Serbia Day 18

Day 18

Day 18 is wrapping up. A full day as my last day here in Serbia. Got up this morning and headed to breakfast at 9 with the last individual meetings being held at 10:30. Finished those up pretty quickly and then Kelsey and I scooted to meet Jelena and her parents. It was very nice to get the opportunity to meet them and spend some time with them and her little brother. The little brother looks just like Jelena and is a basketball player as well. Jelena’s dad is a big man who played for the Macedonian National team and her mom, well I would never have picked her out as Jelena’s mom. She is very pretty and looks young. Her Estonian roots of fair skin and blonde hair wouldn’t tip anyone off either.

So we departed for a drive downtown and enjoyed a walk through Skadarlija. This is the Bohemian district we visited about a week ago but it was really nice to see it again. Very pretty area. I told Kelsey that even though most of the team was going to a lake to lay in the sun, I felt that this would make her trip that much more complete. She seemed pleased by it. We walked around for a bit and then sat down for lunch at a famous place called “The Three Hats”. It was an outdoor patio and it was nice. We ordered an appetizer tray which had smoked bacon, prosciutto, a Serbian butter, corn bread, a cheese of some sort, and a bean mixture. It was very tasty. We also had 2 salad plates with some great tomatoes, cucumber, onions and peppers. The tomatoes seem to taste so much better here. Jelena said the peppers were called paprika. Sprinkle a touch of salt on them and WOW, fantastic. For a drink I had pure blueberry juice. It was nice but had some zing to it. Quite tart but very nice. Now on to the main course. Two meat plates came out. Sausages, little steaks, pork skewers, a rolled pork, bacon wrapped chicken…MMMMM. What an incredible array of flavors. What a great meal. We sat and chatted after lunch for a while and Jelena said the place they were going to take us had a very big and long pork they serve on a plate and it was known as the “Female Dream”. I laughed out loud when I heard it and so did they. Quite an interesting name. While we were eating the band showed up and started playing at the restaurant. They came over and played a song and then walked away. When they saw me reaching for my wallet they came back. They got some money and they were like flies, they wouldn’t go away. Very nice though. An accordion, a stand up bass and 3 guitars. They sang a popular song which Jelena and her mother sang along with. Once again they could have been ordering a double whopper combo and I would have no idea. It was all snap, crackle and pop to me.

After the meal we headed over to a pedestrian area and a little market area. It was good to have Jelena with us as she was able to show me some things and talk me through some things. Picked up a few things and a rather unique souvenir for myself so it was mission accomplished. We made our way back to their car and then headed to the river for a nice walk and then we went onto a riverboat restaurant and sat on deck and had a drink. I opted for the strawberry juice. Another solid choice. My favorite would have to be the pure cherry juice that I have had here but they did not have it on this boat. The boat looked over the river to the Belgrade Castle and you could see where the Danube and Sava Rivers meet. It was very nice and relaxing.

As anyone who knows me, I can’t go for very long without talking basketball so I had to ask her dad about basketball. With her as an interpreter we had a very nice conversation. I asked about his national experience and I asked about how the game has changed since he played. He said he played when the changes were going on so he had both the offensive minded era and the defensive minded era. He mentioned the impact of the game on the 3 point shot. He coaches his son’s team so I asked what the norm was for practice to game ratio and he said it was 4 to 1 during the school year and now they go 5 times a week with no games. They would like to play a few more games during the summer but the economic times make it difficult. I asked about practices and he said they spend a lot of their time on footwork, passing and all of the fundamentals. They work on layups from all different areas and basically put a lot of time into techniques. They don’t seem to work on defensive and offensive systems. They practice 4 times and play 1 game and that is the norm. Keep in mind that this is a grade 5 team. Can you imagine what would happen in Canada if we told the coaches and parents that we had to do this? There would be complete anarchy. We would be “cheating the kids” and “not teaching them how to compete”. I came to Serbia hoping to discover the “Land of Basketball” and it was slowly being uncovered. Today it busted down the doors. These people have it figured out. In our country it is all about the games, the sneakers and the track suit, coaches running presses and the latest and greatest plays with the aim of getting kids exposure and NCAA looks. What a PILE OF SHIT that is. We need a system that teaches kids how to play and not just believe their hype. We have 4 NCAA kids on our team and trust me it didn’t make anyone shake in their boots. We had some “no name” Europeans totally kick their ass because they could flat out play. The Turkish girl who dropped 32 on us did it on 3 point shots, drives to the basket and just plain outsmarting us. Had we made it to play against Russia or the Czech Republic or a team like that we would have been dismantled. The state of basketball in our country is a shame. We have a lot of work to do but if we really want to get to the highest level we have to get back to the fundamentals and get rid of the presses and zones at the lower levels. Teach the kids how to play. Some may argue that the U.S. doesn’t have to do things differently but they have a bigger talent pool and their players compete every night versus the best in the world. They had to make adjustments to get back to the gold medal level. We have pretty much slid into third world status in the basketball world and we need to make it better soon. They have basketball “factories” here that produce tremendously talented players. They have the resources and they care about basketball.

So I will finalize my basketball rant by saying that I didn’t have the best experience with our games. As always though I always study things and try to learn. I have learned many things about the international game this year. How does that help me in Cape Breton you may ask? The answer is that we have to think about multi-skilling our players. Make them more adept at ball handling and passing. Improve their conceptual thinking. The teams here beat us on fundamental skills and a more solid mastery of the concepts of the game. I watched some great basketball and filmed a lot to take home with me. I am not looking for the greatest new play. What I am looking for are actions that were tough to defend and I am looking for the usage of skills with a focus on the decision making within their offense and defense. Russia was by far the prettiest team to watch when it came to the overall package. Hungary ran some sweet offensive things that were all based on concepts. Australia was also very solid. Some great things to take from every game I watched.

On the other side of things, the trip was VERY eye opening. While it was a tiring schedule it was nice to get to see a different part of the world. What I have observed about Serbia is that the people here are tremendously proud people. There is poverty everywhere and it is a tough way of life for many but they manage to make it work. How do they do it? They care tremendously about their country and about other people. It was nice to see some history that was both good and bad. The beautiful castle and the many historic buildings told a nice history of Belgrade. The site of the concentration camp and the bombed out buildings showed another side of history. It is amazing what these people have had to go through and yet they endure and continue to smile. One thing I hope our players have learned from this is to appreciate what they have at home. For every young person who is buried in their Ipod and text messages and who complains about what kind of tracksuit their team gets, I would love to take them here to see what they could be having. I know seeing those bombed out building gave me a better sense of the world in which we live. Canada has its’ faults but it is a pretty great country. I thank everyone who has ever gone to war to defend the freedom we have. I really would not want to deal with what this country has had to deal with.

So back to my day. We were supposed to make our way back for a meeting at 5:45. We left our little floating restaurant in plenty of time. When we got to the right exit for the bridge it was blocked off and the traffic looked pretty rough. We ended up getting back here around 6pm and were late for the meeting. Kelsey and I hustled over for one last quick team meeting, Afterwards the girls were going to the closing ceremonies. I said no to that as it was not of interest to me. Deb, Linda, Ed (a massage therapist) and I went up the street to the Holiday Inn for a late supper. What an awesome last big meal in Serbia. A nice prosciutto with melon appetizer followed by a great pesto vegetable soup. The main course was a chicken pasta with sundried tomatoes and rosemary. YUMMY. The meal was good and we had a great chat. A nice way to finish the trip. I must say the food was definitely good, for the most part, on this trip. A tad bit salty though. I figured I have had my limit of salt when two deer were waiting outside my room this morning!!!

The people of Serbia have treated us so kindly. I know many can say that they did it because of the games but it didn’t matter where we went, people talked to us and treated us very nicely. Did I also mention that the women were absolutely incredible? I think that statement just had to be made. If I could speak to all of the people of Serbia at one time I would say a great bit HVALLA.

So as I write this the village is bouncing. There is music blasting and the athletes are enjoying themselves. They are trading all of their clothing and basically having a good time. The temperature is nice so I may take a short walk around the village one last time.

