guessing that it isn't as bad as back home. Its a perfect night for some hot chocolate and a movie!! I wanted to fill you in on our last EuroChallenge game out in Russia. We played the team that beat us earlier in the year by 40, except this time it was a much closer game. We ended up losing 85-77 but it was a pretty good game throughout. I ended up with 15 points, 7 assists, 2 steals and 2 rebounds. We are currently 2-3 in EuroChallenge, however if we beat the Hungarian team at home next Tuesday by more than 2 points we will advance to the next round of EuroChallenge.

Speaking of looking ahead we have a big game tomorrow night vs Roanne. They are currently in 1st place in our league at 8-2. We are right behind them at 7-3. The game is sold out for tomorrow night and it is live on TV across France. It should be a pretty exciting atmosphere in the Sportica. Hopefully we can get things rolling again and have a great game defensively. Well that is all for now, I just got the call from the kitchen that supper is ready, and boy do I love my fiances cooking!!! Have a wonderful night and stay warm. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

7-3 French League, Tough Loss

2010-12-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

Good evening. I am currently sitting in another hotel room in Paris this evening. I thought it would be a wonderful time to update you on how the past couple games have gone. We were 7-2 after 9 games with a win over Asvel. In that game we had 4 guys in double figures. I had 16 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, and 5 steals. We won the game 73-67. At that time we were tied for first place in our league.

However, after last night's tough loss we dropped back in the standings now. We lost last night to a good Chalon team. The final score was 80-70. We found ourselves slow from the start and we were down 20 points at half. We came storming back and brought it within 6 points with 4 minutes to go. They hit back to back 3's which pretty much sealed the deal for them. Our standing is now at 7-3 tied for 2nd with 3 other teams. It is definitely disappointing losing that game, but it is a long season and we need to stay focused and continue to get better. In that game we had 4 guys in double figures. Cyril had 15 points, Yannick had 10 points, and Juby had 11 points. I ended with 23 points (6-8 2FG, 1-4 3 FG, 8-9 FT), 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 5 steals. Its a tough loss but now we have to regroup and get ready for our next game.

As you know I am in Paris we are waiting to catch a flight tomorrow for St. Petersburg, Russia. We are playing in a EuroChallenge game Tuesday night. It is going to be a tough game, since we lost to this team last time by 40 points. We didn't play well at all and this time we should put up a better fight. I hope everyone back home is safe with the storms that are traveling through. Shout out to both Bison Men's programs (football and basketball), they both played great the other night. Tough call by the refs on the football end of things and mens basketball took it too UND. Nice work! I need some rest so I will talk to you later. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

6-2 French League, 1-1 EuroChallenge

2010-11-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Hey there! I am currently sitting in a hotel room waiting to go to Hungry tomorrow morning to play another game in the EuroChallenge. We play a Hungarian team (1-1) and it should be a good game. I know that I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, I guess thats what happens when the family is in town for a week you tend to forget about updating the blog. So please bear with me throughout this update:

Nov. 20th- We played a French League game at home vs. Pau. We won 80-68, we had 3 guys in double figures. Bokolo had 21 points, Johnson had 18 points and I ended with 17 points (2-8 2FG, 1-5 3FG, 10-13 FT), and 11 assists. It was the first double double for me of the year and it was nice because that was the first game my family got to see. It was a good win for us and it brought our record to 5-2 overall in the French League.

Nov. 23rd- We played one of our EuroChallenge games at home. It was not a good game for us. This is the worst that we have been beaten since I have been a part of BCM. We got beat by a very good Russian team 58-98. It was a 40 point shellacking! We had a few guys that were injured and we were definitely out matched. One of there players scored 27 points inside in the first half. We didn't get any stops on defense and they really outplayed us from top to bottom. Enough about that game ha!

Nov. 27th- Last night we played an away game vs. Strasbourg. They are an excellent home team and it was a fight all the way to the finish. We came out on top 90-81. We had 4 guys scoring double figures. Cyril had 13 points, Issa had 14 points, Bokolo had 20 points. I had 21 points (5-9 2FG, 0-3 3FG, 11-13 FT) 4 assists, and 2 steals all coming in the 2nd half. I got called for 2 fouls (terrible calls) right away in the first half and I had to sit the entire half. I was quite frustrated at halftime and the fire was burning inside me. I keep my focus and decided to be even more aggressive in the 2nd half. It ended up being a good night for our team and a great win for us. Our record stands at 6-2 in the league and tied or first place. Hopefully we can keep things rolling next weekend when we play Asvel at home.

Like I said before we fly out to Hungry for a EuroChallenge game tomorrow morning. It will be a new adventure for me heading to a country that I have never been to before. I will let you know how the game goes in the next update. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (we have plenty to be thankful for)! Shout out goes to my Mom and Dad, thanks for spending a week with AJ and I here in France. It was great to be with you guys and spend some time with you, we had a blast and are thankful you came over. Not to mention the Thanksgiving feast we had at the house was EXCELLENT!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Tough L

2010-11-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon! Its rainy and cloudy here in Gravelines for what seems to be the 20th day in a row. We haven't had the sun peek out in a long time. I better get used to it though because thats the way the winters are over here; cloudy and rainy.

On Friday we had a game down in Le Harve and came back with a 76-70 loss. The score doesn't show how bad we really played. We were down 22 at halftime. It seemed like every shot they took they were making, but thats because we let their offense get into a flow. We didn't pressure well enough and we flat out weren't playing aggressive on defense and thats how you get down 22 points by halftime. We came out in the 2nd half fighting our way back. We ended up being down 4 points with a minute to go but they made a couple more fast break points and we ended up losing the game by six. Yannick had 16 points, Jeff Greer had 11, I had 14 points (1-6 2FG, 2-7 3FG, 6-6 FT), 4 assists in 24 minutes of play. It was a tough loss for us and our record stands at 4-2 overall. We are tied for 2nd with four other teams. Hopefully we can bounce back next weekend when we play Pau.

We are heading out to Russia tomorrow morning for a EuroChallenge game. We start the EuroChallenge games this week and we play every Tuesday. So our playing schedule is every Tuesday and Saturday until Christmas. Tuesday being the EuroChallenge games and Saturday being our French League games. I am looking forward to playing twice a week. My family is coming across the pond to visit next weekend so AJ and I will enjoy their company. My shout out goes to Michael Tveidt today for getting the Bison Mens BBall team their first win of the season and going over the 1,000 point mark, so congrats to Tveidt thats a great accomplishment. Thats all for now, gotta head to practice and get better today. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Food Poisoning and a Win (4-1)

2010-11-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon! We had a little schedule change this past weekend and instead of playing last Saturday we had a game last night at home vs Poitiers. Before I get to the game I wanted to tell you what has been happening over here in France leading up to the game on Tuesday. On Sunday night all of a sudden I notice that my stomach doesn't feel so good and figure I just have a normal stomach ache. I should just drink some water and head to bed. Little did I know what was about to happen the rest of the night. I was up the whole night with food poisoning! I vomited from 12am-9am all of Sunday night and into Monday morning. My body finally decided to keep things down around 10am, so the rest of Monday I laid around all day nibbling on 2 pieces of toast and drinking sips of water. Not knowing how I was going to feel on Tuesday for the game and my body was so fatigued that I feel asleep at 9pm Monday night and woke up Tuesday morning at 9am for shoot around still feeling very groggy. Tuesday afternoon comes around and I haven't really eaten anything the past 24 hours and I really don't feel like eating anything. So I basically went to the game Tuesday night on an empty stomach. When I was sitting in the locker room waiting before the game I had no energy and I was wondering how I was going to make it through this game. So I decided to say some prayers to the Lord because I always know I can go to Him.

We came away with a 94-60 win! We played well on defensive throughout most of the game except in the 2nd quarter. They made a little run in the 2nd however we stepped up our defense and came away with a great win. We are sitting at 4-1 in league right now. We had 5 guys in double figures. Cyril had 16 points, Yannick had 10 points, Jeff Greer had 14 points, Juby Johnson had 12 points. I ended the game with 28 points (9-14 TFG, 5-7 3FG, 5-7FT), and 9 assists, so back to asking the Lord for some strength, I all of a sudden felt great during the game and I felt like I could have played for days, I wonder where that strength came from, I'll let you decide that one ;)! All in all it was a great win for our team, we play again on Friday at Le Harve. I am feeling a lot better today and I am finally eating food and it tastes delicious!! Gotta jet to practice, God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

3 in a row!

2010-10-31T04:13:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

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).

Back to Blogging

2010-08-19T01:59:00.000-07:00

Hey!!! As you can see I am back to blogging again, which means that I am back in France. However this year is a little bit different than last year. This year I am joined by my fiance Amanda. She will be staying with me all year long even though she will go back a few times for weddings, family, etc. But, I am ever happy to have her over here this year. Yesterday we got to France early in the morning and stayed awake all day long so that we wouldn't have jet lag too bad. This morning I am feeling pretty good but we will see how I feel later this afternoon. This morning I already went in for my beginning of the year foot appointment and later on I have to take a couple medical tests. Trying to get all this medical appointments that I do ever year done as soon as possible.

Well I wanted to write you a let you know that we made it safely to France and it will be another fun filled journey this year. Looking forward to updating and connecting with people back home. I want to give a shout out to my boy Mike Nelson who is going to be heading over to Switzerland to play this year. He definitely deserves it and I know that the team will really enjoy having him around. Thats it for now, chat again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Back to France.

