Well day 2 is in the books. A long day but we did get the chance to play an exhibition scrimmage which was good.
Day started with an early morning breakfast. Went to the European section today to try my luck. Ended up going with scrambled eggs with meat in them, bacon, a small scoop of corn oatmeal with pumpkin (although I couldn't taste the pumpkin), a mousse type yogurt, bread and a bun with a meat type filling and to top it off, best way to describe it would be a mashed potato quesadilla. Interesting. A nice cup of coffee to finish it off.
Headed back to our building afterward. The girls had meetings they had to attend and then we had an official team picture taken.
After the pic we came back to our dorm and relaxed for a bit. I took care of some email and prepped some things for the scrimmage this afternoon. Coach Belanger and I decided to walk around the village a little and we went to the supermarket in the village which was neat then we stopped to watch a flag raising ceremony for some of the countries that just arrived. The traditional dancing and music was pretty cool. One level of the stage had young couples dressed in fancy white dresses and suits with bright blue sequins all over them. The lower level had a less flashy but equally as pretty outfits on the couples and the main colours were greens and browns. Some very impressive dancing and athletic moves.
Lunch was at 1pm for us today and it was OK. Mixed it up with some roasted potatoes, chicken schnitzel and some dish that I have no idea what it was. I asked the young man working at the counter what it was but he pointed to a place where a sign should be. There was no sign and he didn't speak english. Luckily there was a Russian man beside me. He communicated with him and then looked at me and snorted like a pig twice and walked away. I am assuming it was pork and because I asked, he threw it on my plate anyway. It was pork with maybe some cheese and maybe some creamy stuff. It looked like a pork lasagna but tasted very different. not 100% sure what it was.
At 2pm we departed for the gym for our scrimmage vs. Australia. It wasn't far away but security to get in and out is slow but I understand the need for it. I like the safety. It was nice to speak with the coaches of Australia before the game. Their head coach, Phil Brown, is kind of like a world legend in women's basketball. Very nice guy. He knew all of our senior team coaches as he worked with one of them at the university of Oregon. Their assistant remembered me from the Serbia games in 2009.
We started out OK but halfway through the first quarter we started playing softer and a bit timid. We were missing shots and not doing what we were supposed to be doing. I think their skill and size intimidated us. They are a very good team. We ended up digging a hole and were down 57-41 after 4 quarters. We shot 6 free throws to their 27 and they had 13 offensive rebounds. Not good especially when the other team is more talented. We had the gym for a little while longer so we reset the clock and played another 10 minutes. As coaches we met and decided both teams would play zone defense to help us prepare for the tourney. We ended up losing that quarter 17-10 as we had worked on zone for about 15 minutes before we arrived.
After the game we were disappointed with our efforts as we felt we could have played a lot better. We made notes and talked about our goals to improve each day.
We came back to the village and the coaches met to discuss the game and what we needed to work on. We will work as much as we can in the next few days to improve before official competition begins.
The girls had eaten when we returned and some of the coaches delayed a little in their dinner plans. I went over at 7pm and the meal hall was pretty busy. I looked around and decided on a hodgepodge. A few baby potatoes, a small piece of curried chicken, a piece of schnitzel and 2 "mystery filled" dumplings. Very nice though.
After supper I walked back to our dorm to prepare for our video session. We met the girls and showed them just how bad it looked. They clearly didn't like what they saw but they needed to see it. Hopefully we will see improvements tomorrow in our scrimmage. At the very end of our video session we had a voice come on the loudspeaker in the video room speaking in Russian. Eventually they said in English that there was an emergency and to evacuate the building. Didn't take long getting out as you never know what could be happening.
So now it is almost midnight and I must get off to bed. We have an early breakfast and then a scrimmage in the early afternoon vs. Brazil. We don't have 100% official confirmation yet but their contact person says they are 80-90% sure they will be there. Cross our fingers I guess.
Until then.............
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