I can't remember the team.....but there was a wood floor

I can't remember the last team's name we played but we played on a wood floor.

Well, I don't even know if I could call it a wood floor. I think it was actually fake wood and it had a layer of white film on it that made it ever so slippery. I thought it was my shoes so after the first quarter ran to the bench, slipped on a towel and fell over a chair just to put on a different pair of shoes. I then found out when I went back on the floor that is was not the shoes but rather the stupid wood floor.

Just to put everything into perspective in Germany we do not believe in wood floors unless its the Bundesliga (top league in Germany). Every other league plays on a sport courtish surface which surprisingly has some give and bounce to it.

Coach the whole week had been building up this wood floor too. Naturally, in my mind I was thinking traditional wood floor in a normal gym.


Why the wood floor you may be asking yourself when we are not playing a Bundesliga team? The answer is the women's program of this particular club plays Bundesliga. They happened to be playing before us and this fake wood is pieced together on top of the sport court.

We actually got to watch the second half of the women's game as they were playing when we arrived. These women were not women but rather men dressed like women. In all honesty these ladies were huge and thick too. One team had to have a girl close to seven feet tall. This is not an exaggeration either.

You could definitely tell that this was the top women's league in Germany, although there was still a ton of turnovers and terrible decisions. No value for the ball and terrible offense. The 3-point line in top leagues in Europe is the same for both men and women. It is between college line and NBA. I would guess it was about a foot behind the men's college line.

The atmosphere was pretty cool for the women's game. They set up a restaurant along one of the sidelines. It also went back underneath the stands. I think it was put together by a catering service. There were also probably between 500-750 spectators. Too bad most left for our game. Personally, I still think our league men's basketball is more exciting than women's Bundesliga. Thats just me though.

Definitely more professionally done that other venues I have seen, but still nothing compared to the states. You really can't compare basketball here to basketball in the states. Its like night and day, apples to oranges, insert another lame analogy !

I just realized that I still have not given the score of the game or whether we won or lost. I let the wood floor control my mind. Well we did WIN, with a significant margin of 32.

88-52

The game was actually much closer than the score indicates. For some reason the officials really wanted to keep this game close. Some of the most ridiculous things were being called. The charge was again the "call of the day" on multiple occasions. Except when yours truely tries to take a charge then its a no call.

Quick scenario: A player from the opposing team has the ball on the three point line lets call him Curly. I am standing near the hoop. Curly dribbles full speed and slams directly into me. During this entire time I did two things 1. Squared up to the ball and 2. Put my arms over my head. I literally stood waiting for the guy to hit me for a good three seconds. Guess what, NO CALL. "pitchko matre" !! Thanks Marko for the Serbian lesson.

My thinking is if I am not going to get the charge I might as well try and throw his business into the upper decks. I am probably going to get a foul anyways so we might as well make things interesting.

Besides horrendous officiating they played a 2-3 zone and we not hitting our outside shots. A sweet combination for a close game. We did wear them down as the game went on and simply good care of buisness in the fourth quarter.

All in all a good win. We have a cup game this Saturday against a lower league team then back to league play next weekend.

Its sunny in Germany, its gotta be a great day
TJW

P.S. Marko has begun his season at Northern State and I am going to check the box score of his game last night when I finish up here. Check out his schedule and catch a game when he is in your area. Then after the game talk to him and call him a "pitchko"