2010-08-02T11:39:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, it has been a long and exciting off season for me this summer. I have been training, playing with Golden State Warriors for summer league, got engaged to my wonderful fiance and now I am returning to France for my second professional career with my team from last year Gravelines, France. I am really looking forward to getting back to France to continue my professional career. I am also looking forward to playing with my old teammates from last year (Bokz, Cyril, Juby) and also looking forward to meeting our new teammates that have joined the ride this summer.

I thought I would give you a quick update on what I am doing. I look forward to writing on my blog again this year to give you updates on games. Have a wonderful day. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Summer League

2010-07-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! I am currently sitting down in Las Vegas waiting to start up summer league tomorrow. I am going to be playing with the Golden State Warriors. I will be playing 5 games while I am down here. We first start out with 2 days of 2-a-days and then we have 3 straight games followed by practice, game, practice, game. It will be a great 13 days down here and I am really looking forward to getting out on the court tomorrow morning. I am thankful that the Warriors gave me the opportunity to play with them this summer. I thought I would give you a quick update on what I am currently doing right now. I hope that you are having a wonderful summer. Hope its not as hot as it is down here in Vegas! Take care and I will keep you updated on what I am doing. God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

Season Finished

2010-06-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.. As you can see in my title, my first season as a professional basketball player in France is finished. Last night we played the number #1 team in our league Cholet, and lost 84-71 in the last game of our 3 game series. It definitely hurts losing this series since we took game 1 at their place, but we ended up losing 2 games in a row to them. It was a wonderful year over here in France and I had a great experience. I am going to continue using my blog throughout the summer since I have a lot going with NBA summer league and many decisions to be made in terms of my career. I want to thank you all for following me through my blog this year, I have had 30,000+ views from all of you and I really appreciate it. It means a lot to me knowing that people still want to follow my career. I encourage you to continue to follow me and I will let you know what the future holds for me this summer. I am not sure exactly when I am heading back to the "land of the free" but it should be sometime next week. Take Care and as always God Bless you today :) (Joshua 1:9)

Highlights Semi-Final #1

2010-06-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the highlights from game 1 of our semi-final round. The last lay-up I make is the game winner. We have our 2nd semi-final game at home tomorrow. If we win tomorrow then we are in the French League Championship in Paris. I will let you know how it goes. Enjoy... God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2280

Semi-finals game 1

2010-05-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon. I got in this morning around 7:00am from our road trip in Cholet where we played our first game of the semi-finals. It was an unbelievable game from start to finish. We ended up winning 70-68 in OT. Both teams played extremely intense and it got to the point where there were 3 intentional fouls called and some technical fouls. The emotions were running high from the start of the game to the finish. They missed a shot at the end of regulation for the win which lead to 5 minutes of OT. It was a tied game 68-68 with 34 seconds to go. We got the ball inbounds to our 2 guard Yannick Bokolo and he dribbled it across half court and handed it off to me. We ended up clearing out the lane with 6 seconds to go on the shot clock and I drove in and made a scooping right handed lay up to put us up by two 70-68 with 10 seconds to go. They called time out and set up a play. With around 2 seconds to go in the game their big man had a shot about 5 feet from the basket but our 4 man Cyril came out of no-where and blocked the shot at the buzzer, and that was the game. It was a great win for us now that we are leading the series 1-0 we play at our place on Wednesday. If we win on Wednesday we are in the French League Championship for all the marbles. If we lose on Wednesday we will have to go back to Cholet for the last game of the 3 game series. Hopefully we can close out the series on Wednesday. It is going to be another tough game but I am looking forward to having the opportunity to play for another championship. I ended up finishing the night with 12 points (5-6FG, 2-4FT) and 6 rebounds.

I will give another update when we have some highlights or photos from this game or after our next semi-final game on Wednesday. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday afternoon. God Bless you today! (Joshua 1:9)

On to the Semi-Finals

2010-05-24T07:34:00.001-07:00

Good Afternoon... I just got back from the beach here in town and am relaxing on the couch and I remembered I haven't updated you on our last game. We had our second game in the first round of playoffs on Saturday down in Nancy. Both teams came out with a lot of energy and it was a close game at half. However, we turned it on in the 4th quarter and we won the game 74-58 which means that we are on to the semi-finals. We play Cholet (who is #1 in our league) on Saturday down at their place. They have home court advantage over us since they are the 1 seed and we are the 4 seed. It will be a great game and we are really looking forward to it. The only bummer is that it is a week away. You know me and liking to play games all the time, I really don't like waiting a week to have to play another playoff game, but thats just how it goes I guess.

Shout out to mama Woodside and AJ back home, they competed in the marathon and 1/2 marathon this past weekend in Fargo and both had PR's (personal records), proud of you both! I will let you know how the game goes on Saturday. That's all the news I have for you right now. I am going to continue to enjoy the beautiful weather that we have over here right now. I hope that you have a wonderful day and God Bless. (Joshua 1:9)

French Cup & Playoffs

2010-05-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Hey there!! Sorry I haven't written on my blog in awhile. I have been spending some quality time with my family that came over and visited for a couple weeks. They left this morning so I thought I would catch you up on everything that has been going on over here. First off we played in the French Cup Championship game and lost by 4 points. We didn't play well at all in the first half and we found ourselves down by 10 points. However, we had a strong 2nd half and came back and actually took a 5 point lead with 4:30 left to go in the game. They hit back to back 3 pointers and took the lead back and they never looked back. We ended up fouling and they made their free-throws down the stretch and we lost by 4 points. I want to say thank you to our fans that went down to Bercy and supported us. We had thousands of fans that came down in 45 bus loads to support us. I really appreciate all the fans that went down and I also want to say thank you to the fans that came out and supported our first round playoff game last night. Its always enjoyable playing in front of you fans. Below are some of the pictures of our fans from our French Cup game in Paris (hint-they are in orange ;))

I also want to fill you in on our game last night. We had our first round playoff game last night at home vs Nancy. We came away with an 84-82 win. It was a great comeback game for us. Right away we found ourselves down by 14 points and nothing was going right for us. We struggled with our assignments on defense and we couldn't find a rhythm on offense. However that changed in the 2nd half. We held them to just 29 points in the 2nd half and we were very effective on offense. We had 5 guys in double figures. The game came down to the wire, I was at the free throw line with 37 seconds to go and knocked down both free throws which gave us a 84-82 advantage. They came down, got fouled and went to the free throw line. They missed both free throws with 30 seconds to go. We had to get a shot off since there is a 24 second shot clock. We missed the shot with 6 seconds left, they pushed the ball up the floor and one of there players missed a contest 3 point shot as time expired and we won the game. Now, we head to their place on Friday and play again on Saturday. That is the basketball updated news that I have for you :).

Like I said before my family left this morning so I will be more up to date on my blogs here on out until the end of the season. I hope you are having a wonderful day back home. God Bless you all!!! (Joshua 1:9)

Regular Season 20-10

2010-05-15T02:12:00.000-07:00

Good morning!! I am just getting ready to head down to Paris for the French Cup Championship. We had our last regular season game on Tuesday and we came away with a win, final score being 93-80. We had 3 guys in double figures. I had 28 points (9-14TFG, 6-8FG, 3-6 3FG, 7-10 FT), 6 rebounds, 5 assists. Cyril and Yannick were the other two in double figures and they both had 17 points. It was a great win for us since it secured 4th place in the league and we have home court advantage in the first round of playoffs. Sorry this is short but I have to get to the bus. I will update you on how the Cup Championship game goes. Talk to you later, God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Highlights from Road Win

2010-05-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the link for some of the highlights from our last road win in Nancy. I keep trying to get the html to work so you can view the video right on my blog but I am not having any luck. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2276

Road Win

2010-05-03T07:50:00.001-07:00

It was a great road win on Friday for BCM Gravelines. It was a big win for us because now we are currently in 4th place alone and if we win our last home game we lock up home court advantage in the first round of playoffs. We were tied with Nancy record wise going into Friday nights game, so it was nice being able to get a road win and having a shot at having home court advantage in the first round. We ended up winning 87-72. It was a 2 point game at half but in the 2nd half we played well on defense and we were efficient on offense which helped us extend the lead. It was another very balanced scoring effort on our team. We had 5 guys in double figures. JK Edwards lead the team with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Cyril had 17 points, Juby Johnson and Yannick Bokolo each had 14 points. I had 10 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals. It was a great win for our team and we moved the ball well and found ourselves getting great looks. Our record is currently 19-10 and like I said before we are in 4th place alone. Our next game is Tuesday, May 11th at home vs Paris. Paris is fighting for a playoff spot and we are fighting to lock up 4th place so it is going to be a great game coming up next Tuesday.

