Week One

     I've had several people request that I blog about my experience out here in Australia. So here it is. I've been here for four days now, and my body is slowly getting used to the time change. It's a 13 1/2 hour time difference, so the first night I fell asleep at 6:00 pm and woke up at 1:00 am and stayed awake throughout the whole night. Each day, however, I have stayed up an hour later than I did the previous night, so I am getting there.
     I live in a house with the general manager of the team, his friend Andrew (a 40-year old man with an accent so thick I struggle to understand him), and the other American on my team (Jermaine, a 6'8 big fella from Seattle). Our house is surrounded by palm trees and crazy bugs. It's beautiful out here, and very hot. I don't have a car, so I get around by running (for exercise), a bike one of my teammates gave me, the bus system, or asking someone for a ride. I'm about twelve minutes from the main strip of downtown, ten minutes from the beaches, and five minutes from malls, movie theaters, and any restaurant you could ask for. As for the basketball, I can work on my game at either our stadium where we play our games or at Charles Darwin University. I can also use the weight room of a rugby team from Darwin that our team has an alliance with, and work on my ball handling down the running/biking trails.
     As for my team, I have only met three of my teammates thus far. Tomorrow I should meet the rest at a team cookout (if I have learned one thing already it's that Australians love their barbeque and enjoying grilling out). Jermaine, the one I live with, is a big body who should dominate down low for us. Unfortunately, he is a Heat fan. Sam is a 6'5 shooter who used to be in the Navy. And Malix, from the Philippines, is that glue guy that every team needs. I got some shots up with Sam and Malix the other day at an outdoor court, and have been working out with Jermaine the last two days. They all warned me that Jermaine and I have targets on our backs being Americans. All the "imports" over here, as they call it, are hyped up quite a bit.    Unfortunately, I won't be able to find out if this is true until The beginning of August, when the next season starts. The finals of our league are going on right now, but our team did not make it. We missed the playoffs by a game this year. The previous four years, though, our team won four straight championships. We are one of the oldest clubs around and have a great reputation. We start training camp next week, and then have more than a month just to practice before next season starts. That season will go from early August until December 15th, when I will head back to America. So I cannot update you on the style of play yet, except for simple rule differences. The two most obvious differences I know of are that the lanes are wider and defenders can knock the ball of the rim once it's been up there (which doesn't help me at all). Also, the game consists of four ten-minute quarters. As for the actual play, I'll have an update on that in due time.