Cup Game # 2

First off, I made it to Espana safe and sound. The flight was uneventful but I got off the city bus a little early so I had a long hike to my hotel. At least in Spain I can somewhat understand things and am at least able to order at a restaurant. The walk wasn't bad I got to walk along the beach and it was really nice. Germany must follow me everywhere because it was raining here when I got off the plane. I guess the good Lord just wanted me to feel at home. At least I didn't have to wear my winter jacket and a stocking cap.

I should probably start today by explaining the cup system. Cup games do not count toward our regular season record but is rather just a massive tournament between all the teams in our area of Germany in all divisions. Our first two cup games were against teams in leagues lower than us and we won both. Now we will most likely play teams in leagues higher than us and if we keep winning possibly a bundesliga team or pro A team, who knows. I believe coach said we are in the quarterfinals now of our cup games. I think then the winner of each are will then play each other for an overall Germany champion. I believe that is how it works but am now quite sure. If I find out any more information I wll let you know.

Back to the game. the gym we played in was very cool. Slightly bigger than some we have played in at the fans sat way up off the court probably 15 ft or so. The floor wasn't so nice, not yet played on nor seen a wood floor in Germany. The rims though were so soft that if the ball touched the rim it would drop about 2 inches. Good for shooters and we took full advantage.

I can't even remember the name of the team that we played but they were in a league below us and I guess fairly dominate and want to move up into our league.

TV Werne 03 did not come out to play like we should. We just played hard enough to stay within a few points of them. Honestly I never thought we were going to lose the game at any point, even when we were down 8 or 9 points in the second half. This team was slightly older and reminded me of like a city men's league team. As always they were very good shooters and they had some trees inside. Our starting center was sick and one of our back-up centers was injured so my boy Marko had to play serious time under the basket.

We were able to run whenever we wanted and our athleticism was by far superior but they made three after three after three and that is what kept them in it. It wasn't until the fourth quarter when we made a huge run and took the life out of them to go up by 20. Our pressure defense is what really fueled the run and we knocked down a few shots and thats really what did it for us.

We ended up winning the game 98-80 something. All of us just wanted to get out of there and get on with our lives. The whole game was a mental battle but we made it through and moved on with our lives.

Funny Story: The refs continue to talk to us in German thinking we will understand. We have away jerseys that are slightly small. That meanst that our tops come untucked frequently. The refs over here insist that our jerseys are always tucked in. One time the ref was inbounding the ball and everyone on our team had our jerseys untucked. Right now we have 3 americans and 1 serbian on the who don't speak or understand a lick of German. The refs continue to talk to us in German with us responding "we do not understand, we do not speak German." This seemed to have no affect on them and maybe if they talked more German to us we might finally understand, so they continued to talk to us in German. We continue to give them blank stares and finally after at least a couple minutes of this they start demonstrating how to tuck in a jersey and the light bulb kicks on in all our heads. I don't know what it is but when we speak english to the officials it means we don't know German, they obviously think we still do. I don't know.

Adios de Espana
TJW

P.S.
I just want to give a public thanks to J for letting me stay at his house, for waking up to take me to the airport at 4 in the morning and hopefully pick me up from the airport on monday. Thanks J, now get some sleep.