A couple other FYI's... my mom, aunt, and cousin are coming over here on Saturday and they are staying for a couple weeks. They were planning on coming earlier but the volcano that erupted postponed their flights until now. I am looking forward to some company and it will be a great experience for them. They get to watch a couple games and I will show them around the France country side. Other than that I am doing well and trying to finish out the season strong. I hope you will have a blessed Monday afternoon. Praying for you all!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

On to the Cup Championship

2010-04-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well...BCM Gravelines is going to be playing in the French Cup Championship on May 16th. Last night we had the semi-final game of the French Cup and we came away with a win verse Rouen. It was a great game from the opening tip until the final buzzer. We ended up winning 72-69. We extended our lead a couple times to 10 points throughout the game but Rouen very gave up and they fought until the final buzzer. We ended up being up by 2 points with 17 seconds to go and I got fouled. I went to the line to shoot my two free throws and I missed the first one. I ended up making the second free throw and going ahead by 3 points. They got a couple shots on the final possession to try and tie the game but none of them went down. Below is a little highlight from last nights game. Also below is highlights from our game last Saturday at home verse Poitiers. We were all pretty excited about the win last night and it will be great for us to compete for a championship come May 16th. We had 3 guys in double figures last night. I had 21 points (7-14 TFG, 2-7 3FG, 5-7 FG, 5-6 FT), 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 5 TO. Demetris Nichols had 17 points, 7 rebounds and JK Edwards had 16 points and 7 rebounds. It was a good win for us and we are looking forward to the championship game, but first we have a game on Friday in Nancy. It will be a big game for us but a tough one since it is on the road and we are tied with them for 4th place right now.

Well I am going to relax and watch a movie. I hope you have a wonderful night back home. It was 82 degrees here today and it is making me really want summer to come around. I was very comfortable wearing shorts and a t-shirt all day. I will fill you in on how the game goes on Friday. Goodnight and God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?saison=&cat=4&id=2275

http://www.tele-astv.fr/videos-astv-sports-372-bcm-poitiers.html

WIN!!!!

2010-04-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

Good afternoon! I am currently streaming the NBA playoffs on my computer and there is a break in the action so I figured I would fill you in on how our game went last night. As you can tell in my title we got a win. A much needed win to say the least. We were on a 2 game losing streak so last night's win was great for us. Hopefully it can get us back on track since we have 2 games this week. We have our Final Four French Cup game on Tuesday down in Rouen and then we have our regular season French League game on Friday vs Nancy.

Last night we were down most of the game until the 4th quarter were we cut the deficit to 2 points and eventually took the lead. The first half we weren't attacking the basket enough and we weren't being aggressive enough, but in the 2nd half we were a lot more aggressive and we were getting to the basket more. We were down by 10 points in the 3rd quarter and then our defense started to step up and we got some important defense stops when we needed them. We ended up winning the game 77-68. We had a very balanced scoring effort last night with 5 guys in double figures. I had 20 points (5-12 TFG, 3-6 FG, 2-6 3FG, 8-9 FT), 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 turnovers. Cyril had 16 points, 6 rebounds. JK had 12 points, 7 rebounds. Juby Johnson had 10 points and Tony Stanley had 11 points. It was nice getting a win under our belt again so hopefully we can carry that over to next week's games.

Otherwise not much else is new over here in France. The season is starting to whined down with 2 regular season games left and then the start of playoffs. Weather is nice which is making me look forward to the nice summer weather ahead. Hope you have a blessed Sunday. Watching the Cavs game today?? Take care and God Bless :) (Joshua 1:9)

2 in a Row

2010-04-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

Good Evening! I hope you are having a wonderful afternoon/evening. I am currently watching the Boston Marathon on T.V. since there isn't anything else on that I can understand. I am watching it and I can't wait for when my mom qualifies for it.. I know she can do it!

We had a tough game slip away from us this weekend. We played Strasburg on Saturday and lost 85-74, which makes for 2 losses in a row for us. We were up by 12 points in the 3rd quarter, however Strasburg cut into the lead at the end of the 3rd and ended up going up by 1 point with 7 minutes to go in the game. We couldn't find a rhythm and ended up missing shots. During the end of the 3rd and 4th quarter we didn't get the defensive stops that we needed. With that loss we drop to 5th place in our league. We have 3 regular season games to go and hopefully we can pull together these games down the stretch. I led the team with 16 points (5-10 TFG, 3-5FG & 2-5 3FG), 3 assists, and 2 rebounds, 0 turnovers. JK Edwards had 13 points (6-13 FG) and 8 rebounds and Tony Stanley rounded out the top guys in double figures with 10 points. This week we have to regroup and get a win this weekend at home when we play Poitiers. We lost to them down at their place earlier in the year but looking forward to playing them on Saturday.

I have posted a couple pictures from our game on Saturday. I hope that you are having a great start to your week and take care. My blessing's from France!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Highlights from French Cup Game

2010-04-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from our last French Cup game at home when we played Chalon. We have a French League game tomorrow vs Strasburg. I will update my blog and let you know how it went. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2273

Tough One

2010-04-13T06:45:00.001-07:00

Hello again, it is a windy afternoon over here in Gravelines, France but the sun is shining. I can tell that summer is getting closer with the daylight lasting longer. It doesn't get dark over here until around 9pm so my days are full of light which I enjoy. As you know we had game on the road last Saturday down in Orleans. It was a good game from both teams however we ended up coming up short with a 67-73 loss. We are now tied with 3 teams at 17-9 for the 3rd place spot. There were a couple keys to the game that hurt us: 1. Offensive Rebounds, we got killed on the glass and they had a number of 2nd chance points. 2. Turnovers, we had 11 turnovers compared to their 2. It seemed like we had a lot more than that but it is the simple fact that Orleans only turned it over 2 times so it makes are 11 seem like a lot. We had 4 guys in double figures. I had 11 points (1-2 FG, 3-6 3FG), 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1 turnover. Jk Edwards, Yannick Bokolo, and Juby Johnson were the other players in double figures for the game.

Our last 3 out of 4 games are at home which is nice. What is also nice is that my mom, aunt, and cousin are coming over to visit me starting on Saturday and staying for a week. It will be great having company around the townhouse and I will most definitely be enjoying my moms cooking. I might be slacking on the whole "dishes" part next week since I will have 3 ladies at the house that I am sure would love to do some dishes haha jk. But they do get to see 2 games and I will take them to a couple different cities around the area to show them what France is all about. I am going to watch a movie and relax now. I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for checking out my blog. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)!!!!!!

Final 4

2010-04-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! I want to give you a little update on how our game went last night for the French Cup. We played Chalon in the French Cup at home last night. We came away with a 81-56 win. With that win we are now in the Final 4 for the French Cup Championship. If we are to win our next game then we head down to Paris to play for the Championship. I want to remind you that the French Cup is completely separate from our French League games. We still have 5 regular season French League games ahead of us and then playoff's start May 19th. Last night we had a very solid game defensively. I think we played some great defense throughout most of the game. We had 3 guys in double figures. I had 14 points, 8 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals. Tony Stanley had 14 points (5/5 FG), and JK Edwards had 14 points to round out the 3 guys in double figures. We also had a number of guys that were right under double figures for scoring, so it was another balanced night for us on offense. Our next opponent for the French Cup is Rouen. We play them at their place. It will be a tough game for us down there, we played them once down their already this year and we came away with a 2 point win. We had to hit free throws down the stretch to win the game so it will be an interesting game for us. I believe that game is going to be played April 27th.

Below are some highlights from our regular season French League game that we played last Saturday. I wish I could directly post the highlights onto my blog but for some reason the html doesn't work so I gotta live with putting a link up for you. I hope you have a wonderful day and remember to be thankful for all that you have. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?saison=&cat=4&id=2271

Home Win

2010-04-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Good evening! I just got back from eating supper and watching a bball game at the Edwards residence. It was a fabulous meal and I am stuffed right now. I wanted to fill you in on how our game went last night and what is in store for us next week. We played Dijon last night and came away with a convincing win 88-54. It was a nice win for us at home and we are 17-8 now in the league. We will have to see what place we are in after today's games which are being played right now. It was a well balanced scoring effort throughout the whole team. Cyril lead the way with 20 points, 7 rebounds in 34 min of play. JK had 13 points, 4 rebounds. Juby Johnson had 13 points, 4 rebounds both playing 21 minutes. I had 13 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals in 23 minutes of play. We again had a number of guys in double figures which is always nice to see.

Next week we play on Tuesday for the French Cup. If we win on Tuesday we will be in the final 4 for the French Cup Championship. We play Chalon who we have played a couple times this season already. Then we play Orleans next Saturday for a French League game down in Orleans. It should be a great week of basketball and of course I always enjoy playing 2 games a week so I am super excited for that. The more games the better!! Hopefully we can string some wins together next week. I will give you a update on how the games go next week. I hope you all have a HAPPY EASTER. First remember why we celebrate Easter, and also be thankful for the family and friends you are around, nothing better than spending time with people that you enjoy being around. Have a wonderful night. God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

Road Trip

2010-03-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hey evening everyone! How are you doing? I am currently sitting in my living room watching a Minnesota Twins spring game which means it will start getting nice out again. I am a big Twins fan and I am pretty excited to see them play in the new Target Field, and also watch our star Joe Mauer play. Sorry I haven't updated my blog recently, we have been on the road and my internet service has been terrible on the road. Its not quite the same hotels as back home. I want to talk to you about our French Cup game that we played and also our French League game that we played last night.

Starting with the French Cup game, we had to play Asvel again for the 4th time this year down at their place. We had lost the 2 previous games down there but this time it was a different story. It was a back and forth game and it eventually came down to the last couple possessions that decided the game. The score was 71-70 we were down by 1 with 20 seconds to go. Our 2 guard Yannick Bokolo had the ball with a few seconds remaining and drove to the basket and made a lay-up plus the foul. He converted on the free throw and we ended up winning by 2 73-71. This now means that we are in the final 8 for the French Cup Championship.