We have an 8AM breakfast with departure for the airport at 9:45AM. My travel day tomorrow looks like this:

Day starts at 7AM Belgrade time – 2AM Cape Breton time

9:45 Departure for airport

12:40 Depart Belgrade

3:10 Arrive in Paris

4:25 Depart Paris

5:55PM Arrive in Montreal

7:50PM Depart Montreal

10:15PM Arrive in Halifax

ASAP after that – Depart Halifax and drive to Cape Breton

Estimated time of arrival – 3AM

Total Time of the Journey tomorrow – roughly 25 hours

I will definitely sleep along the way.

So once again, to the 2 or 3 people who have stayed awake long enough, thanks for following this again. It’s been an interesting journey. I’ll have lots of pictures when I get home. As I said when I started, basically this blog was so my mom could follow along and kind of keep an eye on me while sharing the experience along the way.

I’ll see you soon Mom, Volim Te

See you all in Canada.

Coach

Serbia Day 17

Day 17 is over. How do you get so tired after a day of nothing to do? Breakfast at 9 this morning then off to individual meetings with our players. It is a Canada Basketball policy that we debrief with each player after the trip. We finished most of them with a few more left for tomorrow.

After the meetings I finally tracked Phil down and had a picture taken with Kelsey, Phil and I. Deb and Linda were waiting after that and we scooted downtown with a bunch of the girls. We wanted to check out a few shops and a little market again. It was a fun time. We had some laughs and explored a bit. Deb and Linda were able to talk two bartenders at sidewalk cafes into giving them free beer glasses to take home. The guys would not take payment for them. They just gave them away. The market area was kind of neat but we really didn’t have a ton of time to look through things. We met 2 of the girls about an hour after we arrived and we all shared a cab back to the Belgrade Arena. Russia and U.S. for the women’s gold medal. Great game for a half and then the US opened it up and knocked them off by about 20. We headed back to the village afterwards. The men’s bronze was at 5:30 and the gold at 9. We met back for supper at 6:30 and then headed to the arena at about 7:30. It was about a 15 minute walk. When we arrived there were a ton of people there. At 8pm, 1 hour before game time, most of the lower bowl was full and the arena seats 20,000. A lot of anticipation for the game. By the time 9PM arrive there was very few empty seats and the crowd heavily favored Serbia. They didn’t disappoint. They won the gold by about 20 in a very boring game. A lot of standing around on defense and a lot of fouls. Deb and Linda left at half but I stayed until the final buzzer. The arena went NUTS!!! A nice environment to be in.

After the game I took the 20-25 minute walk back in the cool air. It was nice. Along the way, I got to thinking about home though and it is time to get going. I have spent my time here and it was very nice but home is calling. As I said it was nice to be here and it was a good experience in different ways but it is just not home.

One of the neat things that happened today occurred during supper. The team from Ghana came into the meal hall singing in unison. Too bad we weren’t allowed to have a video camera in there. They sang traditional songs and danced traditional dances for about 20 minutes Full of energy and passion and it was very lively and entertaining. If more people could have that pride where would this world be!!

Tomorrow will be the last full day in Serbia. We will have breakfast at 9:30 and then have our final meetings with the girls. At noon Kelsey and I will meet Jelena and head out for a few hours. A little market shopping and perhaps a nice meal. Then it will be packing time.

Tomorrow will be my last post from Serbia. For those 2 or 3 that are still following I will reflect on the whole experience tomorrow. Perhaps a little ranting, a little philosophy perhaps and a whole lot of verbal diarrhea!!!!

See you tomorrow.

Coach

Serbia Day 16

Day 16

Well day 16 is in the books. Another day another same old breakfast. Up for 9 am and then back here with some time off before a 1pm meeting for some video. I figured I might do a little video and then skip off to the mall to check some things out. Turns out my last day of video would be the most frustrating. I ran into 3 more technical glitches that cost me a lot of time. In the end I basically had to go for a walk before I smashed everything in the room. I came up with a solution and then headed out for a walk. I walked around the mall a bit and picked up a few things at the grocery store.

After this I came back and relaxed until meeting time. We went over to our meeting room and I set up our camera and projector. It wasn’t working the best but then I figured out a way to hook up the camera directly to the TV. That worked really well. WE watched the first half of our previous Mozambique game and I stopped the video along the way to ask some questions. The girls were pretty quiet. They seemed kind of flat during the meeting. I guess the trip coupled with the losing has made them tired. Following the video session the coaches went to lunch but I just wasn’t hungry so I headed off to my room. I put my head down and closed my eyes for a second and before I knew it the time was 3:45 and we were leaving at 4 for our game. Time to scramble. I got ready to go and made the bus on time.

We arrived at the gym and got ready to go. Our focus was on stopping dribble penetration and taking advantage of our size. Well we were up to our old tricks. First 5 possessions of the game – 5 turnovers. Unbelievably frustrating.. Eventually we settled down and played better basketball but Mozambique hung with us. We made a little run to go ahead 21-17 after the first quarter. We controlled most of the second quarter and had a 43-36 lead going into the half. I guess we figured the game was over. WE came out flat and Mozambique went on a 13-0 run to start the half. So much for our lead. We called a timeout to adjust our attitude and make some subs. It seemed to work as we slowly got back into the game. By the end of the third quarter, Robyn Buna had shot us back into the game and we held a 61-56 lead. We pulled away in the fourth and won the game 83-65. Kelsey had 7 points today. As the game progressed today Mozambique began getting dirtier and dirtier. There were elbows flying and pinches and pushes. The 2 moves that really put it over the top were when a player for them grabbed the stomachs of two of our players and twisted them while pushing and then she was behind our post, reached between her legs and pinched her private parts. I have never seen that move until tonight. Our girls played through the contact though and maintained their composure.

Following the game we went outside and our girls were mobbed by little children from that area of the city. They were signing autographs and taking pictures. When we arrived back at the village it was time to say farewell to our 4 man security team. They were with us all week and did a great job. The girls all said goodbye and posed for pictures with them. They really looked after us and we were very thankful. An interesting moment with them was the other night when the power went out during the game. They were sitting on the other side of the gym. When the power went out, three of them were around us in seconds watching every movement around the team. IT was quite interesting to see.

Once the girls said their goodbyes it was a quick turnaround and then over to the mall for a team meal of pizza. They were more than happy to go for that after eating cafeteria food all week. Interesting pizzas to say the least. There was “Margarita Pizza” – basically mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese. There was Ham Pizza, Prosciutto and Arugula pizza and Spinach Pizza that was drenched in garlic. It was my favorite. After pizza I treated Kelsey to a gellato which is basically like ice cream but much better. It was outstanding.

Following the pizza, Deb, Linda and I went and sat in a little bar in the Holiday Inn just up the street to put together the info for our individual meetings with the girls. We will have these tomorrow and Sunday. Our final wrap up for the team.

While the trip has been somewhat disappointing from a team standpoint there is still lots left to do. Tomorrow we have meetings in the morning, a quick trip to the market and then we have the bronze and gold medal games for the Women and Men. Russia –US women, I’ll go with the US based on athleticism and pressure defense but Russia is so pretty to watch. On the men’s Russia upset the US so I believe they play Serbia. I haven’t seen Russia so I can’t make a call but I know the atmosphere will be NUTS!!!! I’ll be there with the video camera. Sunday I hope to see Jelena and explore some of the city and I want to take Kelsey to the Bohemian district where we went the other night. Monday it is off to a place that I have missed dearly. Even though I am heading back to a pile of screaming campers and 3 weeks of camp, it will be nice to be home and in our gym.

So it is now almost 1AM. Time to sign off and head to bed. An early morning awaits.

Talk to you tomorrow

Coach

Serbia Day 16

Day 16

Well day 16 is in the books. Another day another same old breakfast. Up for 9 am and then back here with some time off before a 1pm meeting for some video. I figured I might do a little video and then skip off to the mall to check some things out. Turns out my last day of video would be the most frustrating. I ran into 3 more technical glitches that cost me a lot of time. In the end I basically had to go for a walk before I smashed everything in the room. I came up with a solution and then headed out for a walk. I walked around the mall a bit and picked up a few things at the grocery store.

