This past weekend, some teammates and I went up to Troutville, Virginia. Yes you are reading that right - Troutville.  My teammate Noah States ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=bhzl-dWyNBI) lives there and we love to give him a hard time about living in Troutville.  It was cool to see another part of the country and I really liked it up there.  Its way different from Alpharetta, GA, where I’m from.  Troutville is not super crowded and is just a nice quiet town outside of Roanoke and I really liked how peaceful it was.

My summer school class gets out mid-week next week. I should end up with an A or a B+ in my class which will be good for the GPA. I can’t believe its gone by so quickly.  Even in a short time I’ve seen improvement in the weight room and I’ve been happy with my play in pick up.

Me and one of my friends that writes for SamePageSports.com just planned a trip to Wisconsin in early August.  We are going to be up there for the Green Bay Packers preseason opener at Lambeau against the Bengals to check out my favorite yardbarker Jarrett Bush. We are also going to a couple of games between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Nationals.  I was born in Milwaukee so these are two of my favorite teams.

     With the NBA draft coming up, I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a little namedropping.  One of the things that I have found while playing division one basketball is that no matter where a guy is from, his high school or A.A.U. team would have beaten everybody elses high school/A.A.U. team like a drum.  When you get an elite group of basketball players together (how long until someone bashes Furman…the clock starts now) for road trips, pregame meals, summer school, etc. basketball stories are told time and time again.  I’ve realized that only a few people can hold a candle to the list of players I’ve played with or competed against. One that comes to mind is my teammate Noah States. He went to Hargrave Military Academy with 10 other D1 Players including: Jordan Crawford , Jeremy Jacob ,  Eric Wallace to name a few that went to BCS schools.

In high school, one of our biggest rivals in our region (probably shouldnt call it a rival because we never came closer than 10 points)  was Wheeler High School.  My junior year in high school, they got a big boost from a transfer by the name of J.J. Hickson.  I’m not going to get into details of the transfer but you would probably be not too far from the truth if you said that Wheeler coughUniversitycough has a bigger recruiting budget than a D2 school does. On that subject I should probably keep my mouth shut considering Milton’s (my high school) roster has some new faces on it (I’ve been assured that they all are legitimate move ins).

Anyways, JJ Hickson and I guarded each other which led to some mismatches considering he is a 6-9 post and i’m a 6-7 wing.  We played them at our place my senior year and I ended up dropping 33 points tying my career high and 11 rebounds - 2 more points and 2 more rebounds than J.J..(Apparently you can watch highlights here… http://hsgeorgia.scout.com/a.z?s=37&p=8&c=1&nid=2931045 with a scout.com account).

What I am about to show you is never before released footage.  Here is how it went down… So I’m guarding J.J. Hickson a week or 2 before the McDonalds All American teams are to be announced and rumor is that there is a Mickey-Ds scout in attendance.  J.J. takes a power dribble and lays one in. I try to take a charge (read as: I fall down like an idiot) and J.J. decides to take that opportunity to stand over me and yell, “STAY DOWN F*** BOY”. I decide to get up and push 2 Wheeler players out of my way to chase J.J. to halfcourt to make a point.  I’m not exactly proud of this video and looking back I should have definitely been given a technical at the least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYJ5D8I-Xzw

This weekend, my teammates and I went and watched The Happening. I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars. The plot was a little unrealistic, but with it being a scary movie, I looked past that and thought it was a good movie. On Fathers day, my mom, sister, and brother ditched my dad to come up and see me. I feel pretty bad about that but its really the only time my family will be able to see me while I’m at summer school. I went out to eat with my brother, sister and mom and then Evan came with me to spend the rest of the weekend and Monday with me. I got to take him out to eat and we had some good brother time. He came and watched us lift weights and play pickup this afternoon. He took advantage of the opportunity to show my teammates and I that he can dunk now, the summer before his freshman year. This is about a year before I was dunking. We also had a chance to watch Tiger and Rocco today.

I am realizing how amazing sports are after a weekend like this. I watched 2 games of the NBA Finals, professional baseball games, college world series (Go UGA I guess), EURO 2008 soccer matches, and the US Open. I’m pretty disappointed in the Lakers for their ridiculous collapse. To me its unacceptable to give up a lead like that. I’m becoming more and more interested in soccer lately. It helps that I have friends from Europe including a teammate from Croatia and just hearing him talk about the love that Europe and basically the rest of the world have for the game. Even the security guards go crazy when the home team scores a goal, something that is unthinkable for pretty much any American sports.

Watching the US Open was definitely the most fun I’ve had watching golf. I just can’t see how anybody could root against Rocco Mediate! Tiger has won 8 more majors than Rocco has won PGA tournaments of any kind. Everything Rocco said in interviews made me cheer for him even more. Even though he lost he really played some amazing golf.