Our league game last night was a completely different story. We ended up losing to Roanne 101-73. It was a terrible game for us and frustrating for me personally. It seemed like we had no flow during the game. It was a frustrating shooting night for myself were I found myself going 0-6 from 3FG. It was just one of those nights where nothing was falling, and very frustrating. I am really looking forward to Friday to play again and bounce back. We were really disappointed in how we played and looking to redeem ourselves on Friday. We are currently tied for 3rd place in our league now. We have 6 games left in the regular season and then playoffs. But, since we only play 1 game a week those 6 games will take a month and a half to play. We play Dijon on Friday. We played them earlier in the year and came away with a 2 point win down at their place. It will be a tough game for us and the way we played yesterday anything can happen. Looking forward to the game on Friday. Again sorry for the delay in the blog updates, just got back this morning from a 6 day road.

I hope you all are having a wonderful week. I want to give a shout out to the Fab 4 from NDSU, checkerfred, tweeter, jv, and the rest of the guys, your in my prayers bros! Have a wonderful night and will update again soon....I promise! haha :). God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Tied for 2nd

2010-03-21T05:49:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! It is another gorgeous day in France and I am loving the sun. This afternoon I am cleaning my place and watching some NCAA March Madness. On Friday we played Vichy at home and we came away with a win. We had lost to them down in Vichy earlier in the year so it was nice to get a win back at home. Our record stands at 16-7 and in a tie for 2nd place. The two teams above us (Cholet and Le Mans) both lost, so now we are tied with Cholet for 2nd and one game out of first place Le Mans. We had 4 guys in double figures. I had 12 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. Cyril lead the way with 17 points, JK Edwards had 13 and Tony Stanley had 11. The final score was 72-61, we had a 20 point lead mid way through the 3rd quarter however Vichy has a lot of fight and they battled back in the 4th quarter. The closest they got was 9 points in the 4th quarter but we eventually knocked down free throws and came away with a great win that we needed.

Our next game is Wednesday for a French Cup game and then we play again on Sunday vs Roanne for a French League game. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday. I am going to make some lunch and watch some college basketball. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Game vs Cholet

2010-03-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!! Sorry I am a little late on letting you know how our game went down in Cholet. I have been busy traveling around France with AJ. I am going to get right down to it, we ended up winning down in Cholet in an incredible game. I am going to fast forward all the way to the 4th quarter when we were down by 2 with 20 seconds to go. I had the ball and went by my defender all the way to the hoop and missed a left handed lay-up with 11.2 seconds to go on the clock. However, at the same time one of our players had gotten hit in the back of the head so the ref's stopped the game to make sure he was alright. After the ref's stopped the game Cholet ended up calling a timeout to get the ball at half court. With 11.2 seconds to go Cholet was trying to get the ball in bounds but we played great defense and they ended up getting a 5 second call. So we got the ball at half court, and ended up getting the ball in play to Juby Johnson and he dribbled it up the court and with about 5 seconds to go he launched a 3-pointer and it was nothing but net. We went a head by 1 point and Cholet couldn't convert on the other end. It was a great game for our team, we all played together and stuck together and came out with a victory. We are currently still in 3rd place with the win however we are only 1 game out of 2nd place (Cholet) now and 2 games out of 1st place. Below is the last shot that Juby made.... ENJOY!!! I will be updating the blog again after our game on Friday. I am going to get going, but I hope you have a wonderful day. God Bless :)!! (Joshua 1:9)

Great Win

2010-03-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon... So I finally decided to update my blog.. I have been lazy I will just admit it. We played Hyeres-Toulen on Saturday and we came away with a great win. We had lost the previous 2 games so it was nice having the feeling of a win again. We came away with a 96-82 win. It was a tie ball game going into half time at 41 all. In the second half we finally got on a little bit of a roll and extended the lead and ultimately won the game by double digits. Hyeres-Toulen is a great offensive team and they have a number of guys that are very effective on the offensive end. We collectively started to have a better defensive effort in the 2nd half and thats what helped us push up the lead. Yannick Bokolo lead the way with 22 points and 5 rebounds. JK Edwards had 16 points and 6 rebounds. I had 14 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds. Cyril was the final guy in double figures with 10 points and 4 rebounds. Our offense was effective on Saturday in all categories which helped us put up 96 points. Overall it was a great win for us and our record stands at 14-7 tied for 3rd place.

This coming Saturday we play Cholet who is ranked 2nd in the league with a 16-5 record. We are on the road and it is going to be a great game. They are a great team and we will need to be playing our best offensively but more importantly we will need to play some solid defense. I am looking forward to playing another game. I just wish we had more than 1 game a week, I get to impatient with only 1 game a week haha. On another note my girlfriend is coming out to visit for spring break which will be nice since I haven't had a visitor since Christmas. I always enjoy company so it will be a great time and I am looking forward to it.

Below are a couple pictures from our game on Saturday. As you can see our fans enjoy it when we interact with them so we always go hit the drums after the games just to show our appreciation for them coming out and supporting us. If anyone would like to see anything different, have questions, want to find out something more specific, etc etc you can leave a comment below or hit me up via facebook or twitter. I will definitely respond to you and I would like some feedback good or bad (I can take criticism, I had Coach Miles as a college coach, haha just kidding Coach I enjoyed every minute of it..well almost every minute ;)) Speaking of Coach Miles, congrats to Miles at Colorado State for getting the most wins the team has seen in a decade. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God Bless!! (Joshua 1:9)

New Teammate

2010-03-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon everyone! I just got back from our practice this morning and the first person I shake hands with is Julius "Juby" Johnson. Juby is our new teammate for the remainder of the year. He was playing in Croatia where he was on the same team for 5 years and won some championship's with them. He is an off-guard that can shoot, penetrate and is known for his defense. I think it will be a great addition for us and we are all excited to have him on the team.

Thats all I have for you right now. Just wanted to give you a quick update on our new teammate. Again I hope everyone is doing well back home. One other side note, my sister is playing in her first ever section game for Varsity on Wednesday vs Red Wing. If you see her or any other girls from the bball team, give them a shout out and wish them good luck. Take care. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Tough Loss in Lyon

2010-02-28T06:05:00.000-08:00

Good Morning everyone!! I got back this morning around 8:30am from our away game in Lyon, took a little nap and now I am just relaxing thinking about all you back home. We had a tough loss last night vs Asvel. We played this team last week in the first round of the Week of Aces and lost. It was a very frustrating game for us. The game was back in forth for the first half, and we were up by 2 points going into half. The third quarter was a different story. I couldn't tell you how many points they got from the free throw line in this quarter. I know for a fact they were in the bonus with over 6 min to go in the quarter. It was a very one sided second half thats for sure. We couldn't get a call from the ref's and it seemed like they were always at the free throw line. You gotta give credit to Asvel they did hit some tough shots in the 2nd half and we didn't necessarily make all our shots, but we couldn't buy a call from the ref's. I really don't like talking about a game and complaining about the ref's, because the game of basketball shouldn't be about the ref's but WOW was it a frustrating game in those terms. Enough about them though, we had 3 guys in double figures last night. I had 16 points, Yannick had 15 points, and JK had 12 points. Our record stands at 13-7 tied with 2 other teams in the league. This last half of the season should be interesting to see how things play out. We gotta go back to practice and improve on our mistakes from our last game and correct them so we can play better coming up on Saturday.

Our next game is at home on Saturday vs Hyeres-Toulon. They have the leading scoring in the league and their record is 10-10. It will be a tough game for us and it should be a great game. I encourage all our fans to come out and support us. Lets pack the Sportica and get the place rockin!!

Not much else going on here in France. Today it is super windy and raining constantly. I am going to watch a few movies this afternoon and relax. Get ready for another week of training and playing the game I love. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and check back in to the blog in a few days I will give you another update on how things are going. God Bless you all!! (Joshua 1:9)

Week of Aces

2010-02-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon!! I am going to get right down to it and let you know how we did in the tournament that we played in this weekend. We played in a tournament called the Week of Aces, where the top 8 teams in the league play. We had to play the team that hosted the tourney which was Asvel and we lost the game. It was exactly like an away game for us. It was an ugly game from both teams. There wasn't any flow in the game and a lot of turnovers. The finally score was 52-55. I think we had 2 guys in double figures for the game. I believe I had 12 points, and 6 steals. But like I said before it was a really ugly game thats for sure, and we were disappointed that we lost in the first round. We actually play Asvel again this coming Saturday for one of our league games. I am definitely looking forward to that game. We got the weekend off which my body definitely needed and I of course went over to the Edwards house like always and hung out there most of the weekend. I went to Lille (city in France about 45 min away from Gravelines) with the Edwards family and walked around the city center. That is another place were I would like to take my family too. Other than that there really isn't much else going on. I am excited to get back in the gym this week and prepare for our upcoming game on Saturday. I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

Game vs Le Harve

2010-02-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

Good evening! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! I just finished up eating some supper and now I am relaxing on the couch, so I thought I would let you know how our game went on Friday. We played Friday this week instead of our usual day of Saturday. We played Le Harve who we had played earlier in the year at their place. Friday was a home game for us and we came away with a win. We had 5 guys in double figures again (11 points, 12 points, 13 points, 14 points, and 15 points). I got called for a foul (terrible call) 2 minutes into the game so I sat almost all of the 1st quarter and some of the 2nd quarter. I did play all of the second half and I finished with 11 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals. We controlled for most of the game, but Le Harve cut it to 9 points at the started of the 4th quarter. That would be the closest they came and we ended up winning 76-59. Our defense showed signs of improved from our previous games when we were on a bit of a losing streak. We are currently 13-6 still in 3rd place, but we are only 1 game out of 2nd place now. I want to say thanks to our fans. They really had that place rocking on Friday night and we thoroughly enjoyed playing in front of them. I urge our fans to keep coming out to the games and bring some noise!! We play in a tournament called "The Week of Aces" on Thursday in France. The Week of Aces is a tournament for the top 8 teams in our league. If you make it to the championship game you will be playing 3 games in 4 days. The tournament starts Thursday and goes through Sunday. It will be a great new experience for me and I am really looking forward to it. We play Asvel for our first game in the tournament on Thursday. Thats about all the basketball news going on over here in France. Below is a couple pictures of our fans dressing up for the game and being crazy. My teammate JK Edwards is in the back row, I have mentioned him a couple times in my blog so now you can put a face to the name.