After this I came back and relaxed until meeting time. We went over to our meeting room and I set up our camera and projector. It wasn’t working the best but then I figured out a way to hook up the camera directly to the TV. That worked really well. WE watched the first half of our previous Mozambique game and I stopped the video along the way to ask some questions. The girls were pretty quiet. They seemed kind of flat during the meeting. I guess the trip coupled with the losing has made them tired. Following the video session the coaches went to lunch but I just wasn’t hungry so I headed off to my room. I put my head down and closed my eyes for a second and before I knew it the time was 3:45 and we were leaving at 4 for our game. Time to scramble. I got ready to go and made the bus on time.

We arrived at the gym and got ready to go. Our focus was on stopping dribble penetration and taking advantage of our size. Well we were up to our old tricks. First 5 possessions of the game – 5 turnovers. Unbelievably frustrating.. Eventually we settled down and played better basketball but Mozambique hung with us. We made a little run to go ahead 21-17 after the first quarter. We controlled most of the second quarter and had a 43-36 lead going into the half. I guess we figured the game was over. WE came out flat and Mozambique went on a 13-0 run to start the half. So much for our lead. We called a timeout to adjust our attitude and make some subs. It seemed to work as we slowly got back into the game. By the end of the third quarter, Robyn Buna had shot us back into the game and we held a 61-56 lead. We pulled away in the fourth and won the game 83-65. Kelsey had 7 points today. As the game progressed today Mozambique began getting dirtier and dirtier. There were elbows flying and pinches and pushes. The 2 moves that really put it over the top were when a player for them grabbed the stomachs of two of our players and twisted them while pushing and then she was behind our post, reached between her legs and pinched her private parts. I have never seen that move until tonight. Our girls played through the contact though and maintained their composure.

Following the game we went outside and our girls were mobbed by little children from that area of the city. They were signing autographs and taking pictures. When we arrived back at the village it was time to say farewell to our 4 man security team. They were with us all week and did a great job. The girls all said goodbye and posed for pictures with them. They really looked after us and we were very thankful. An interesting moment with them was the other night when the power went out during the game. They were sitting on the other side of the gym. When the power went out, three of them were around us in seconds watching every movement around the team. IT was quite interesting to see.

Once the girls said their goodbyes it was a quick turnaround and then over to the mall for a team meal of pizza. They were more than happy to go for that after eating cafeteria food all week. Interesting pizzas to say the least. There was “Margarita Pizza” – basically mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese. There was Ham Pizza, Prosciutto and Arugula pizza and Spinach Pizza that was drenched in garlic. It was my favorite. After pizza I treated Kelsey to a gellato which is basically like ice cream but much better. It was outstanding.

Following the pizza, Deb, Linda and I went and sat in a little bar in the Holiday Inn just up the street to put together the info for our individual meetings with the girls. We will have these tomorrow and Sunday. Our final wrap up for the team.

While the trip has been somewhat disappointing from a team standpoint there is still lots left to do. Tomorrow we have meetings in the morning, a quick trip to the market and then we have the bronze and gold medal games for the Women and Men. Russia –US women, I’ll go with the US based on athleticism and pressure defense but Russia is so pretty to watch. On the men’s Russia upset the US so I believe they play Serbia. I haven’t seen Russia so I can’t make a call but I know the atmosphere will be NUTS!!!! I’ll be there with the video camera. Sunday I hope to see Jelena and explore some of the city and I want to take Kelsey to the Bohemian district where we went the other night. Monday it is off to a place that I have missed dearly. Even though I am heading back to a pile of screaming campers and 3 weeks of camp, it will be nice to be home and in our gym.

So it is now almost 1AM. Time to sign off and head to bed. An early morning awaits.

Talk to you tomorrow

Coach

Serbia Day 15

Day 15

Well day 15 is in the books. One of the more boring days on the trip. Early breakfast which is getting less stellar everyday but hey it’s a meal and there are people here that don’t get that all the time. After breakfast I was going to do a little walk nearby but I had to get some Mozambique film ready. We weren’t going to watch any but then Deb and Linda decided we should so I got that ready. We also had meetings with a few players to air out a few issues.

After this we got ready to go to practice. We practice from 1-2 at FMP Basketland. A basketball high school with a club affiliation and 2 full gyms. Our last practice as a team. We met as a group beforehand to discuss our final goals and to have each player discuss what they can learn from the last 3 days of the trip. When it came to my turn I talked to them about choices. I can hear most of my players who read this saying, “I’m sick of hearing about choices”. I told our team that Kelsey has heard it a lot in 4 years. I said that they have a choice to fold up the tent and go home or they can try and salvage some pride. I told them they could go to the other games and watch the other players and learn what it’s like to play international basketball. What I said next seemed to perk up a few ears. I gave it to them straight like I would in our locker room. I told them that we did have some talent and that we weren’t a team. I told them that contrary to what they might think, there are players who are much better than they are. I then told them that all the words they said were nice but they don’t mean shit if they didn’t go out on the court and back them up. I really only know one way to be honest about it all. This group has some unwarranted ego. Some players seem to believe that because they are in the NCAA they are better or that makes them higher up. What I think is that these European players could give 2 shits if you are in the NCAA or the Intergalactic Superstar League. Once you are on the court they will outsmart you and tear you a new one.

Sorry for the rant, more to come later. On to practice. We had a very good practice with quite a bit of energy. People were focused on the task at hand and overall our last practice was a good one. Hopefully it transfers to the game vs. Mozambique tomorrow. We stopped off for lunch after practice and then gave the girls the option of taking the evening off or go with the coaches to watch the semi-finals. All of them chose to watch the games.

The U.S. beat Australia quite handily with their athletic ability and defensive pressure. It was nothing spectacular on offense, they just did it with pressure. They took Australia out of their comfort zone. The second game was pretty to watch. Although it got out of hand in the middle of the 3^rd quarter, Russia put on a clinic in beating the Czech Republic. I will watch this game many more times. If I could make every player in Canada watch it I would. I will hopefully get the chance to show many Cape Breton kids. Good ballhandling, great spacing, tremendous passing and an impressive understanding of the game. I will definitely be making clips of the game to show my own players. As a purist who loves the fundamentals, it was a pleasure to watch. To give you an idea of how impressive it was, their 6’7” post player popped out to the 3 point line to catch the ball, drove to her left (her wrong hand), began to shoot the ball and at the last second fired a left handed pass across the paint to her teammate for a layup. Pretty impressive stuff.

Time for another rant or just a little turn off course. I’ve been thinking of this for most of the day. One of the major lessons I was hoping our girls would learn here was one of pride and determination. This country is a very proud one. That is all I see everywhere. The people are so friendly and seem to be hard working people. Our girls were slowly giving up after a few losses. This country has people living in slums and poverty is evident. They are a war torn people whose city was torn apart by war and NATO bombings. What did they do? Did they quit? Nope they rebuilt their country and you can see their pride. I absolutely love it. Our kids quit after a few losses and whine because they have to eat some different food. They have to grow up a little and feel a little more grateful for the opportunities presented to them. I am sure that many of them will forget the poverty they saw here until they see a picture months down the road. I think we have done a disservice to society by spoiling many young people the way we have. They get most things handed to them and don’t have to work hard. Even this selection process. No tryout camp just a phone call and you are on the team. They have developed a sense of entitlement and that is not what we need. But sorry for that little rant.

Tomorrow we play our last game vs. Mozambique at 12:30 Cape Breton time. Hopefully we come out with a big effort and finish up strong. The basketball “on court” experience will end tomorrow for me but I will go and film as many games as possible before I leave. I will also try and talk to as many coaches as I can. There is so much to learn about the international game.

Talk to you tomorrow

Coach

Serbia Day 14

Well day 14 is in the books. Unlucky day 14. I wish I could have that one back.

Breakfast was at 9 and the same old stuff. Getting a bit boring but hey, eating in any cafeteria for every meal for 2 straight weeks is bound to drive you nuts. We came back from breakfast and I finished the Turkey video. We met at 1PM as coaches to review the video and then the players met with us at 1:30. During the session there were a few observations from the players about the video that made me wary. They said that it would be simple to beat Turkey if we were patient and moved the ball a little and that their defense was horrible. They felt the game would be easier. Not a good omen.

