Qualified for Turkish Cup

Hey everyone!  It is a wonderful brisk morning here in Ankara.  I can definitely tell that fall is right around the corner.  No more days of 95 degree's here.  I think my family could attest to this, we love the fall weather!  Nice and cool :)!

Action shot in Turk Telecom game

This past weekend we were in a tournament to see if we would qualify for the Turkish Cup that is later on in the season.  As you can tell from the title we qualified!  We played 3 games and went 2-1.  Our first game we lost by 19 to a very good Banvit team.  The different in the game was the 3rd quarter.  They outscored us 31-18 in the third.  Otherwise the game was pretty close.  I had 21 points (5-5 2fg, 1-3 3fg, 8-9 ft).  From what I remember, I believe we had two other guys in double figures.  Kirk Penney had 10 and Jovo (our 5 man) had 14.  Our second game we beat Tofas by 19.  They are a solid team and we actually found ourselves down 10 right off the bat.  I unfortunately had 5 fouls in 7 minutes of play.  I laugh about it now but I was upset at the time.  I have never done that in my entire life of basketball!  I would literally go in the game and 10 seconds later the whistle would be blowing and I would have another foul.  But it doesn't matter because our team did a great job coming back in the 2nd half.  It was great to see a lot of guys step up on the defensive end and make a comeback.  Kirk Penney led all scores with 21 points.  There were a number of guys in double figures that game and to be honest I can't remember the exact stats of everyone.  That put our record at 1-1 in the tournament heading into the last day.  For us to qualify we would need to beat Turk Telecom in the last game (who we lost to by 20 earlier in pre-season play).  Again at the beginning of the game we found ourselves down 36-18 in the first quarter.  We mounted a comeback and eventually won a close game 84-82.  It was a great team effort both defensively (minus the 1st quarter) and offensively.  A number of guys had outstanding performances.  One of our 4-men, Nedim did a great job on the glass collecting 12 rebounds (8 defensive, 4 offensive).  We had 3 guys in double figures.  Kirk Penney led the way with 29 points.  Jovo 14 points.  I had 19 points (5-5 2fg, 0-3 3fg 9-9 ft, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal).  It was a great comeback and effort to secure us a spot in the Turkish Cup later in the year.

Our next game is our first official regular season game here in Ankara.  We play Tofas who we just played in the tournament.  It will be a tough game for us since we just beat them the week before.  I am excited and looking forward to getting my 4th year of professional basketball underway.

On some other exciting news, AJ and I will be moving into our new apartment tonight.  We are extremely excited for it.  We are very thankful for the coaches and management at TED for being able to get us into a new apartment.  We can't thank them enough.  So, the rest of the afternoon I will be packing my bags for the move.  Side note,  Tiger Woods is here in Turkey playing in some golf tournament.  So I thought I would hit him up on twitter and see if he wanted to come to Ankara and I would show him around haha.  Unfortunately no returned message :)!  Thats all the exciting news from Ankara, Turkey.  Have a blessed Wednesday!  1 Peter 3:14-18