Congratulations to the BISON with the big win over SDSU last night. I heard it was a great game and the Bison came away with a win in 2OT. Nice work!! Have a wonderful night and enjoy your Sunday! Praise be to God. Have a great day. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

First Time for Everything

2010-02-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

I wanted to tell you all something that happened for the first time to me in my career. As I walked into the Sportica (our gym) after a film session I noticed that it was VERY VERY cold in the gym. I could almost see my breath (ok I am exaggerating.... a little), but it was extremely cold. So today for the first time in my career I had to wear a full out hooded sweatshirt under my jersey to stay warm hahahahaha! I thought it was pretty funny and something that I should share with you. I figured you might get a kick out of it. PS- I have a cold now!!

Below is a link of a couple highlights from our last game in Rouen. I hope everyone back home is staying warm and being careful in the weather your getting! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2245

12-6

2010-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Quick update on our game Saturday. We played in Rouen (which is about 2 1/2 hours away) on Saturday and we came away with a win. We were down the entire game until the 4th quarter where we started to make our comeback. We progressively came back by getting defensive stops. Our defense in the first 2 quarters wasn't that great, but we definitely picked it up in the last 2 quarters and that is what helped us come away with a win. Five guys were in double figures that night. JK Edwards had 19 points and 9 rebounds, Yannick Bokolo had 18 points and 7 rebounds, 15 points and 8 rebounds came from Cyril, I had 11 points (7-8 FT), 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals, and Rob Lewin had 10 points (5-5 FG). As you can see it was a well balanced scoring effort on our part. We had to make free throws down the stretch but we sealed the game at the line and came away with a win 80-77. Rouen had a completely different team from when we played them at the beginning of the year and before playing us they had won 4 out of their last 5 games. So it was a good road win for us. Our next game is this Friday vs Le Harve. They have made some adjustments to their team and are doing better than what their record shows so it will be a tough game. Really looking forward to playing again on Friday.

A couple side notes besides basketball: the weather over isn't bad. Coming from Minnesota and Dakota regions it isn't bad at all over here. Depending on the time of day it ranges from 40-55 degrees (I'm not trying to rub it in either haha). I am very comfortable driving my car around which is now a stick. I will admit I stalled it a couple times right away but I haven't done that in awhile so I am definitely used to it now. Ummmm.... Thats about it, other than that things are going well over here and I am really enjoying the experience of living in a different country. Talk again soon... God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

French Cup Game

2010-02-03T12:12:00.001-08:00

Good evening everyone! I wanted to let you know how our first French Cup game went. First I want to explain what the French Cup is. The French Cup is a big tournament in which all the teams in France compete in. Teams from ProA (the league that I play in), Pro B, and a couple other leagues in France all compete for the French Cup Championship. If you lose at any point in the tournament you are out. The French Cup has nothing do to with our ProA league standings. Sorry if it is a little confusing but that is the simplest way to explain it.

We played Paris last night and we won 94-82. We were up the entire game and we played really well as a team. We had four guys in double figures. JK Edwards and Demetris Nichols lead the way with 21 points a piece. I had 17 points and 12 assists and Cyril Akpo had 15 points to round out the four guys in double digits. We played really well on offensive but it was nice to see that our defense was back to what it was like before Christmas Break. We played two great quarters of defense that pushed the lead above 20 points. They hit a couple shots down the stretch to bring the lead back to 12, but overall we played well. Hopefully we can continue play like we did this weekend. We play Rouen in our next French League game (not French Cup haha) on Saturday. They have won 4 out of the last 5 games and are playing well. It will be a great game.

Well I wanted to give you a quick update on our game last night. Below is the highlights from our last home game vs Le Mans. We lost the game, but I wanted to give you a couple highlights to check out. Enjoy your night!!! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2244

Tough Loss

2010-02-01T07:29:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon!! I hope it is as nice back home as it is here now (kidding kidding), it is sunny and 55 degree's right now haha. I talked with my old high school coach Matt Addington today and I heard how cold the weather still is back home (BURRRRR)!! Congrats to Coach Addington as well, his team is tied for 1st place in their league (2 years ago that team was at the bottom their league). That guy can straight up coach, any college's looking for a new staff member, I suggest you look his way!!!! Not much else going on over here in France. Since it is so nice out teammate JK Edwards is grilling and I am about to head over there and be out in the sun and eat a nice grilled meal. Thanks again JK!!

We had a rough loss on Saturday. We played the number one team in our league and lost 87-71. We were down the whole game, but we ended up coming back in the 3rd quarter and found ourselves only down a couple points. However in the 4th quarter we had a number of turnovers that cost us and eventually lead to us losing. We are currently 11-6 right now and tied for 3rd place in the league. JK Edwards lead that way with 20 points (9-20 FG, 12 rebounds). I had 5 points (2-7 FG, 6 assists). We only had 12 assists as a team. We definitely didn't move the ball well at all. Our next game is tomorrow we play in the French Cup vs. Paris. The French Cup is a big tournament that includes all of the teams in France. If you lose at any time then you are out of the tournament. We also play on Saturday for our league game against Rouen. We played them once already this year and we got a win, however they have a completely different team right now and they have won 4 out of their last 5 games. It will be a tough game for sure.

Its about that time for me to head over and get some food at the Edwards residence. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day. Take Care and as always God Bless (Joshua 1:9)- gotta love the man UP ABOVE!

1-1 After Road Trip

2010-01-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

Hey there! After the 5 day road trip that we had last week we ended it with a record of 1-1. We lost our first road trip game at Vichy. We didn't play very well and we got beat by 21 points. I try not to remember that game too much. After that game our record stood at 10-5 and still in 3rd place. Last night we played Chalon and we got a much needed win. We won 82-75. We fell behind by 8 points at half, but the second half we battled back and it was a close ball game the entire 4th quarter. We needed some free throws at the end of the game to secure the road win. It was a win that we really needed since we had been on a bit of a losing streak. I ended with 23 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals in 40 minutes of play. JK Edwards had a solid double double with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Demetris Nichols and Cyril Akpomedah each were in double figures with 13 and 15 points. Rob Lewin one of our big men returned to action last night from an injury. It was definitely a nice spark for us having him back in action. Again we had a number of guys in double figures which is always nice to see. Our next game is this Saturday vs the first place team in our league Le Mans. I am looking forward to a good game and hopefully a good turn out with our amazing fans!

Below is a link that you can see some highlights from our Strasburg game which was played a while ago. I wanted to grab some type of highlights even though it is from awhile ago so you can see something other than pictures. Enjoy the French and enjoy the highlights. I hope you all have a wonderful day and I ask that each person that reads this says a simple pray for the people in Haiti as we all know how tragic that situation is. Take Care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?saison=&cat=4&id=2237

Pictures from Nancy game

2010-01-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

Hey there! I am sitting in a hotel room bored right now so I thought I would put up some pictures from our last home game vs Nancy. We have a make up game tomorrow night in Vichy, which will be an exciting game. I am looking forward to getting back on the court after a loss to Nancy. Well here are a couple pictures that you can take a look at. Waiting for some highlights so I can post them as well. As always take care and God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

Quick Update

2010-01-18T06:34:00.001-08:00

Hey!! I wanted to write you a quick update on how things are going over here before I head to practice. We had a French League game on Saturday vs Nancy. We ended up losing 90-74. It was a tie ball game at half 43-43, but the second half they continued to play well and we didn't play our best. We have a number of guys with injuries that doesn't help. Yannick Bokolo our starting 2 guard hurt his hamstring again in the first half of the game and also our other big man Rob Lewin is out with a groin injury still. It definitely is hurting us that those guys are out with injuries. I ended up having 15 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds on 4/13 shooting. I definitely started to get tired in the 2nd half and I could tell that it was taking a toll on the body. I ended up playing 40 minutes that game. Cyril had 17 points and 7 rebounds and JK Edwards had 13 points and 8 rebounds. We play a make up game on Wednesday vs. Vichy that was cancelled due to the H1N1 virus that a couple of the players from Vichy had. Hopefully we can get back on track and come out with a road win. After that game we head to Rouen for another away game, so we will be on a 5+ day road trip. I will definitely let you know how the games go when I get a chance. Below is a picture of my face after the game. Can't remember if they called a foul or not, but lets hope so.