After the session we headed off to lunch which was pretty crappy to be honest. I even broke down and ate some curried stuff because it seemed to be one of the better options. We headed back to the village to get ready for the game. The temperature was high this morning but the dark clouds were rolling in. Another omen perhaps.

We departed for the gym at 4pm and arrived to watch France finish with a victory over Mozambique. We took the court at 5:30 with a game plan of taking away their easy shots and pushing the tempo in our favor. We also wanted to get the ball inside as it was a strength for us at least on paper. The game started out as all of our games have. We were slow and sloppy and couldn’t convert. Within minutes the game was over. We never stood a chance. Turkey laid down an old fashioned ass whooping. They were up 57-41 at the half. We were absolutely atrocious on defense and we played with no passion whatsoever. The best part of the first half was that the lights went out with 46 seconds left due to the major lightning storm happening for the bazillionth time this week.

What do we say at halftime that hasn’t already been said. We made a few adjustments and then Linda let me speak to the team. I told them I thought that they already had one foot on the place. They were ready to get out of here. I told them to stop feeling sorry for themselves and put away the NCAA and CIS egos. We were playing for Canada. I also told them that I never had the talent to be at that level. They should be so thankful to be given the chance. I then told them that I would have absolutely nothing left in me if somebody was whooping my ass that bad. Turkey just had too many easy buckets.

Well nothing we had to say made any impact. The Turkish team kept their foot on the gas and we didn’t really respond. They made a pile of 3’s and basically ran us off the floor. The final score was 104-81

Kelsey didn’t score today as I think she has more than hit the wall. She is trying to stay with it but I believe her body has said “that’s enough”. I am hopeful that she can pull it out with one more good game. We play on Friday vs. Mozambique which is a game for last place. Yep. Last place. This has been an embarrassing and extremely frustrating basketball experience but we knew it would be tough coming in. We have had some ego issues and that has soured things a little. Outside of our own games it has been very fun for the most part. I thought our team was turning the corner a few days ago but it seems as though the road has disappeared. One thing in the losses though is that the opponents have shown me a lot of good things. There is lots of good basketball here just not being played by us.

Our players think that we should just be good because we have talent. This is not the case. Most of the teams have very effective guards. Australia, who is in the semi final, has AVERAGE guards at best but they never turn it over, they run the offense and they play hard on defense. Our guards don’t handle the ball exceptionally well but the skill that our guards and basically all of our players are poor at is how to pass and catch the ball. More importantly than how to do it is when to do it and at this we are horrible. Another huge difference here is the skill level and mobility of the 4’s and 5’s. Our big kids are taught to sit under the basket and post up hard. Not on these teams. Tonight, Turkeys post player hit a bunch of 3’s and finished with 32 points and 9 rebounds and not one of our players put her on her ass with a hard contact. We are too nice and too soft. But back to the skill set of the big people, most can move well, shoot the ball well from the perimeter and handle it well. We have a LOT of work to do to catch up to the international game. Good athletes aren’t the answer, good, smart, fundamentally sound players are.

So we jump on the bus and return home from the game and it was pretty quiet. I hate losing but losing without playing hard is another story. I was wishing we had somebody like Karmen Brown to get out there and give a million percent and sacrifice their body to win. We just have a number of pudding pops. That’s just the way it is.

We have an off day tomorrow so the staff decided to take our attaché Ivana out for a meal. She picked the spot and what a magnificent spot it was. I can’t recall the name of it right now but it was basically a floating restaurant on the Danube River. The windows opened up almost at water level and the cool breeze was beautiful. The atmosphere was unique and our waiter was funny with a little bit of English. The only knock against the place was that people were smoking everywhere.

We ordered a Serbian breaded cheese for an appetizer and it was outstanding. Moriah had the perch, Ivana and Deb had Calimari and Linda had smoked trout. They all enjoyed it. I asked about meat and potatoes and the waiter ordered something for me. When it came it was basically the largest frickin hamburger I have ever seen perhaps. It didn’t quite taste like hamburger but it was good. Top it off with cheesecake for dessert (which was different but INCREDIBLE) and we had a good meal with a few good stories and a few good laughs.

Off day tomorrow. I am going to watch the semi finals with the USA vs. Australia and Czech Republic vs. Russia. Should be fun to watch. We play Mozambique again on Friday at 5:30. Hopefully we have some kind of good result to finish a very disappointing tourney.

Serbia Day 13

Well Day 13 is in the books. Another interesting day but not quite as fun as yesterday. Breakfast was the same old same old except that added orange juice today which didn’t really taste like orange juice but they said it was. After breakfast we jumped right on a bus and headed downtown under the guidance of our attaché Ivana. She took us to Kalamegden which is a beautiful park and Belgrade Castle. We took about a 2 hour walk in the SCORCHING heat. No sunscreen meant sunburn for the kid. Arms, neck, face..throw in a nice scrape on my leg where I lost my footing on the castle wall and I had a full morning. The castle was absolutely beautiful though. The neat thing that inside the castle is a basketball court where, apparently, the first game of basketball was played in Serbia. It is painted red and the team was called Red Star. Still a popular club I understand. The flowers, trees and statues were impressive and it was really neat to see where the Sava River and the Danube meet. A spectacular view of Belgrade is what you get at the top of the castle. Inside the park there is also a nice group of artisans peddling their wares. I worked on a deal but the woman didn’t budge much but it was still fun.

So we take the bus ride back to the village and I decided to skip lunch. I figured I had too much sun this morning so I headed back to my room for a cool shower. After this I started breaking down video for France. The coaching staff had a meeting at a café to discuss practice and to watch some clips I had on France. Unfortunately it was at that point that we learned of a schedule change and now we are playing Turkey. Luckily I had them loaded on my laptop so we watched that for a little while.

Practice followed with a bus ride at 4 pm for a 5 pm practice. Before practice I went to the delegation office to see if they had some hats I could give to our guards but I had to buy them. Sad but whatever. These 4 guys have followed us around all week and have provided armed protection whenever we are off the village site. They have really been part of our whole experience so I bought 4 hats and presented them to them. They loved it. They aren’t allowed to wear them on duty but they appreciated them. They are learning English and we are learning some Serbian. It doesn’t sound pretty either way.

Another very sad sign of poverty here was witnessed today as some of the gypsy children were at exit ramps stopping cars and begging for money. If the car was stopped in traffic they just kept knocking on the windows. These kids are barely 10 years old if they are even that age. It is sad.

If I could recite Allen Iverson for a moment…”Practice…we talkin’ bout practice…it’s only practice…it ain’t like the game…it’s just practice”. I think that was the mindset today because about 5 of them had their head turned on and the rest were out to lunch. It was a very frustrating practice but we pushed and got some work done. I think one of the big things that the players have to learn about in this situation is the mental toughness that is needed for a tourney like this. If they have dreams of representing Canada at the Olympics or any other major tourney they must get prepared for the grind of 7 games in 10 days with practice thrown in. It is tough to get through but the ones that make it through in a positive manner will be better prepared for the future. We knew coming in that winning was not going to be the highest priority. You can’t commit to no training and expect results. The idea was for the kids to experience this type of competition and make progress as the tourney goes on. I think that we are making progress even though it was a tough day today. One thing I really don’t understand is how a player doesn’t “bring it” every day when they have the name CANADA across their chest. Kelsey seems to be "feeling the trip" a little bit but is battling hard through it. As I told her, when you are chasing your dreams, energy is never a factor. Your mindset will determine everything.