This got me thinking that we are witnessing a Golden Era of sports. I’m making this list off the top of my head so I might be forgetting some athletes but Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Roger Federrer are undoubtedly the best to have ever played their respective sports. I will admit that I wasn’t around to see other basketball, tennis, or golf stars in their prime but I really believe that nobody will be as dominant as these three were/are.

Every division one college basketball team goes to summer school and since Furman falls into that category, I am back on campus.  I got back on Sunday and got situated in my apartment.  Furman pretty much requires students to live on campus for all four years.  To make this possible, Furman built 11 apartment buildings on campus.  For summer school we get to stay in the apartments which is nice.  They have a kitchen and living room and then 4 private bedrooms.  Its alot better than living in dorm rooms

Summer school is alot more relaxed compared to the regular school year.  We take one or two classes that meet for 2 hours monday through friday, lift weights 4 days a week, and play pickup 5 days a week.  I’m taking a physics class for non science majors with 3 other basketball players, about 25 football players and a few female athletes.

Now I’m about to go watch the Finals with some teammates in another apartment.  I’m pretty surprised that the Celtics were able to win the first two games. I really thought that the Lakers would be able to steal a game in Boston and would have a good chance at winning the series in 5. It doesn’t really matter to me who wins. I was hoping to see either the Spurs or Pistons in the finals (not necessarily playing each other). I just hope there are some good games.

I officially finished my first year of college on the 27th. I’ll be home for 10 days and then I’ll be back up for summer school. This is the first time I’ve been able to sleep in my own bed for more than 3 nights since August. While I’ve only been home for a couple days so far, I’m loving it right now. I’ve been able to hang out with my family alot. My brother Evan is14 and legitimately 6′4″. He’s in the middle of playing AAU and practicing with the high school program. We have the same sense of humor and have been having alot of fun together. My sister Lauren is about to be 16 and I’ve been able to catch up on things with her having lunch with her on her lunch breaks at work. My parents are awesome too. I would have to guess that the same can be said about the parents of any athlete that makes it to the college level. My parents are one of the main reasons I’ve been able to get as far as have. I’ve gotten to spend some quality time with my high school teammates too. We played pickup at the Alpharetta Community Center and ended up watching some game films from our junior and senior years of high school.

I’m realizing that I’m pretty lucky to be able to live in the metro Atlanta area where there is so much to do. Last night I went to the Gwinett Arena to see an arena football game. The Georgia Force scored a last minute touchdown to win by 1 against the Tampa Bay Storm. When my friend Greg and I got to the ticket office we were told that the $9 tickets were sold out and the cheapest tickets were gonna cost us $40. We were certainly not going to spend $40 each so we started walking back to our car. On the way out the only scalper in the whole place had 2 tickets for $5 each and that sounded good to us. After the 1st quarter ended we snuck down to the 3rd row and watched the rest of the game 5 feet from the action. It was cool to see that former Furman Paladin and Atlanta Falcon Cam Newton was the starting linebacker for the force.

Our third game of the year was against the Billikens of St. Louis University, a team coached by the infamous Rick Majerus. We arrived in St. Louis by plane early in the evening on the night before the game. We got situated at the hotel and hopped back on to our charter bus and went to grab some dinner before calling it a night. There was a Hard Rock Cafe not too far from the hotel that was in “the historic Union Station area” according to their website. It was Tony Anderson’s (one of our point guards) birthday and in order to receive his birthday dessert he had to stand on his seat and sing and act out “I’m a little teapot”. It was our first real road trip and it was a lot of fun.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the arena for our shoot around. For a mid major program, SLU plays in a great arena. They play in the same arena as the St. Louis NHL team, the Blues, play in. I guess the only drawback to this setup would be that you aren’t able to practice on the same court you play on which is always a good thing.

We played them pretty well and were only down by 3 or 4 at the half if I remember correctly. One of their best offensive players (Tommie Liddell III) was suspended or benched for the first half. It could have had something to do with his dad posting on their message board about how Majerus can’t coach.He entered the game a few minutes into the second half and the crowd went wild and their team really fed off of the energy. We ended up losing by 14 but it was a much closer game than the score indicates. You can imagine we were pretty embarrassed when later in the year they ended up scoring only 20 points as a team in a game.

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and most of my family still live in that area (most meaning 6 out of my 8 relatives). My cousin Ian and my aunt drove down from Milwaukee for the game and my dad and sister Lauren drove up from Atlanta for the game. Our shooting guard/point guard is from Peoria, Illinois and his family also came down for the game. We went out to find our families after we got dressed and we got our first autograph requests of our careers. It was pretty funny since it was from little kids that probably thought we played for SLU. I went back to the hotel, showered, and went downtown to a pizza place and got to spend some quality time with my family members that were in town. Its always great to have someone you know in town on the road.