Other than basketball I got a new car. My teammate Demetris Nichols needed an bigger automatic car for his family so they asked me if I could give him my car. I gave him the automatic car that I had and in return they gave me a different car. However, this car is a stick shift. I really enjoy driving it around and it allows me to practice up on my manuel driving skills. I will admit I have killed it a couple times haha but I have had it for 5 days now and I definitely have the hang of it now. Its a bigger car than what I had before and it has more horsepower than my previous car. I do enjoy driving it. Well I wanted to let you know what else was going on over here just besides basketball updates. Everything is going pretty well, lets just hope that we can get back on track and get a winning streak going again. Hope you have a wonderful and blessed day. God Bless you all!! (Joshua 1:9)

Back with a WIN

2010-01-13T04:46:00.000-08:00

Bon jour! (Hello, Good Day) Last night we had our last EuroChallenge game. We ended with a Win. We played a team from Russia, who we had played earlier in the year in Russia. We won 77-68. The Russian team had actually changed their team around quite a bit and we found ourselves playing James Gist, and Gerald Green (lottery pick out of high school). It was a fun game even though the game didn't help us in any way. We needed the Germany team to win last night in order for us to move onto the next round in the EuroChallenge. The Germany team lost last night which means we are out and did not qualify for the next round. There were 3 teams at 3-2 in our pool, however it is decided on point differential and we had the highest point differential so we are out. I was pretty bummed about that since now we have to go back to playing 1 game a week until we start the French Cup. Trey Johnson was on fire last night hardly missing a shot and scoring 30 points. I was next with 13 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds. Jk Edwards and Tony Stanley rounded out the guys in double figures with 10 points each. It was nice getting back on track and getting a win for us even though the game really didn't matter in terms of moving on to the next round or not.

Other than that, things are going well over here. I see the Lord blessing me day in and day out which I am extremely thankful for and praise him for it constantly. I pray that He is doing the same in your lives. It is kinda cold over here with snow on the ground right now. People say that they never get snow over here but so far this winter I have seen it pretty much every morning on the ground. I know is nothing to you people living in the Dakotas/Minnesota with the frigid cold weather, I get updated on it from my Grandpa and Grandma all the time haha!! Well I hope you have an amazing day, wanted to give you a quick update on how things are going over here and the game last night. Talk again soon! God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

2 game losing streak

2010-01-11T05:51:00.001-08:00

Good afternoon! I really really really don't like losing so you can imagine how the last couple games have gone. We are on a 2 game losing streak right now. We lost to a team out of Germany last Tuesday and we lost to Poitiers on Saturday (French League game). The French game really hurt us when we walked off the court with a lose. We have a couple guys with injuries/sickness so that doesn't help. Rob Lewin, one of our big men is still out with a groin injury and Yannick Bokolo (our combo guard) didn't play in the game on Saturday in Poitiers. We could have definitely used both of those guys. I came down with a sickness before the trip with a 101+ temp, having the fever and getting hot and cold chills (so much for that flu shot working huh??). I still played the game since we were short on players the way it was. Let me just quickly tell you how I was feeling. The entire game I was extremely weak, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was my head felt like it was in a box!! I was so congested it was hard for me to hear what was being said in the huddles haha. Thought I would just throw that in there and let you know how my body was feeling. I feel a lot better now and I am glad because we have another EuroChallenge game tomorrow at home. The game vs Poitiers we didn't play well at all. We didn't move the ball well as a team, played no defense, and we didn't shoot the ball that well. Trey Johnsen lead the team with 21 points, he was knocking down his shots and creating for others. I had 13 points (0-6 3 Fg), 8 assists, 3 rebounds, 5 TO :(! Hopefully we can get back on the winning streak that we were on. We are currently 10-3 and in 3rd place in our French League. I hope you are all having a wonderful day and if you ever want to chat or have specific questions for me don't be afraid to ask me. I am back to just myself over here in France so I will have plenty of time to respond. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Victory in Strasburg

2010-01-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon! I am going to get right into what happened this past Saturday. We had an away game in Strasburg for our French League. It was quite the game. To start the game Strasburg was on FIRE. It seemed like they were never missing a shot. We got down by 14 at one point in the first quarter. However, we fought back and ended up being down 50-51 at half time. As you can see it was a high scoring first half. The second half started with both teams going back and forth for most of the 3rd quarter. We started to stretch the lead in the 4th quarter and eventually ended up winning 102-91. It was the highest point total we have had as a team this year. We had 5 guys in double figures. I had 23 points (5-9 FG, 2-2 3FG, 7-10 FT), 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. Our big man JK Edwards ended with 17 points on 7-13 shooting, 4 rebounds. Our new addition to the team Demetris Nichols had 16 points. Cyril had a nice double double with 14 points and 10 rebounds and Yannick Bokolo had 15 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists to round out the 5 guys in double figures. As you can see it was a very balanced scoring night. We have had this type of productivity in a number of games and it is always a pleasure playing this team basketball that we have! Our French League record stands at 10-2. There is two teams at 11-2 and we are at 10-2 to round out the top 3 in our league. We play a EuroChallenge game tonight at home verse a team from Germany. We are tied for first with the German team we play tonight. If we win tonight its pretty much a guarantee that we will play in the next round of the EuroChallenge. I will let you know how the game goes tonight with another update on the blog.

I pray that everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. I forgot to mention that I went to Brugge with my girlfriend yesterday and it was amazing there. Below are some photos from the trip that we went on to Brugge, Belgium. If you can ever get a chance to come over seas I suggest you hit up Paris along with Brugge. It is a wonderful place. They call it the Venice of the North supposedly. Well take care and I will write again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

Back In Business

2010-01-01T13:44:00.001-08:00

I am back in business with my blog. I was on Christmas Vacation back home and took a minor leave of absence from the blogging scene. I arrived in France on Tuesday and played in the All-Star game that I got invited to on Wednesday, had two practices Thursday, traveled to Strasburg Friday, and we have a game tomorrow. It has been pretty eventful these last couple of weeks for me. I traveled back here in France with my girlfriend, which was nice because it allowed for some great company for all the travel hours that has consumed most of my time lately. Its always great having company at the house being able to talk with someone other than just my computer. We got to go to the Eiffel Tower, and a couple other sight-seeing places in Paris. Since the All-Star game was in Paris we got some time to venture out and check some places out. Paris is an amazing place!!

Well I just wanted to let you know that we have a game tomorrow and that I will get back to updating a couple times a week and filling you in on the life over here in France. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year to you! Be thankful for the things you have and God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

6 Day Road Trip

2009-12-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-12-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-03T05:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-27T06:15:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-19T04:41:00.000-08:00

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

5th Win for BCM

2009-11-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hello again! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday. It has been a long day for myself. I got up at 7 am and went to the airport to catch a flight to Paris. Once our team got to Paris we had another 3 hour bus ride back to Gravelines. I finally am able to relax on the couch and it is approximately 5pm. But the long road trip was well worth it after an unbelievable game last night.

We got our 5th win of the season last night vs Hyeres-Toulon to put our record at 5-2. It was a very exciting game from the start to the finish. I got in some quick foul trouble and didn't play much in the first half. We ended up being down by 10 points at halftime. Throughout the 3rd quarter it was back and forth for both teams, neither team really gaining any momentum. Finally in the 4th quarter we started to make our push and started to gain some ground. We came all the way back to within two points with a minute to go. We had the ball down by two and we ran a screen and roll play, I got double teamed but our 3 man Cyril was open in the corner and I passed the ball to him and he hit a 3 pointer with 50 seconds to go to put us up by 1 point. We got a defensive stop on the next possession and I ended up with the ball in my hands and they fouled me with about 35 seconds to go in the game. I hit both free throws and put is up by 3. The next possession we fouled one of their players on a 3 point shoot (very iffy call) with 18 seconds to go. He stepped up to the line and missed the first free throw and then made the next two. Putting our lead at 2 points. We inbounded the ball and they fouled me again with 12 seconds to go and put me at the free throw line. I made the first free throw to extend our lead to 3 points, and then I made the second free throw as well to put our lead up to 4 points and a two possession game. And that folks was pretty much the end of the ball game. We ended up winning the game 79-73. It was an incredibly exciting game especially in the 2nd half. It was a great team win for us with three guys in double figures again and a couple other players with nine points. It was a great game by both teams and we were fortunate enough to come out on top. It made this long trip a lot easier with another win under our belt. So I may be tired from all the traveling today but it was a road trip that was well worth it.