After practice we head to the meal hall for supper which wasn’t bad. When we came back Moriah and I decided to go to Belgrade Arena for the men’s game between Serbia and the U.S. We arrived at the arena at a few minutes to 8 with an 8PM tipoff. Understand that there are no assigned seats here at the arena for this event and the lineup was huge outside. We finally got in and got settled with about 7 minutes left in the 2^nd quarter. Let me say this. I have been in a lot of gyms and watched a lot of basketball and I have NEVER, EVER, EVER seen anything like I did tonight. The arena was full. The game was see saw the WHOLE way. At times the arena was so loud that it sounded like thunder. There was whistles, chants, claps, foot stomps and general yelling like I have never experienced. When the U.S. had the ball they booed. Whenever they shot a free throw it was like the roof was going to cave in. It was FRICKIN BIZARRE. So the game goes see sawing back and forth with some great plays. The U.S. built a little lead of about 6-7 points and then they decided to have the shot selection of a grade 4 team. Serbia jumped all over it and took a 2 point lead. The U.S. tied then Serbia got up 1 on a free throw and the U.S came down on the next possession and banged home a 3. It went back and forth in the last 2 minutes and the U.S. had a lead. They made a careless pass and a very smart Serbian player made a crafty steal and scored. Another U.S. 3, a Serbian 3 ( the roof almost came in), U.S. 2 point basket and we are in the last minute with the U.S. up by 1. There is less than 11.6 seconds left and the U.S. is fouled. 2 shots. The place is going crazy. They brick both but a U.S. player swoops in for an offensive rebound and gets fouled. 2 shots. U.S. still up 1. Place is loud. He bricks the first one and it gets louder. He bricks the second one but another offensive rebound and a foul. U.S. has 2 more shots with under 10 seconds left and up 1. First one is a brick. The place is going crazy. The U.S. has just missed 5 in a row. Under the loudest conditions I have ever seen for a game the player steps up and hits one. U.S up by 2. Serbia timeout. They will advance to half with less than 10 seconds left. The whole place is one their feet, the dancers are on the floor and you can hardly hear yourself think. This is what they mean by “The Land of Basketball”. Everyone is on their feet as the Serbian team inbounds the ball. They get it to their best player on the right side and he attacks 1 on 1 and steps back for a three. It rims out and the U.S. win by 2. Absolutely the wildest event I have ever witnessed. I hope those 2 get a chance to meet in the gold medal game. It will be nuts. I videotaped the game and I am sure I will watch it a number of times.

After the game Moriah and I walked home in the cool Belgrade night. It was so hot earlier today but just around practice time we had a MAJOR LEAGUE thunder and lightning storm. Gotta be our 5^th or 6^th since we’ve been here. It has cooled off considerably and it will be nice sleeping weather.

Tomorrow is a 9AM breakfast followed by me breaking down more Turkey video and then a scouting report meeting at 1PM. We play at 5:30 and we are hoping to keep the momentum going from our game vs. Mozambique.

Cya tomorrow

Coach

Day 12 Add on

So I forgot to mention a point about day 12. Before our meeting at 11:30 there were two young ladies who approached us just outside our meeting room looking for pins. That is a CRAZY popular thing here. Well I didn't have any. I looked in my bag however and found one. Of course I can't do anything the easy way. I went and found one of them and put on my "magic" hat. Just like last year in China, when you can't speak each other's language, magic can bridge that gap. I pulled out a serbian coin and started to make it disappear and reappear in many different ways. Her eyes were wide open and she had an astonished look on her face. Then I held out my hand and showed her to hold out her own hand. She did and I changed the coin into a Canadian pin. She opened her mouth up wide and in broken English said "How you do?". I looked at her, smiled and said Magic.

Once again, the smile and look of astonishment was worth every second.

Serbia Day 12

This older man was playing in the band at our restaurant. He played the guitar with a glass, a plate and here with a bartenders tray. Impressive.The cobblestone streets lined with shops, cafes and restaurants. Our restaurant is on the right with the green umbrellas. a great meal outside.
Our restaurant after dark
The tree lined pedestrian street lined with cafes. Note the almost perfect timing with the 2 women in the foreground!!
A neat alleyway in the Bohemian district
Our restaurant - This old hat of mine. Great food and friendly people.
Lines and lines of cafes
Fountain in republic square

Serbia Day 12

Day 12 is over. Wow. What a full day. Quite possibly the best day since we arrived. Breakfast was set for 9am so I thought I would get some sleep in. The South African contingent decided against that plan. In the parking lot immediately behind my room they decided to do team building exercises at 7:45AM. Instead of being pissed I just sat there and observed. They did some neat activities and different challenges. I took some notes and thought about what they might be trying to accomplish with the activities. They were doing some neat things.

So breakfast was fairly busy with no scrambled eggs available so it was sliced ham, polenta and the rice/nut/raisin/milky kind of mix. I discovered pumpkin seeds in it today. It’s not too bad. Leaving breakfast I started to notice the heat. It was humid and VERY hot today.

After breakfast we had a team meeting scheduled for 11:30. Deb, Linda and I went for a coffee at the sidewalk café to get some sun and relax for a bit. It is amazing to me to see how many athletes are there smoking and drinking coffee. I headed back to my room afterwards and finished the Mozambique video. We headed over to the meeting room at 11:00 to set up and discuss the game plan. The meeting was quick and then the girls headed off to get a snack as a pregame meal. Deb, Linda and I headed over to the little grocery store on campus and then went to the tourist info place, the souvenir store and the headquarters for the 2011 games which will be in China. I don’t know if it was fatigue or not but we had too many laughs in that short time.

The bus departed for the game at about 1:45 for a 3PM start. When we got to the gym Hungary and Japan were in a tight game. It went to overtime and with 5 seconds left and her team down 1, a Japanese player stole the ball and went in alone for the win. She tried to roll it over the front of the rim and it rolled out. They lost on a bad fundamental. USE THE BACKBOARD!!!!

So we start the game vs. Mozambique and the girls seemed a little flat which was a familiar setting. We struggled to get going and they were up 21-14 at the end of the 1^st quarter. They were driving hard to the rim and we just couldn’t seem to get in front of them to stop them. Their athleticism was tough to handle. Having never practiced it we switched to a zone and that caused them trouble. We made a great run and were up 37-29 at the half. Interesting thing happened in the first half. Mozambique is not that deep and they only play around 8 kids maximum, most of the time it is 7. Well one of their players picked up their third and then fourth foul with no sub. She then fouled out with about 4 minutes left in the first half. I had never seen that before.

We met at halftime and I discussed some adjustments for our zone defense. We were going to stay in it as long as we could. For a little bit in the 3^rd quarter they forced us to lose our discipline and we spaced out too much allowing them to find the holes and score. We called time out and tightened it up and things seemed to be fine. We stayed in it the rest of the way and came away with our first win - 76-58. Kelsey struggled a bit today as I think her legs are bugging her although she will never say anything. She finished with 3 points. (Last night it was 11 as I think I forgot to add that in).

We were pleased with the effort and now we have a day off tomorrow with a game vs. France scheduled for Wednesday.

A familiar face was in the crowd cheering us on today as Jelena made the journey from her home to come and watch. It was really nice to see her and she looked great. What was even more impressive was that she took a 4 hour bus ride to the site of the game to cheer us on and then jumped on the bus and headed back home for another 4 hour bus ride. Her and her parents are coming up here on the weekend and we will go out and have dinner.

So the real adventure came after the game. We came back and the girls got ready to head to the men’s game. The coaching staff decided to explore what downtown Belgrade nightlife was like. The temperature here tonight was amazing. We headed downtown at around 6pm. The cab ride was fun as the guy said he was having a bad day and then tried to get a little more out of us instead of the agreed upon price. We settled on a price and headed out into Republic Square. This is located in old Belgrade and it beautiful. There are a number of pedestrian streets with shops and art displays and a pile of sidewalk cafes. We sat at one and just people watched for a while. All I can say is that Serbian women are impressive!!!

While we were there, a young and quite sickly looking girl who was probably no older than 8 or 9 came up to us with a note scribbled in Serbian. She was begging the people for money. She looked pretty bad and it was quite sad. After a little while we headed off in search of information. We found a tourist info booth and we asked about a good place to eat. She told us there were many restaurants in the Bohemian district of Skadarlija. She didn’t point us in the right direction though, she walked us over to the area and told us exactly where to go. She was a wonderful young lady.

