Ankara Tournament

Playing some"D"

Good morning!!  How are you doing on this wonderful Tuesday morning?  Things are going well here in Ankara, Turkey.  Recently we had a 4 team tournament here and ended up going 1-1 taking 2nd place.  Our first game was very exciting!  We won in the last possession.  The opposing team had a free throw to go up 1 with 12 seconds to go.  They missed the free throw but got the offensive rebound.  They were running the clock down to the final seconds.  The point guard asked for a high ball screen from there big man.  As he was driving to the basket I tipped the ball from behind him and our big man picked it up and passed it to our 2 guard (Kaya) who was running the floor.  He laid it in with 1 second to go, and thats the game folks!  It was quite the ending to our first game.

Our next game is a completely different story.  We didn't play well at all and ended up losing by 20.  Give credit to the other team they were way more aggressive than us on both ends of the floor.  We got off to an extremely slow start and were down 10 right away.  However coming out of halftime we battled back and ended up going up by 2 points in the 3rd quarter.  We couldn't sustain our intensity and ended up laying an egg and losing.  We definitely learned a lot from that game.  The next few days we watched film and looked at our mistakes as well as the things that we did well.  We are definitely getting more comfortable with each other and understanding the system better.  We will need to buckle down now since our season's first official game is October 13th.

Getting some instructions from Coach

Before our first game on the 13th we have a Turkish Cup qualifying tournament that we play at the end of this week.  These games count (not towards our league games) if we want to play for the Turkish Cup later on in the year.  We are playing 3 games in 3 days out in western Turkey.  If we are 1st or 2nd in our pool we qualify for the Turkish Cup.  Again, these games count but they aren't counted in terms of our league games.  It is kind of confusing but I hope I explained that well enough.

Shot clock running down, getting ready to play some "D"

Otherwise not much else going on here in Turkey.  Aj and I are still waiting on getting into a new apartment building.  We had a teammate Kirk Penney over for dinner the other night.  Grilled some steak and chicken with a side of potatos and peas.  It was delicious and it was great having some company over.  This past weekend we went out to a local cafe for one of Aj's American friends that lives here and celebrated her birthday.  We went to a country restaurant afterwards and that was quite the experience.  The restaurant was filled with people ranging from a Harley bikers to businessmen in there suits.  It was a great experience and Aj and I still laugh about it.  That is all from Ankara, Turkey. Forgot to mention that this Turkish Cup tournament is Friday-Sunday.  I will keep you posted on how it all goes.  Have a wonderful day!  God Bless.. Psalm 118:24

Ps-  If you donated to Rich Bowman I really appreciate it.  It is going to an amazing cause! If you have no clue what I am talking about I ask that you read my previous post.  Thanks again for your help :)