I posted some pictures from our last home game vs Asvel. I didn't get around to posting them last week so I thought I would throw some pictures up there today. I will have pictures from our exciting game last night posted up in the next couple of days. Again I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and I am looking forward to writing another post for you in a couple days. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Game vs Hyeres-Toulon

2009-11-13T13:37:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone!! Sorry I didn't write a post earlier this week I was slacking in that area. Things have been going well over here in France. I am currently in a hotel room getting ready to go to bed. We play Hyeres-Toulon tomorrow night. They have the leading scoring in our league playing for them and I believe they have another player that is scoring in the top 10 in our league. They are a good team with the same record that we have 4-2. Today I had to take my first flight over here in France. Hyeres-Toulon is in the very south point of France which is about 10 hours from Gravelines if you were to drive. So our team hopped on a plane and flew down this afternoon. It was a smooth trip which is always nice. I am still going to be putting up pictures and a video from the previous game like I said I would. I just put it on the back burner this week but I will have time on Sunday to be able to post some pictures and videos. I want to say good luck to the NDSU Men's Basketball Team they are playing in their first game tonight vs Utah Valley, go and get the W fellas! Again I apologize for not putting up highlights and some pictures earlier this week but I will put them up when I get back to Gravelines on Sunday. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will give you all an update again on Sunday. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Victory for BCM

2009-11-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful and blessed Sunday. I have had quite a busy day today. I made myself some french toast, eggs, and some hash-browns for breakfast this morning. I swept my entire lower level, did the dishes, and on my second load of laundry. I am getting a lot of things done around the place today. Right now however I am putting my feet up and relaxing for a little bit. My body definitely needs a little rest right now after the physical game that we had last night.

Well, our team won again at home this weekend. We played the defending champs from last year and came out on top with a 70-64 victory. We were up pretty much the whole game and we extended the lead in the 4th quarter to 12 points with 6 minutes to go. However, Asvel had a lot of fight in them and they cut the lead to 3 points with a minute to go. They ended up fouling us on the next possession and I made both free throws to put us up by 5 again. They came back down the court and scored again with 30 seconds to go to reduce the lead to 3 points. Asvel fouled us again so they could stop the clock. I went to the free throw line and made both free throws to put us up by 5 points again and sealing the game. We ended up winning by 6 points after they fouled us again with 4 seconds to go in the game. It was an incredibly intense game from both teams. Our fans were unbelievable last night. I believe it was close to a sell out crowd and not to mention our game was televised throughout France last night. It was an awesome feeling playing in front of our fans last night. They really do support us well so I want to say thank you to the fans for showing your support. It was another great team win for us with 3 guys scoring in double figures along with a few guys right below the double digit mark. Its always enjoyable playing for a team that has balanced scoring. Our record stands at 4-2 right now and in 3rd place in our league. Last night I suffered a deep thigh contusion to my left leg with about three minutes to go in the game. The adrenaline was pumping so I finished out the game but this morning my leg feels like someone hit my thigh about 10 times with a baseball bat, basically its REALLY SORE! I am going to stretch it out and ice it today and hopefully it will start to feel better. Other than that I am feeling great and I believe the rest of the team feels great about getting a win last night. I will post some pictures and video clips from the game in a couple days so you can check them out. Also if you have any questions for me about basketball, France, my life style, anything at all don't be afraid to ask in the comment box or hit me up via email, facebook, twitter. I hope you all have a safe and wonderful day. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Another Week

2009-11-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

Bonjour everyone (wow my French is coming along isn't it haha)! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I wanted to write another blog giving you all a couple more updates. Things are going pretty well for me. I actually had to go to the foot doctor yesterday night because I had an ingrown toenail that was causing me a lot of pain and restricting me from being able to run, jump, cut, basically the essential things to play basketball. So I went to the doctor and she cleaned my feet and started to dig out my ingrown toenail. Now, I don't know if you have ever had to get an ingrown toenail cut out but it hurt so bad that I started sweating profusely when she was digging it out. Kind of a gross story but that was an event that went on for me this week. Today my toe feels great without any pain. Our foot doctor did a wonderful job. I went and ate supper over at J.K. Edwards (teammate) house last night with his family along with Trey Johnson (teammate) and his buddy J. Jones. He grilled some steak, samon, and had some rice as well. It was a wonderful meal that I definitely appreciated.

On Saturday we play Asvel the defending champs from last year. Tony Parker from the San Antonio Spurs is one of the executives for the team and his brother plays for the team. They are a good team with a lot of talent. I am looking forward to playing again on Saturday. The game is at home and I am hoping that we will have a packed house with a lot of CRAZY fans again! We have had a good week of practice and we are excited to be able to play another game. I actually have to go to practice in about 20 minutes. The link at the bottom is from our last Saturdays game vs Le Harve. There isn't much basketball on the link like I thought there would be. More talking than anything but if you want you can check it out. I am also still in the process of trying to get the "OK" from our team to be able to post the videos directly on the blog page. Until then there will be a link that you will have to click. Have a wonderful day and night. Hope all is well! Au revoir (I know, I know its coming along hahaha) God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?saison=&cat=4&id=2221

Bcm vs Le Harve (Game 5 of the Season)

2009-11-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon everyone! Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday (enjoying church and football I'm guessing). Today I went to the market here in town. I have never been to an outdoor market before so it was a very experience for me. My teammate Yannick Bokolo ended up getting some chicken at one of the stands there and I had it for lunch. It was extremely good and something that I can do on Sunday mornings if I need a little food. They had fresh fruit, vegetables, chicken, and a number of different other types of food. Now I just got down icing my feet and my knees. I am going to relax the rest of the night and get ready to watch the Vikings/Packers game. It comes on at 10:00pm over here so hopefully I can stay up late enough and watch the whole game. That is a little bit of what I did and what I'm doing today.

Last night we played Le Harve for our 5th game of the year. It was an away game for us and we haven't won on the road this year until last night. We ended up winning our first road game of the year with a score of 83-68. It put us at 3-2 in our league, tied with a number of different teams for fourth place. Again it was very balanced scoring on our teams part with 4 guys in double figures. I had 15 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and a couple steals. We maintained the lead pretty much the whole game expect for the in the middle of the 3rd quarter they started to make a push and brought it within 6 points. We ended up pulling away again in the fourth quarter and to another good win for our team. I was really happy for our team to get a road win and get above .500. We really moved the ball well hence 5 guys in double figures, and it is always enjoyable playing in a game like that. That is pretty much what I have for you about the game yesterday. I will put up pictures and highlights from the game later on this week. I hope you all have a wonderful afternoon and enjoy the Vikes/Packers game. Talk to you again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9- Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid nor dismayed for the Lord your God is with you WHERE EVER you go!- Love it)

Highlights and Pictures

2009-10-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! How are you all doing? So I finally am writing another blog. Its been a pretty busy week for me. Again I spend most of my time at the gym practicing or getting treatment done. We had a full week of practices preparing for our next game vs Le Harve. They are a good team with a 3-1 record. We are playing at their place on Saturday. I will update the blog on Sunday again and let you know how the game went. But, I wanted to put some highlights from our game and a couple game pictures as well. Again for the people back home the commentating is in French just to give you another heads up. So you can practice up on your French :)! To view the highlights you have to click the link below. I am going to try and be able to get the video highlights placed directly on my blog page in the up coming posts, but I need to talk to people that work in our office so I don't get into trouble with some copyright restrictions. Hope everyone is doing well back home. Miss you guys and I am trying to keep up with everything that is going on. Remember, don't be afraid to give your boy a shout I can always enjoy some company via emails, messages, facebook, twitter, etc etc! Enjoy the pics and video. Take care and as always God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/

BCM vs Rouen

2009-10-25T12:16:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday. I have had quite a busy day today and I am finally having time to fill you all in about our game last night. Today, I went to Belgium with my teammate J.K. Edwards and his family. We went to a city call Antwerpen, Belgium which was about an hour and forty five minutes away. It was nice to get out of the house this Sunday afternoon and check out a different city. There is a lot that a person can do in this city. They had a zoo, aquarium, tons of different stores, and plenty to eat. We walked up around the city center and checked things out. I am glad I went and it definitely passed time quickly this afternoon.

But back to the game last night. We ended up winning 81-65. We played great team ball and we finally started to improve our defense. It was nice getting another win under our belt and it was a great win overall for a team with 5 guys scoring in double figures. We really moved the ball well amongst each other which made it a fun game to play. We took an early lead into halftime but Rouen came out with a lot of energy and starting knocking down some outside shots which brought the within 6 points in the 3rd quarter. That was the closest they would come and we stretched it out in the 4th quarter and ended up winning by 16 points. As I said before we played well together as a team and did a pretty good job on defense, now we have to start preparing for next weekend. Our record stands at 2-2 now and we play next Saturday vs Le Harve (who is 3-1). Our fans here are amazing and very enthusiastic. Our gym gets to be so loud at times that you can't hear your own teammate calling out a play or hearing your teammate talk to you on defense. It is a great atmosphere to play in and it always gets me pumped up when we have a lot of fans at our games.

Well I am going to end the night over here watching some football and relaxing a bit. Hope you all have a wonderful night and I am looking forward to writing a blog later this week. Goodnight and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Mid-Week Update

2009-10-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Mid-Week update letting people know how things are coming along over here in France and if anything else new or interesting has happened over here. Things are going pretty well over here in France. I am continuing to stay busy everyday with practice and treatment. I typically try to get hot and cold treatment a couple times a week and get my legs stretched out after every practice. That tends to help me recover a lot faster and I feel a little more refreshed if I continue to make those two treatments a habit. If you were wondering what a hot and cold treatment is, it is when I would start sitting in the hot tub for a couple minutes and then I would jump into an ice bath for a minute or so. I would do it back and forth 3 times. That treatment helps flush your legs out and helps them recover faster. So between practicing, getting extra shots up at the end of practice, and recover treatments I am spending a lot of time at the gym. Give you a little heads up about this weekend. We play Rouen, Saturday at 8pm. They are 0-3 however they have been losing some close games so it should be a good game. We are 1-2 and definitely looking forward to trying to get another win under our belt. Should be an interesting game that I am looking forward to. I will update you on how the game goes on Sunday.