I didn’t know what to expect but I was floored when I got there. Cobblestone streets lined with cafes, restaurants and artisans. It looked like something out of a painting. I was really blown away. It was what I expected in Europe. We walked around a few streets and checked out a few spots. It was so pretty with little bands playing Serbian songs at most of the restaurants. WE decided on one that was recommended called “This Old Hat of Mine”. We sat down in the beautiful night and watched the people go by as we listened to Serbian music. Our waiter was very nice and explained some of the things to us. First were the drinks and I ordered lemonade which was warm, freshly squeezed lemon juice. He brought sugar with it that made it somewhat drinkable. He also brought some warm bread that was very good. He told us about an appetizer plate so we ordered it. It was good. It came with a very tasty smoked meat, prosciutto, corn bread, feta cheese, a ham and cream cheese “square”, two kind of spiral rolls with cream cheese and spices and some kind of salad in the middle almost like chicken salad. IT also came with a cheese spread that was almost like butter that is traditional in Serbia. WOW. IT was tasty to say the least. The waiter also brought some peppers on a plate with garlic. Deb tried them and had tears in her eyes because they were so hot. She did a good job of eating many of them though.

I asked our waiter to recommend something to me and he asked what I felt like. I said meat and potatoes. He said “Good, in Serbia we are meat eaters”. He recommended a sampler plate so I went for it. It arrived with a few potatoes on it and then 3 different sausages, a bacon wrapped chicken breast, a cheese stuffed pork tenderloin sample, a piece of beef and then something else I thought was pork. The potatoes may have been the best ever and the meat was OUTSTANDING. What an amazing meal in an amazing environment. We had great conversation and shared a lot of laughs.

After dinner we roamed around a bit and checked things out on the streets. We then headed back to republic square. There was a Nike store open so we headed inside to check things out. I didn’t buy anything after looking at one pair of Air Jordans. They cost over $400. No thanks.

Perhaps the most fun part of the night came next. I think Deb would talk to the devil if she could and she is all about business when it comes to certain things. We approached a cab driver and she haggled a price and we jumped in. The driver looked about 50 and seemed friendly. She started chatting up the driver and our education began. We asked him about sports and he said he didn’t follow them. He said when he was younger he liked sports a little bit but when all his buddies were playing football and basketball he was playing his favorite sport – chasing women. Then the philosophy came. Deb teased him about it and then he told us some sage wisdom. He said in broken English, “Women are like ocean, you must explore”. He then told us that women are like books too. He said, “You read book, you know in future the book. You know what happens and how everything will be. Read book and then get a new book. Old book is boring now.” He had us laughing the whole way home. What a crazy ending to an absolutely fun day. Tiring but fun.

So tomorrow is an off day before we play on Wednesday. In the morning we will have breakfast and then our attaché is taking us to Kalamegdan park and the Belgrade fortress. It should be fun. We saw the fortress on our tour and it looked impressive.

Now that you are completely asleep I will depart and get ready for some sleep. One week from now at this time I will be in Montreal awaiting a flight to Halifax. I can’t wait to smell the ocean.

Coach

Serbia Day 11

Serbia Day 11

Day 11 in the books.. Long day, finally over. Early breakfast with more polenta this morning and a rice/raisin/nutty/milky kind of pudding thing. It was pretty good.

After breakfast we headed off to practice at 10AM. A decent practice as we worked on some man to man offense, some zone offense as well as some full court stuff. We finished with me walking them through the scouting report for Hungary. As we were leaving the gym, Russia was coming in to practice. Their front line at times is 6’7”, 6’5” and 6’4”. Impressive. A really neat thing happened while we were outside just after practice. WE have been basically shadowed all week by 2 undercover policemen with a driver and a military guy in the police car in front of us. The driver came over to me and in broken English said he had something for me. He handed me a lanyard and then his whistle issued to him by the Belgrade Police Department. Each officer has one issued to him. It has Serbian writing on it and it is really cool. It was a tremendous gesture. I gave him a Canada Basketball pin and will try and find something else for him perhaps. Just another example of how friendly people have been here in Serbia. We came back after practice and then headed to lunch. Usual stuff with nothing new for lunch.

Came back after lunch and finalized the video for our 2pm video session. The session went well as we are working out the technology bugs that we were dealing with. After the session I went for a short walk around the village just to clear my head. I ducked into a few little shops and checked some things out. After this I came home to finish the Mozambique video break down for tomorrow. I caught a short siesta and then got ready for the game. The drive to the game was short so we got there in enough time to catch the second half of Japan and Mozambique. Japan was down but ended up winning.

Now our game. The girls came out with some good energy and had things rolling but then went into a funk. The game plan we devised was to limit their fast break baskets and gap off of the player with the ball because they love to drive. They don’t shoot often outside. Well this plan didn’t work because we didn’t execute it. They had 26 points in the paint in the first half and they killed us with some penetration out of their offensive sets. We were down 45-33 at the half. It just wasn’t pretty and we knew we couldn’t keep giving other teams that many points. During the half time talk I addressed a few things with regard to their offensive sets and we made some other adjustments. They seemed to work because we came out flying in the 3^rd quarter and were on a 19-8 run until 2 late baskets made the score 57-52 after 3 quarters. We battled back and forth and played hard but they made a little run to increase the lead to 7 down the stretch.

We had it cut to 3 with 2:30 left but gave up 2 huge offensive rebounds in a row and they converted on the second attempt. We battled back again and the game is under a minute. We are down 5 with just over 30 sec. Left and we run a set where Kelsey made a perfect read and knocked down a 3 to cut it to 2. Here is where the confusion sets in. The scorer is supposed to stop the clock in the last 2 minutes on a made basket. They didn’t and Hungary inbounded it with 26 seconds left in the game. The refs didn’t see it or didn’t care to see it (They sucked by the way. We talked them into 2 free throws when we shouldn’t have had them). We scrambled and fouled late. Linda wanted our last timeout after the free throws but they gave it to her then. We discussed what to do if we were up 3 or 2. I drew up a play to go full court and get the ball to our scorers. It’s always a long shot in these situations. The Hungary player missed the first one and made the second one which made it a three point game with 11 seconds left. The play we ran worked to perfection but before we could attempt a score, Hungary fouled us which sent us to the free throw line for the bonus. Chanelle St. Amour took the free throws and we told her to make the first and miss the second. She did just that and we got the rebound and kicked it out to Kelsey. Game on the line, down 2 with seconds left and she is covered tightly. She dribbles across the top of the key and hits Kalisha Keane with a pass. She takes the 3 point shot just as the buzzer goes off and …..it just missed. We lost 81-79. We gave up too many easy drives and too many points in the paint. Lack of attention to the details was our demise.

So now we play Mozambique tomorrow in a game that will be scrappy. They have 9 players of which only 7 really play. They are athletic and physical and come at you forever. Hopefully we can match their intensity and get a win. I believe we are now relegated to the bottom four teams of the tourney. A bit of a downer but we have seen progress.

I’ll update you tomorrow after the game. It’s late and time for bed.

Coach

Serbia Day 10

Our gym in Vrsac yesterday. This was in the middle of nowhere. Our team leader Moriah and team attache Ivana with her Canada flag. She is awesome and travels with us everywhere.
Be thankful for what we have

Our team trying to be tough looking with the security guards at a practice facility

A picture of poverty. Be thankful for what we have
A garden outside of our practice facility today
A bombed out building. Tough to describe how it feels to see that beside you.
Another building. A tough reminder for the Serbian people

Au Revoir Day 10 - halfway home

I am tired in a big way today. Might be a short posting. Slept a little late today and then headed for breakfast where I tried something new. Polenta with feta cheese. I have never had it before and it tasted pretty good.

Back from breakfast and headed to the little sidewalk café here to talk about practice with the other coaches. A beautiful hot and sunny day. We move under the umbrellas to get away from the sun and within 3 minutes – TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR.. It’s been crazy here. Sunny one minute and pouring rain the next. Very warm today too but it is supposed to get outright hot here next week. Can’t wait for that.

After the meeting I did some more video work for an hour. We left for practice at 1:00 and it was supposed to be 25-30 minutes away. More like 10. Good thing was the team before us cancelled. Bad thing was we needed to be taped and that took a while but we did get some extra time and some extra reps at our offensive stuff. It looked much better and so did our defense.