Our team last year consisted of 8 active scholarship players: 5 freshmen, 2 juniors, 2 sophomores, 1 senior ( my roommate, Bryson Barnes, was another freshman on our roster but he redshirted). We were one of the only teams in the country to have 5 freshmen averaging 20+ minutes per game. In our second game of the season, we drove 30 miles down the road to face the Clemson Tigers of the ACC. We knew that last years team with 4 seniors had gone on the road beaten an eventual sweet sixteen team in Vanderbilt. We also knew that Clemson was supposed to be really good this year returning most of their players that were responsible for their 18-0 (or whatever it was) start last year.

I can honestly say that when I stepped onto the court for warmups and saw them getting ready for the game I was not afraid at all. Once again this surprised me, but I think this newfound confidence was because there was way less pressure on me to perform than there was in high school. In high school I was the focal point of our team and I had signed with Furman before our season even started so alot was expected of me. I guess I felt alot less pressure because with Furman I was not expected to do as much and being on a freshmen filled mid-major team means the pressure is all on the hyped up ACC team. Stepping on the court I really thought that our team which had alot of good shooters could hang with Clemson despite their size and speed.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first 7 minutes of that game. We went down 17-0. Clemson put on their full court press with NBA prospect James Mays guarding the ball and KC Rivers and Demontez Stitt ready to join Mays to trap the first pass. We turned the ball over 37 times that game which ended up being a record. The game was never in reach after that. Late in the first half I froze up on an inbounds play and was late to receive a pass resulting in the ball being tipped off my hands and almost going out of bounds. I barely beat a Clemson player to the ball he bumped me causing me to lose my balance and fall out of bounds. The ref kindly called the foul and I went to the line to shoot a 1-and-1. Free throws were kind of my thing in high school (I once made 3 in a row when we were down by 2 with 3.6 seconds on the clock to win a game). I shot 59 freaking percent this year but at Clemson I managed to go 2 for 2. About 7 or 8 of my friends from high school came up for the game and of course I was embarrassed we almost got our score doubled but they were just proud to see me out on the court and that I got in the books.

Since its the offseason and not much is going on right now basketball wise and because I wasn’t bloggings during the season, I thought I’d revisit my freshman year. As of right now my freshman year academically is still going on but my freshman season is over.

For our first regular season game played UNC-Asheville. I had played pretty well in the exhibition game, scoring 11 points in 15 minutes or so. We drove up to Asheville a few hours before tip off. I remember being surprised at the fact that I wasn’t nervous at all, whereas in high school and AAU ball I was usually nervous before games. The Asheville team was going through their warmups without their center, Kenny George, but he soon made his way onto the court. This guy is absolutely HUGE. He is one of those players that you can tell he tries harder than anybody on the court. He had at least one dunk in the game where he literally didnt leave the ground. We were down by 7 or 8 for most of the game from what I can remember. I scored my first collegiate points in that game. It was a three pointer from the left wing. I caught and fired and there was a little contact and I did the old “fall down so if the shot doesn’t go in I can argue for a foul” thing. The shot went in and no foul was called. I think I only did that move once or twice more the entire season which is pretty good considering I did it about once a game in high school. I didn’t get any rebounds and I left this game thinking that rebounding was impossible.

I’m 6′6″, 6′7″ and #41 on my team, Alex Opacic is 6′10″… Kenny George is 7′7″

I definitely have a bad case of Spring/Summer fever.  I really can’t wait to go home for summer.  Since Furman is on the Trimester schedule we don’t start until 2 or 3 weeks after other Universities but we don’t get out until the end of May.  Thankfully this is the last year we’ll be on that schedule.  But now that we are switching to semesters we will have a shorter summer than usual which isn’t really a big deal to most students but for basketball and football players those 2 or 3 weeks is a big deal. I’ll be home for 10 days in between my last final of spring term and the start of summer school and then I’ll be home for 4 weeks after summer school ends.  So basically I’ll have a 5.5 week summer. I’m not really complaining though. That is one of the things you have to do when you are a college athlete and being on a full scholarship is a pretty sweet thing.

This weekend is beach weekend at Furman. Almost all teachers cancel Friday’s classes and all the fraternities rent out blocks of rooms at hotels in Myrtle Beach and then a bunch of students rent out rooms from the frats. I ended up going to Hilton Head with some friends from high school. We got here after The Office was over but we did make it in time for the Spurs Hornets game. I’m not a big Chris Paul fan at all. I lost all respect for him after he punched Julius Hodge in the nuts during a game when they were in college. I think Lakers/Celtics would be a great series or Spurs/Pistons too even thought it would be a completely different style. Basically, I just don’t really want to see the Jazz, Hornets, Magic, or Cavs in the finals.