Outside of basketball I spend time watching the TV series LOST online (kind of addicting). I also read the Bible and some books that I brought with me from back home, and sometimes I watch ESPNAmerica. Its like ESPN back home however I don't get sportscenter, and a lot of time the games that come on don't come on over here till 3 or 4 in the morning. But at least I can watch something that I am familiar with. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and dropped 130 euros which is around $192 USD. That sounds outrages doesn't it, but what I have noticed is that groceries are very very expensive over here. So that is were a lot of my purchases go too. But since it is just me over here my groceries tend to last me a week and a half to two weeks.

The one bad thing that is tough to deal with is only playing 1 game a week. That is when things can get monotonous throughout the week. However, we start up the EuroChallenge in November so we will be playing Tuesdays and Saturdays, something I am looking forward to. Thats it for now I will let you know how the game goes on Sunday. Oh yeah and one more thing....I have time on my hands some days so don't be afraid to hit me up on my blog, twitter, or facebook. I always enjoy a message from people since I'm all by myself over here, makes me feel connected still hahahaha. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

BCM vs Le Mans (game #3)

2009-10-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

We had our third game of the year last night vs. Le Mans. Let me just say that it didn't go very well. We got beat by 20 points 75-55. I personally had 5 points (0-4 FG, 1-4 3FG, 2-2 FT, 5 Rebs, 4 Assists, 2 Steals). It was a rough game for our team in terms of trying to get something going. If we ever started to get a little momentum it quickly turned in the other teams favor due to us turning the ball over or referee's blowing their whistle. I'm not a person that says things about the refs being good or bad but it was a very physical game and let me just put it this way, they let a lot of things go during the game. You gotta give credit to Le Mans they played well together, executed pretty well and capitalized off of our turnovers. They are a good team and so you have to give them credit for how they played. We sit at 1-2 overall in our league tied with 4 other teams at 1-2. Our next is at home vs. Rouen on Saturday Oct. 24th. I apologize this is so short and to the point but if you know me personally you know how I feel about winning and losing and how much of a competitor I am, so what I'm saying is I'm not a "happy camper" right now. But something positive to look forward to is another game next Saturday. We have to continue to get better during practice and hopefully things will start falling into place for us and we can get some back to back wins under our belt.

It is 2:05 p.m. here right now and we didn't get home from our game until 5 a.m. last night so I am going to take a little nap. I will try and find some video from this game and post it later this week. Otherwise I will write another blog sometime this week and keep you all updated on things here in France. Hope everyone is enjoying there Sunday's back home, let me guess: church, football, football, football haha! Talk to you soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Townhouse, Car, Etc

2009-10-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I said in my previous blog I was going to show you a couple pictures of

what my place and car look like so you can get an idea of how I am living. The townhouse that I live in is a tw0-story, three bedroom place. On the main level I have a living room (where I have a couch and T.V), dining room (where there is just a table for eating purposes), a kitchen, small bathroom and a garage for the car. It isn’t that big of an area for instance, when I sit on my couch I can see my dining room and kitchen all in one view. But, I don’t need that big of a place since it is just myself over here. The upstairs to my place has three bedrooms and a bathroom. Again there isn’t a lot of area upstairs but there is definitely plenty of room for just me. One of the bedrooms upstairs is empty while another has just a bed in it and there is my room where I have a bigger bed and closet space. Overall, I really enjoy the place I have over here and I really couldn’t ask for anything better. A couple of miscellaneous things involving my apt: there is NO carpet anywhere (everything is either tile or wood), my garage connects with my kitchen, my garage is where my washer and dryer are placed, and there is no central air or heat (there are heaters in every room that you have to turn on manually). Those are a couple of things that I found interesting in my townhouse.

My car is a four door foreign style car (don't even know the name) and it is an automatic. Apparently over here there are hardly any automatic cars and everyone usually drives manuals. It is a nice little ride that gets me from A to B equipped with a radio, CD player, heat, etc. There is a funny story involving the process of me getting a car. At first since I told them I haven't driven a stick-shift for along time they said they would get me an automatic, so I was cool with that. Well like I said earlier automatics are hard to come by so it took a little longer than normal to get a car. So they gave me a smart car right away!! Now I don't know if many of you have seen a smart car or have actually been inside one, but WOW was I scared driving that around. It is the smallest car I have ever been in and when I drove to go some where and it was windy out I could actually feel the car moving side to side from the wind. I was literally afraid that if someone

were to hit me while riding their BIKE that I would be the one with all the injuries haha! But, finally they got me a normal car and I wasn't so scared to be driving around the town. I will let you guys figure out which picture the smart car is :)!

Well, that is a little bit of what my living area is like and what my car looks like. As I said before I am really happy with how the team has set me up with such a nice place to live and a car to drive. Tomorrow we leave for an away game vs Le Mans. We play Saturday night at 8pm. I will let you know how the game was and all that jazz in the next post. Hope you enjoyed learning about my living arrangements and I will talk to you again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

Highlights from Game 2

2009-10-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a link with a couple of highlights from our intense home opener last Saturday vs Chalon. I apologize if the link doesn't work I am not a high tech computer guru haha! But, I think it should work. Let me know if it doesn't work and I can try and change it. Oh yeah and just a heads up the commentary is in French, ENJOY :)! More updates to come later this week with some pictures of my place, car, etc.

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2211

Video #1

2009-10-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Update from France

2009-10-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.. I wanted to give you all an update on how things are going over here in Gravelines, France. We had our second game of the season last night which was also our home opener vs Chalon. It was an amazing and very intense game that came down to the wire. It was back and forth throughout the whole game neither team being able to extend the lead significantly. It all came down to the end of the 4th quarter when Chalon hit a shot to go up by 2 points with 8 seconds to go. We called timeout and set up and high screen and roll with myself and our 5 man J.K Edwards. I caught the ball at half court as J.K. (our 5 man) came up and set a high ball screen at the top of the key. I refused the screen and took it to the basket and scored a left handed contested lay up with 4 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime. We jumped out to and early 5 point lead in OT but Chalon had a lot of fight in them and they ended up going up by 1 point with 19 seconds left. We had the ball with 19 seconds to go and we really couldn't get a good look when one of our other guards Yannick Bokolo drove to the basket and made a great wrap around bounce pass to J.K. who laid it in with 4 seconds to go and putting us up 1 in OT. Chalon ended up not getting a shot off at the end of the game and BCM Gravelines came away with a win. As I said early it was quite an exciting game and our fans were so crazy I just loved the atmosphere. I am really happy that our team got a W and we are back to 1-1 in our league. Hopefully we can continue to build off of this win tonight. Thats pretty much the exciting news in the basketball world over here in France.

Off of the basketball court, things are going well. If I am not at practice I am usually relaxing watching some episodes of Lost or catching the Twins games. I have ESPNAmerica which is nice because I can catch the latest sporting news The only bad thing is that the Twins games come on over here so late with the 7 hour time change it is difficult for me to catch the end of the games. I continue to make my own breakfast, lunch, and dinners. I need to start getting creative since I really just rotate between: pasta, chicken, and hamburger. However, my teammate J.K. Edwards invites me over to his house to grill and eat with his family quite often which breaks up the routine. I am definitely thankful for that family. But basically what I'm saying is I MISS MY MAMA'S COOKING haha! Any ideas for some dinners please don't hesitate to give your opinion haha :).

All in all my life over here is great. I'm enjoying the basketball side of things but I am also loving the opportunity to live and experience a different country. I will give you another updated later on this week and give you more details about my townhouse and my city. I'll throw some pictures of my place in as well in the next blog. Take Care and God Bless!

Hello from France

2009-10-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome

Hello everyone!! So I decided to setup a blog for people that want to stay in contact with me and so I can keep people updated on how things are going over here in France. I am currently living in Gravelines, France. The town that I am living in is located on the northern coast of France right by the English Channel. It is a small town which is 20 minutes from Dunkerque, France. I am living in a three bedroom townhouse which is about 5 minutes from the gym.

Before I go any further I want to tell you that my high school coach Matt Addington did the amazing design work for the blog. He is unbelievable and very creative when it comes to designing webpages and also photography. Matt is a professional photographer and I would highly suggest if you want wedding photos or senior pictures that you get in contact with him. You can check out his stuff on his website or Facebook Page. So I want to say thank you Coach for helping me get this blog started and always following me throughout my career. You were a heck of a coach but an even better person!

On the basketball side of things I am playing in the ProA League here in France for a team called BCM Gravelines. You can check out our website and it's especially interesting if you're fluent in French. There are 16 very competitive teams in this top league. We played our first game this past Saturday. We ended up losing 80-73 to Paris. We didn't play well as a team and I personal didn't play that well, but we have another game this Saturday that I am really looking forward to. I will keep you updated on everything over here in France. Take care and talk to you soon!

You can also follow me now on Twitter...BenWoodside. Just another place I can keep you updated.

A Few Photos

2009-10-05T10:14:00.001-07:00

Well I am going to call myself new to this blogging thing, but it will be a great way to keep in touch with many of you and give you a glance Inside My World here in France.

A few photos for you from some of the early season.