After practice we got dropped off at the dining hall for a late lunch and then back here for more video. I went to find out about the shuttle to the arena for the men’s games and the guy that organizes the transportation said to forget about the bus and go with them. He said to meet at the delegation office at 5:15 with tip off slated for 5:30. So as always, I don’t want to be late so I get there at 5:10 and a lady said “oh they left”. Well I was a little pissed. She called the guy and said I was there and he said to go to the main entrance so I went there. They were nowhere to be found. She came running up and said he called and said he told me to meet at the front entrance at 5:15. She told him that she heard him say the delegation office. He said oh well and left anyway because they didn’t want to miss the tip off. Two words Dick and Head. Put them together and that’s who is running that show. John your colleagues are big feeling boneheads!!!

So the delegation office calls this young guy to come and get me. I told him I wanted to catch the start of the game at 5:30. Bad idea. Speed limits and road rules meant nothing then. We were doing 80-90 KM/H on city streets. Weaving in and out and cutting people off. Needless to say, I made it and the game was just starting.

Nice to watch Phil play tonight although he didn’t get to play a ton. He did try and dunk on China’s big man and the big man rejected him hard. He is about 7 feet and I counted at least 6 blocks. There was one dude on china’s team who could really play but they couldn’t hang with our men. Canada won relatively easily although china made it a game down the stretch.

The girls went home but I stayed to film Australia and Serbia. I thought it would be a good game but it was an ugly foul filled affair and I left with Serbia leading by almost 20 with 4 minutes to go. Serbia is very good and move the ball very well. The cool part was to watch the fans. They whistle all the time and have these chants that they do throughout the game. They also clap in rhythm while their own team is getting ready to shoot free throws. It was a very good crowd and they seem to know the game. They certainly didn’t like the refs at times that’s for sure. Interestingly enough one of the refs on the court was Brent Stocker from the AUS. The tournament doesn’t have enough refs so they are using 2 until the semi finals. I think that is why they are calling things much tighter with more fouls piling up. Not a pretty game.

On my way out of the arena I asked about the shuttle to the village but nobody seemed to know about it but they pointed me in the right direction. Walking alone in Belgrade for a few KM in the night time is an interesting experience. When I arrived back at the village I saw that the dining hall was still open so I stopped in for a late supper. I think I have been away long enough right now. I want my truck. I want to hear Peter and Stewie Griffin late at night and I want a meal that doesn’t involve FRICKIN CABBAGE. I hit the meal hall and there it was. Potato pie with cabbage. Cabbage and onions and mushrooms. I feel like a produce section. Where is a donair when you need one.

So tomorrow we are up early and then have a 10 AM practice followed by a 2pm video session and a 5:45 departure for our 8PM game. Hungary looks good and they are relentless. I think we match up with them well but the question will be if we match up with their intensity. I guess that will be seen soon enough.

It’s late now so I have to say All Aboard to Chewy and Mocha and Slither and Dragon because this train is heading off to Sleepy Time Station.

Cya Tomorrow

Coach

Serbia Day 9

Day 9 is in the books. Been another busy day. Wake up was relatively early and then on to breakfast. Same old same old breakfast and back to get ready to leave. It is getting tougher to get ready in the morning because we have 8 guys in 1 little apartment. Some of the guys tried to tough it out with no shower curtain but now all 8 use the bathroom by my bedroom because the communications guys bought a shower curtain and put it up. It’s a hectic morning.
So we hop on the bus and it is off for what thay say is a 2 hour drive. It took us 90 minutes. As we get on the bus our team doctor gets everyone’s attention and tells us that there is a case of H1N1 or the swine flu in our village and turns out is an Aussie guy who is in the same compound. He said they caught it early and the athlete is better now so there should be nothing to worry about. If anyone gets that with our team you can bet on it being me!
Back to the drive it took us through Belgrade and out to the country side with a police escort all the way. They don’t mess around either. If there isn’t a lane, they create one and force people out of the way. There has been more than one close call. Even though some of the players were dreading the drive it was quite nice. Along the way there were many farms and a few nice little villages. In every little village there seemed to be a huge church. Very nice. Also the crops that were planted were corn and sunflowers. At some points there were sunflowers for miles and miles like a yellow carpet. All of them with their flowers pointed at the sun. It was neat to see as I have never ever seen that before.
We arrived in the town of Vrsac where we would play our game. It was a very pretty little town with an amazing arena and it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The daunting task of beating Australia was facing us. We came out with more energy and had a chance for some easy hoops early but couldn’t convert. They jumped all over us and made us pay for mistakes. 23-10 after the first quarter. WE didn’t get closer than that the rest of the way. We played much , much tougher defensively and forced them to change up some of their offensive sets. We banged with their bigs and took most of their guards out of their comfort zone. At the other end we had their bigs in foul trouble but when one 6’4” girl got a foul, another one came off the bench. They were all big and skilled. As I surmised after the game, it was a game of inches. Our passes were 6-8 inches away from where we needed them to go and the defense either stole it or got a touch on the ball. It made it very tough to run our offense at times. On their end, their passes were mostly crisp and well located leading to scores and easy shots. They are more talented than us in the frontcourt perhaps but their backcourt is fairly average. They aren’t flashy and they don’t turn the ball over a lot. The biggest difference seemed to be crispness. That comes from meeting in Serbia and having 3 one hour practices and 2 scrimmages to get ready for an international tourney. On the contrary, Australia was together for a bit before arriving, flew here a week earlier and had 2 practices a day during that time. It is a sad state of affairs in our country that Basketball has no funding. We can support waterpolo but no basketball. I am biased but maybe that funding is a bit wrong. I read a report recently that said that smaller countries like Serbia and Kazakhstan actually provide more funding to their basketball programs than Canada does. We are a third world basketball nation and that is sad. I am not saying we would have beaten Asutralia with more prep. We would have battled tougher but I know we could have beaten Japan and Slovakia. Sorry for the rant, back to the game.
In the second half we were down 16 to start. WE had 3 really good defensive possessions and created 3 easy looks at the other end but couldn’t score. It was that type of day. We could have cut it to 10 and made the game a little different but they pulled away and defeated us 80-50. Kelsey was quite average today scoring only 6 points and going only 2 for 6 from the free throw line. I can’t remember ever seeing that before. They had her scouted and had a longer athlete guarding her making it very tough. The test for her will be how she bounces back from this experience. The toughest part of this trip for the players is not the physical aspects but the mental ones.
So after the game we board the bus and head off back to Belgrade. A nice drive in the sunshine. Once we were in the city there was lots of traffic and more close calls but we made it back in one piece.
With the loss we are now relegated to the bottom 8 in the tourney or as we coaches like to call it, the “Toilet Bowl”. This reminds me of my early years at CBU and heading to the Dal tourney every year. We knew going in we’d have that 6:30 AM wakeup call for the 9AM game vs Acadia. Times have changed though.
When I got back I started prepping video for our next opponent which will be Hungary. We play them on Sunday at 3PM Cape Breton time and then Mozambique on Monday at 10AM Cape Breton time. The final two games will be decided by our results in these games. We need to play well with a goal of winning the bottom round. After watching the tourney, it is impressive to see what some of the countries can do on the court. They have an impressive array of skills and they execute so well. There will be some dandy games in the final round.
Supper tonight was fairly good with a funny moment thrown in there. I asked a young man working the buffet what something was. He said zucchini and beef but it didn’t look like zucchini with beef. I asked him for a little bit and he heaped it on my plate. I said “a little bit” and he said “it’s not a little bit but you will eat it” and I did so good call my Serbian friend. After supper Linda and I went for a walk to the grocery store in the mall to check things out and pick out a few treats. Some very interesting selections. I will bring some back for people to sample. We then came home and met to watch the video to prepare for Hungary.
Tomorrow is an “off day” with no game. We get up for 9am breakfast and then I’ll make the final prep of the video. We practice at 2pm and then grab a quick meal and head to the Belgrade arena for the evening. We will watch our men play China and then the girls will leave but I will stay to watch the men’s game with Serbia and Australia. Looking forward to it.
So another tiring day, another defeat but I saw real progress especially at the defensive end. Things are slowly getting better.
Catch you tomorrow
Coach

Serbia Day 8

Well day 8 is in the books as they say. IT has been a very long and tiring day. Up at 6:55 to get to meet for breakfast at 7:20am. However the other coaches slept a little late so I headed to the meal hall by myself. Same old same old for breakfast.

Scurried back from breakfast to try and watch some video with the team. Unfortunately we are having some major technical issues and the projector didn’t want to work today. The girls had to gather around my laptop to watch which was not ideal. Might have been a bad omen.

We headed off to our game at 11:00. The arena was nice and big but very few fans are at the games. Of course I suspect many are working and many others don’t care about Canada-Japan. It was neat watching the Japanese warm up. They did a visualization exercise on the court just before warm up. Their coach came out and they all laid down on the court with their knees drawn up and their feet touching. Their left hand was placed flat on the floor and their right hand was placed on the stomach of the person next to them. The coach talked them through the exercise and then they got up to warm up. They also did some very unique stretching exercises to get ready. It all must have worked because we came out pretty flat and they pretty much had their way with us. Their whole offense is based on getting to the rim for layups or shooting threes. They did both. They hit 12 3’s in the game and defeated us 90-78. Some of those threes were NBA range and they were all shot with 2 hands. I guess it shows that anything can work if you practice it. Their defense was downright pesky and scrappy. They forced us into 31 turnovers. Nice if you are a bakery but not a basketball team. Kelsey was our 2^nd leading scorer today with 17 points. She made a few “CIS” mistakes but other than that she was ok. She did struggle a little with guarding their quickness but every one of their players was quick. Some were Ultra Quick!

So now we drive almost 2 hours tomorrow to our next gym to play Australia. I am not sure if any of you were ever in the situation but remember back to elementary school. Remember the schoolyard bully who came to you in the morning and said he was going to beat you up afterschool. The rest of the day was painful. Welcome to my night. Australia is very good and skilled. Hopefully we come ready to play.

Deb, Linda and I stayed to watch Slovakia and Australia play and then hitched the bus home. When we got here I basically had an hour to break down the game and get it ready for our video session. The coaches headed over to get ready and of course the projector wouldn’t work again. So I had to come up with another technical solution. Thank god for having a bit of technical knowledge. In the future, if I am involved again, I may bring my own setup so I know everything will work the way I need it to. We did our video session, discussed some offensive adjustments and then met with 2 of our players to discuss some things.

It was almost 9pm by then so Deb and I decided to go and grab some dinner. The meal hall was packed at that time of night. A nice meal though with chicken and beef on the menu.

Each day we decide to skip the buses to the meal hall and walk there. Let me describe the walk there. It is about 10 minutes on a stretch of newly paved road which is bordered on each side by fences with white Universiade signage covering every piece of the fence. Along most of the walk it is used to cover up the presence of a very shabby village on each side of the road. Tonight as we were walking by we could hear little children laughing and playing. I couldn’t help but think about what their future will hold. I am sure they have no knowledge of what could be out there but the odds are stacked so high against them “making it”. It is really quite sad and another reason why I love Canada. As I said yesterday I believe, we have poverty and issues but not quite like some of them here. The one thing I will say about Serbians though is that they are extremely kind and friendly and you can tell they are very proud people.

So that is pretty much Day 8. Up early tomorrow for a quick breakfast and bus ride. We will get to see another part of Serbia though so that will be interesting. After that we have a day off to regroup and then get going again.

I may have to wander over to the concert area in a bit to see the band tonight. A Serbian Nickelback cover band. Could be interesting.

Talk to you tomorrow

Coach

Serbia Day 7

Day 7 has come and gone. Happy Canada Day. That was my first thought when I woke up. That and why I was up so early. Of course because it was game day and we had an earlier breakfast. Once again it was pretty much the same old stuff but I have to point out what a colleague sent to me in an email. I forgot to mention that everyday since we have been here we have been offered chicken hot dogs for breakfast. Not my thing so I haven’t tried that yet. An interesting choice for breakfast today was bruschetta. It was good. I also tried the chocolate milk which seemed a lot thicker than ours and taste like it had more cocoa in it.

After breakfast I came back to get ready for our game. The coaches would be going early to scout Australia and Japan. As we traveled on the bus, I was reminded why I love Canada so much. Serbia has proven to be quite a pretty country in parts and the people are very friendly. However some of the conditions they must survive are incredible. There are different gypsy villages around and other areas of poverty that really open your eyes. These people live in makeshift shacks that seem like they would blow down in a windstorm. To top it off they live in areas that look like they just built a shack in a garbage dump. It is absolute squalor. Truly saddening. While I know we complain about taxes and healthcare and things, try to think about living in absolute poverty in a country that was torn apart by civil war. One thing I have learned traveling in China last year and Serbia this year is that we are very fortunate to have what we have. So without rambling further, Happy Birthday Canada, Volime Te.

So back to the bus ride. Linda Deb and I along with a Japanese media person are the only ones on the bus with a volunteer who is supposed to guide the driver. Both of them blew right past the gym. We had been traveling for about 25 minutes when we slowed down by a gym. The Japanese media person said this was it. They argued he was wrong. Turns out he was correct. We had to make a loop and come back which cost us some time. We should have arrived before the 10AM tip off but we got there almost halfway through the first quarter but we did get to see some Serbian countryside. We watched the game and Australia blew out Japan. They look very very good. We will have our hands full with them.

Next obstacle for the day. They change the team bus departure time from 10:30 to 11AM without letting the coaches know. The girls arrived at 11:45 for a 12:30 tip off. We hustled and got ready to go. The disappointment of the day for me was that there is no national anthems played here just the FISU games anthem. However I did take a moment to just soak in how good Kelsey looked in a Canadian uniform. I was wondering what was going through her head as she got ready to taste international basketball for the first time.

So lets get to the game. Slovakia didn’t look great in the warm up but they certainly came out playing well. They are very skilled and execute well and they built a quick 13-2 lead. We were on our heels in a big way. They were running the floor hard and beating us in pretty much every way possible. We decided to make some subs and Deb called for Kelsey. I thought she looked a little nervous but when she hit the court she was fine. Down 13-2 and reeling, no worries, cue up the Kelsey Hodgson show. She burst onto the international scene spending the next minute and a half going on a 9-0 run by herself. She hit 2 threes and had a sweet “and 1” to make the score 13-11. The team had energy and we started to play. We battled hard but went through some rough spurts. We would go on runs and then stumble. Go on another run and then stumble. We were down at half but came back and tried to make runs at them. We took the lead but couldn’t sustain it. In the end we dropped a close game by a score of 85-79. In her first international game, Kelsey led us in scoring with 20 points. Our biggest problem today was lack of team play at both ends but especially the offensive end. We moved the ball really well and got easy shots and then decided it was time to go one on one. Slovakia maintained their composure the whole time and never went away from their basic offense and defense. They are well skilled and I have never seen a team use spin moves the way their players did.

So we were disappointed with the game but we have to refocus for tomorrow. We talked briefly and then jumped on the bus to return. We each were given a prepared lunch with 2 sandwiches, a piece of fruit and a chocolate bar. It was a nice lunch.

When we got back to the village I spent a few hours uploading and editing tape for tomorrow. Today was the official opening ceremonies but the coaches didn’t attend. We wanted to stay and prepare for tomorrow. Part of me wanted to see it all but most of me didn’t. Basically the athletes and staff were shuttled to the arena at 3:30 for a 6:30 start and had to stand from when they arrived until about 9pm. No thanks. We stayed and watched video and planned for tomorrow.

We get up early tomorrow for an early breakfast and then a quick video session before we depart for the gym. It will be an interesting game. Jelena has told me that her family is going to make the 1 hour drive to see us here in Belgrade for one of our first 2 games. I hope she makes it tomorrow. It will be nice to see her.

So off we go to game #2. If we lose we will probably be relegated to the bottom 8 of the tourney. A win keeps us alive but barely with Australia looming in the distance. We’ll certainly go to work and see what we can accomplish.

Once again, thanks for following

Coach